{"id":258835,"date":"2023-12-27T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=258835"},"modified":"2023-12-21T11:47:47","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T16:47:47","slug":"the-commuters-most-popular-flash-fiction-poetry-and-graphic-narratives-of-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/the-commuters-most-popular-flash-fiction-poetry-and-graphic-narratives-of-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"The Commuter’s Most Popular Flash Fiction, Poetry, and Graphic Narratives of 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The day Sinead O\u2019Connor died, I was at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, in the swimming pool, gossiping with poet Erika Meitner about our favorite writers. The next evening, Erika read her brand-new poem \u201cThe Shape of Progress<\/a>\u201d to a small group of us. It was a beautiful tribute to the Irish singer, songwriter, and activist, which she had written the previous night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2023 was the year things were supposed to go \u201cback to normal.\u201d Instead, it was the year we realized this was<\/em> the new normal. 2023, the year \u200b\u200b \u201cthe ocean off the coast of Florida \/ reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit\u2014 \/ a toddler running a low fever, \/ the temperature of an average hot tub.\u201d 2023 was the year the future became now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As soon as Erika finished reading, I asked her if I could have the poem for The Commuter<\/em>. This isn\u2019t usually how poetry comes to the magazine\u2014we reviewed over 3,000 unsolicited submissions this year, and 92% of the issues we published came from those open and free submissions. But this situation was unique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only did \u201cThe Shape of Progress\u201d go on to be The Commuter<\/em>\u2019s most-read issue of the year, at 60,000 reads, it was one of the most-read posts across Electric Literature\u2019s entire site.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The editorial ethos of The Commuter<\/em> embraces the strange, the absurd, the darkly comic. Hybrid forms, experiments, flow charts\u2014if we love something, we do our best to find a way to overcome technical hurdles and make it work on the site. We are the home for work whose answer to \u201cIs this too much?\u201d is \u201cIt\u2019s just enough.\u201d We published 51 issues this year, including our 300th, featuring established writers like Lydia Davis, Mat Johnson, and Sam Sax\u2014alongside not one, but four<\/em> poetry and fiction debuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All 303 issues<\/a> are available for free, and we pay all of our contributors. We\u2019re skipping this week\u2019s issue because of the holiday, but ask that you please consider making a donation<\/a> before New Year\u2019s to support The Commuter<\/em>\u2019s 2024 season, our sixth year of publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for reading, and happy holidays!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelly Luce<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor, The Commuter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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“Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor Was Right All Along<\/a>” by Erika Meitner<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This elegy by Erika Meitner was written shortly after the news of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor’s passing and is full of the pure emotion, resonance, and gratefulness many were feeling for the life and work of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor, combined with her music’s prescience in our modern time. It is the most popular piece on Electric Literature this year!<\/p>\n\n\n

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“My Mother Wrote Her Own Ending<\/a>” by Arwen Donahue<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In this graphic narrative, a daughter connects with her mother posthumously after finding an unpublished autobiography of her life in a cabinet of “tax records.”<\/p>\n\n\n

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God Has Definitely Forsaken Us<\/a> by Madeline Cash<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Madeline Cash’s short fiction is a satirical, hilariously brilliant, examination of a hopeless world and what happens in the aftermath of a society forgotten by God.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Literally Squeezed Out of the Market<\/a> by Kim Samek<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In this piece of flash fiction by Kim Samek, a list writer named Ant is squeezed out of the housing market\u2014literally. After purchasing a skinny house in the city, he struggles to make room for himself in more ways than one. This humorous short story is a surreal and sardonic commentary on the struggles the property market poses to a new generation searching for housing security.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Bluest Crab at Grandpa\u2019s Funeral<\/a> by Matthew Ryan Frankel<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Chosen by Anthony Doerr as the winner of the 2023 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize, the flash fiction piece “Carapace” by Matthew Ryan Frankel dives into an intriguing event (and dinner plan) at a family funeral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The day Sinead O\u2019Connor died, I was at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, in the swimming pool, gossiping with poet Erika Meitner about our favorite writers. The next evening, Erika read her brand-new poem \u201cThe Shape of Progress\u201d to a small group of us. It was a beautiful tribute to the Irish singer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":259382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[2983,95,570,5],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Commuter's Most Popular Flash Fiction, Poetry, and Graphic Narratives of 2023 - Electric Literature<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The top 5 most-read pieces from our weekly magazine dedicated to short, strange, and diverting work\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/the-commuters-most-popular-flash-fiction-poetry-and-graphic-narratives-of-2023\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Commuter's Most Popular Flash Fiction, Poetry, and Graphic Narratives of 2023 - 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