Flash Fiction Draw Challenge Draws For May 2025 from Mike Mayak. Lights, Camera, Action In A Palace! (May 5th, 20025)

Posted on May 5, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Here’s the draws for the May 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Followed by my usual long-winded explanation:

A Western

Involving A Director’s Chair

Set at A Palace

Now, on to the details.

Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.

Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!) on the blog.

As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Ten of Hearts (a Western), the Five of Diamonds (a Palace) and the Nine of Clubs (A Director’s Chair.)

So we will write a western, set in a palace, involving a director’s chair.

We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday May 12th, 2025.

So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2025 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)

Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!

And have fun!

——mike

Here’s the list:

Flash Draw Sheet for 2025 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)

Clubs

A A Rusted Knife

*2 A Set of Stereo Speakers

3 A Spare Tire

4 A Moldy Wig

5 A Clown Costume

6 A Bowl Full Of Jelly

7. A Circus Poster

*8 A Bottle Of Poison

*9 A Director’s Chair

10 A Bicycle

*J A Hair Sofa

Q A Crystal Ball

*K A Set of Leg Irons

Hearts

A A Mystery

2 A Fairy Tale

*3 A Caper Story

4 A Horror Story

5 A Fantasy

6 Science Fiction

7. A Comedy

*8 A Paranormal Story

*9 A Shaggy Dog Story

*10 A Western

J A Romance

Q A Cyberpunk Story

*K Historical Fiction

Diamonds

A A Swimming Pool

2 A Pool Hall

3 A Space Station

4 An Olympic Stadium

*5 A Palace

6 A Trolley

*7 A Synagogue

8 A Library

*9 A Race Track

* 10 A Line Outside a Theater

J The Empire State Building

Q A Convenience Store

*K The Australian Outback.

Posted in 'Nathan Burgoine, Cait Gordon, Jeffrey Ricker, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge | 2 Comments

Rainbow Snippets: M. D. Neu’s “Miss Vina Volaria” in “Romance Is A Drag.” May 4th, 2025.

Posted on May 4, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Kitty Ebbet enjoyed the book but he thinks a Rainbow Snippet sounds like something fun to chase across the floor…

Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974

I actually intended to post this one a week or so ago, but I got busy (read “lazy”) so I’m doing it now. It’s snippets from another fine story from the Own Voices anthology “Romance Is A Drag,” which we sampled before. https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/book/romance-is-a-drag-anthology/ The story, “Miss Vina Volaria,” by M. D. Neu, finds drag performer Pailo en route to his next gig. But his ports of call include the Moon and Mars.

Oh, and there’s one other thing…

Here’s our first snippet…

He needed to arrange his trip correctly to ensure the Mars crossing went smoothly. He didn’t want to have the voyage near his transition time.

Those days can be a bitch when you’re traveling. And not nearly as fun.

Fortunately for him, his Lycan Circadian Cycle was every five weeks. He knew other lycan that weren’t so lucky—having their cycles sometimes three and a half, or even three, weeks apart.

Here’s one more snippet, and yes the italics in the story are his not mine.

That would suck, especially if you had to make the Mars crossing often.

He scanned his VIS Sheet again, calculating the math in his head, ensuring his trip would be after his mandatory time at the Lunar Lycan Reserve. He didn’t need to double check the schedule, since his Tappy managed to track such things for him, but still he didn’t want to rely on technology for such an important and personal bodily function.

And that’s our snippets for this week, I’ll see you next time!

—-jeff

Posted in Anthologies, LGBT, M. D. Neu, Rainbow Snippets, Romance, Romance Is A Drag | 4 Comments

Wave “The Last Flag.” Friday Flash Fics from Mike Mayak. (May 2nd, 2025)

Posted on May 2, 2025 by jeffbaker307

The Last Flag

by Mike Mayak

It was just past noon when Jorge switched off the radio and said “They’re coming.”

“Should we hide?” Ty said, fingering the wedding band that matched Jorge’s.

“No. Not hide. Not today,” Jorge said. “We hide, they think they’ve won.”

Jorge went over to the closet and pulled out a large rainbow flag on a pole.

“We make ourselves obvious,” Jorge said. “Even if we’re the last.”

It took a few minutes but Jorge and Ty had tightened the screws in the bracket on the column of the front porch of their bungalow by the river in the heart of town. The pole with its rainbow banner was soon sticking out defiantly from the house, the flag swaying gently in the breeze.

Jorge and Ty stood in the yard, Tyler’s arm around Jorge’s shoulders, watching the flag.

“I forgot to show you,” Ty said. “I found a pic online that I think is of this house from way back when, about the 2020s with a Pride Flag hanging from the upper window and a bunch of guys standing on the porch glaring into the camera.”

“Probably waiting for neo-nuts to come marching down the street.” Jorge said. “That pic might have been from the first Defiance Day, like they announce over the radio every year.”

“Nobody marching down this dead-end street today,” Ty said. “Let’s get a…hey!”

Ty laughed and pointed. Two kids, looking barely into their teens, rounded the curve with it’s shock of trees and biked up to the driveway.

“What’s with the flags?” one of the kids said. “See em all over the street.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Jorge asked.

The kids shook their heads. Ty and Jorge grinned at each other.

“Well it’s like this,” Ty said. “About fifty years ago…”

—end—

Posted in Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, LGBT, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

“Air Time.” Friday Flash Fics Has Minutes To Spare, from Jeff Baker. (April 25, 2025)

Posted on April 25, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Air Time

by Jeff Baker

“Did you see him leave?” Gina said, glancing from the big glass front door to the rows of washers.

“No,” Jack said, looking panicky. “I glanced over there at the two way mirror in the other wall and when I looked back at his chair, Tommy was gone!”

“I was up by the front door. I didn’t see him leave,” Gina said over the sound of the washers and dryers there in the laundromat. And he can’t hide. Look up.”

The ceiling was covered with those half-dome silvery mirrors that hid security cameras. They could clearly see the rows of washers and dryers and that they were the only ones in the room. The room was longer than it was wide with five rows of four washing machines each running from near the back to the front with large dryers in the left hand wall with a locked office with a two-way mirror by the back corner, and metal chairs and benches along the right side wall, across the back and on either side of the big glass door at the front.

“Wait,” Gina said. “You were looking in the mirror. Could you see Tommy in the mirror?”

“No,” Jack said, brushing his stringy red hair out of his face. “I was standing up and my reflection blocked where he was sitting. But I didn’t see him run past me…”

“Maybe when you were turning,” Gina said.

“But he would have had to run down that aisle by the wall and you were there at the end of it. You would have noticed him!”

“Yeah,” Gina said. “And I was looking back there when I heard you yell.”

Jack shook his head. “And he couldn’t have run past me…wait! It’s crazy…”

“So was Tommy.” Gina said.

“Maybe he hid in one of the washers. They are big!” Jack said.

“Tommy was a six-footer. He might just have been able to squeeze in…hang on, stay there!”

Gina quickly went through the rows of washers, opening the doors of the machines that weren’t running. No Tommy. She walked past the big dryers built into the one wall. Big, clear doors, nothing inside but drying clothes. Lastly she tried the door to the employee office. Locked with the same padlock on the outside that was there when they came here fifteen minutes earlier.

Jack saw her expression.

“And he didn’t come up here, either,” he said. The two of them walked to the back of the laundromat where Tommy had been sitting in one of the chairs fixed to the floor.

They stared at the chair.

“His cellphone!” Gina said.

The cellphone was still there on the metal armrest of the chair Tommy had been sitting in, charger plugged into the wall. Jack picked it up and swiped a finger across the screen.

The image came up. Tommy had been making a call. The air time minutes were displayed.

“Hello?” Jack said.

—end—

Posted in Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, Horror, Mystery, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Progress Report (A Very Brief Progress Report) For March/April 2025, from Jeff Baker. April 21st, 2025.

Posted on April 21, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Portrait Of the Author And An Uninterested Cat

Progress Report March/April 2025

More planning than actual writing progress this period.

I kept up with the weekly flash fiction and wrote a Queer Sci Fi column, but much of the rest was planning out longer stuff, including a full-blown sword and sorcery story for an online magazine I discovered.

I hadn’t even read much of the genre but I had some characters ready from one of the Friday Flash Fiction stories so I have notes and the like in a separate notebook. That’s kind of progress.

And I have been reading some of the good sword-and-sorcery stories. Research.

I’ll keep you posted.

That’s about it for now!

—jeff baker, April 21st, 2025

Posted in Progress Reports | Leave a comment

Henry Kuttner and Others! Jeff Baker’s March/April 2025 Reading Report. (April 21, 2025)

Posted on April 21, 2025 by jeffbaker307

A Henry Kuttner-heavy Reading Report for March/April 2025

Read “Food For Thought” by Felice Picano who had died a week earlier. It’s in is collection “Tales From A Distant Planet.” The story plays like an episode of the original “Star Trek,” albeit with group sex as well as a good story.

Finished the Kuttner/Moore story “We Kill People.” A perfect bleak, clever story with some Kuttneresque, sci-fi, near-future touches. First published in “Astounding” in 1946, reprinted in the 1955 British anthology “Looking Forward,” edited by Milton Lesser. The story (as by “Lewis Padgett” has rarely been reprinted. It includes the line: “The first true humans were mutants, and were given intelligence so they could dominate.”

Started reading the collection “Somewhere In the Night” by Jeffrey N. McMahon. Fine horror stories I will write more about later.

Read N. K. Jemisin’s story “Reckless Eyeballing” in the anthology “Out There Screaming.” (Special thanks to Brent Silveria for pointing out Jemisin to me!)

For the April 3rd birthday of Washington Irving I read his story “Legend Of the Arabian Astrologer.” I will here gush about Oldstyle Press’ fine collection of his tales: “The Best Ghost Stories and Folk Horror of Washington Irving.” https://www.oldstyletales.com/irving

I’m bumming my way through “Mark Twain’s Mississippi River,” by Peter Schilling, Jr.

For Henry Kuttner’s April 7th birthday I listened to a You Tube reading of “Where The World Is Quiet.” A Kutneresque horror story from the 50s that plays like one of his earlier stories but very well-written.

I finally started reading “The Wrong Box” by Lloyd Osbourne and his stepdad Rbt. Louis Stevenson. Black humor and not as laugh-out loud funny as I expected but I’m only in the early chapters.

Listened to a fine reading of “John Mortonson’s Funeral,” by Ambrose Bierce.

Also read Bierce’s “A Cargo Of Cat.” A tall tale and a grotesque one at that.

Read Robert W. Chambers’ “The Repairer Of Reputations.” Hadn’t expected it to be a dystopian story that rang so contemporary; set in the near-future (1920) with references to tariffs, immigration “…and new laws concerning naturalization and the centralizing of power in the executive…”

Oh, and a war with Germany, in the Nineteen-Teens. Remember, this story was published in 1895.

First time I’d read one of Chambers’ “King In Yellow” stories. (I can’t find my full collection.)

NOTE: Book Tubers are doing “Horror MAYhem: Decades of Horror” in May, reading one story for a decade. I decided to do it here and start a month early. My decades also start about a century earlier. “Repairer…” will be my story for the 1890s.

For the 1930s I read Henry Kuttner’s Prince Raynor story “Citadel Of Darkness.” Fun sword-and-sorcery adventure with enough horror to qualify for the BookTubers theme.

Been keeping up with the fine weekly stories by Kaje Harper and J. Scott Coatsworth’s entertaining serial “Down The River,” as well as E. H. Timm’s excellent monthly stories on the Flash Fiction Draw Challenge.

I also re-read a lot of J. Scott Coatsworth’s “Miz Fortune’s Lonely Hearts Salon,” which is now available in an anthology.

And I actually paid about five bucks for a comic book I bought for twelve cents back in 1970; a one-shot called “Zody the Mod Rob” which blends hippies, the zodiac, a little magic and robots! Actually fun! Worth a smile or two. Would’ve made a fun Saturday Morning cartoon show!

More next month, including a few more decades of “Horror MAYhem.”

—-jeff baker, April 21, 2025

Here’s the link to the anthology Scott’s story is in: “Romance Is a Drag.” https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/book/romance-is-a-drag-anthology/

Posted in Books, C. L. Moore, Collection, E. H. Timms, Henry Kuttner, J. Scott Coatsworth, LGBT, Mark Twain, Reading, Reading Report, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert W. Chambers, Short-Stories, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“McGuffin’s Dragon.” Friday Flash Fics from Jeff Baker. April 18th, 2025.

Posted on April 18, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Photo by Brent Silveria

McGuffin’s Dragon

by Jeff Baker

“Have I ever told you chaps,” McGuffin said from his usual chair in the Billiards Room at the Club, “how I took on a dragon?”

My sprained ankle was propped up on a stool, Aubrey-Smith and Delmar were in the middle of a game and Old Man Plunkett was half dozing in his chair. None of us were getting away.

I waved at a waiter for a refill and McGuffin went on.

It was not long ago (McGuffin said) and I was in America on business when I stopped in San Francisco and, as I always do, stopped in Chinatown. As usual, the sights, the sounds, the smells were exquisite! I bought myself a souvenir and was soon standing in a crowd on the street watching a small parade. Traditionally-garbed dancers, brightly-colored streamers and of course, a dragon. In reality, a group of young men and women beneath a dragon costume consisting of a long, decorated cloth and a strong young man under the large dragon’s head.

There was plenty of cheering from the crowd as this dragon danced and snaked its way along the street. But suddenly a pair of beer bottles sailed through the air and landed perilously close to the crowd. A few feet away stood a small group of protesters, yes protesters jeering and holding signs with anti-Asian slogans.

One of the young men making up the dragon’s body bent down and peered out from under the long cloth. It would have looked quite comical except for those rabble-rousers who were becoming even more hostile and had started throwing rocks. Obscenities were being hurled as well and the scene had the potential to become even more ugly.

And at that precise moment the ground began to shake!

With my vast experience, I knew this was no ordinary earthquake. Within seconds a section of the street burst open and a large scaly green Dragon suddenly ripped up onto the street! The onlookers and the protesters were suddenly on the verge of panic! The people in the dragon costume stood petrified! I knew I had to act quickly.

I stepped up to the green Dragon and spoke to it in a firm, clear voice. The Dragon glared at me then glanced between the protesters and the parade dragon. It glared and snarled at the protesters and puffed a burst of fire at them. The cowards ran away down the street.

Then, in a blur of green, the Dragon spread a pair of wings and shot upwards and was a tiny speck in the sky a moment later.

McGuffin leaned back in his chair and gestured for a refill.

“Wait a minute,” Aubrey-Smith said. “How did you get a dragon to actually listen to you?” (In spite of themselves, Aubrey-Smith and Delmar had wandered over to McGuffin’s chair to listen.)

“It was simple, gentlemen,” McGuffin said. “Dragons are intelligent creatures and will listen to reason. With my knowledge, I identified the Dragon as not one of the Chinese variety or the skittish American breed, but one of the Ancient British Dragons. Doubtless, a stowaway in the hold of one of the abandoned ships which some of the city was built upon. Sleeping underground for over a century. I merely addressed the Dragon in Old English and explained the situation.”

McGuffin nodded thanks to the waiter who had arrived with his refill and took a sip, and then said, thoughtfully:

“I suppose I’ll never know why that Dragon chose that particular moment to awaken.”

—end—

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, McGuffin, San Francisco, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Meet Faye Min Fortune, for Rainbow Snippets from J. Scott Coatsworth (and Jeff Baker.) April 18th, 2025.

Posted on April 18, 2025 by jeffbaker307
author photo, j. scott coatsworth Screenshot

Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974

My friend J. Scott Coatsworth has a story in the new Own Voices anthology “Romance Is a Drag.” https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/book/romance-is-a-drag-anthology/ Scott’s story is set in the same locale as his “River City” series; slice of life with some Magical Realism. And with Miz Fortune, the magic is definitely real! Chester Carlson leads a dual life; as an unsatisfied office drone, and in drag as the fortuneteller Miz Fortune, who narrates Scott’s story “Miz Fortune’s Lonely Hearts Salon.”

I’d seen six clients that night, including another man torn between two women—the solution there was a poly relationship. Surprise! Also a woman in her late eighties searching for her first love—alas, deceased. And a lesbian couple who had been fighting for months, desperately seeking a path back to one another.

That had been the hardest. They both featured other people—one a man, one a woman—in their sendings. One had been relieved at the news, but the other… I couldn’t get the haunted look on her face out of my mind.

“Romance Is A Drag” is described on the cover as “A Queer Anthology/Volume One.” Given the caliber of the eight authors involved that is a most good fortune indeed! —-jeff

Posted in J. Scott Coatsworth, LGBT, Rainbow Snippets, Romance | Leave a comment

Dogs and Wheels! (And Money!) Flash Fiction Draw Challenge Results for April 14th, 2025, from Mike Mayak.

Posted on April 14, 2025 by jeffbaker307
Photo by Digital Buggu on Pexels.com

Hi! I’m Mike, A.K.A. Jeff Baker.

The draws for the April 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were:

A Caper Story

Set in A Racetrack

Involving a Pair Of Leg Irons

E. H. Timms wrote: “A Pack Of Lies” https://thinkingthinking123.blogspot.com/2025/04/flash-fic-challenge-pack-of-lies.html

And I wrote: “Motor Sports” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2025/04/09/motorsports-flash-fiction-draw-challenge-story-for-april-2025-from-mike-mayak-a-k-a-jeff-baker-april-9-2025/

Thanks for participating, and for reading and remember it’s never too late to write your own story, post it in the comments and I’ll link it here.

We’ll be back with another draw on May 5th, 2025.

Thanks again!

—–mike

Posted in E. H. Timms, Fiction, LGBT, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, Mystery, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Sister Tarcisia Roths! April 11, 2025.

Posted on April 11, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Happy Birthday to my onetime teacher Sister Tarcisia Roths, who celebrated her 95th on April 11, 2025 with a party at Newman University! She has been a hugely important part of the school for much of her life!

Posted in Newman University | 2 Comments