On Friday, Maudlin House published Unlikeable Female Protagonists by Jay McKenzie. It’s a stunner of a short story about the way society values women by their appearance.

Her website links to a lot more work, and I lost a lot of my day reading her fiction. She frequently writes with pretty grim themes, including failed and failing relationships, suicide and abortion, so if that stuff is too heavy for you right now, probably skip this post.

McKenzie’s stories are compact and impactful. Almost every one below had a moment that was literally jaw-dropping. They’re the kind of stories that demand a close second reading.

Here are a few that I loved that are free to read online:

I Might Have Imagined the Moon, winner of the 2024 Gwyl Anglesey short fiction competition: the narrator fantasizes about saving a wilting relationship

The Aweigh Hymn, winner of Globe Soup‘s Inspired by Art Flash Fiction Challenge (scroll down for the story):

This is not a story about boys ripped apart. It is not a story of how a Daddy took one boy and left the other behind. Not a tale of a Daddy so embittered that he kept his sons apart to punish his wife,  himself. This is not that story. 

But She’s A Flame, Henshaw Press June 2024 short story competition winner: a tragic death complicates a couples’ first anniversary together.

81 Buddhas in Roi Faineant: a woman goes on a pilgrimage to seek forgiveness, and the crushing backstory that led her there.

What My Fingers Did in Paper Road Magazine: when you finish this one read it again, the beginning will hit differently the second time.

There are a ton more on her website, and she’s also published a novel.

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