Dina L. Relles

i can’t believe your paths have not crossed before now!! this must happen. i’ll be at the book fair tomorrow only & hope for hugs 🤍

CHRIS!! you’re here??

I’ll never manage to pull it off every day but any morning that starts with me reading & writing is always the best

late February and all i do is tap little texts to my ex-boyfriend in the winter storm

what a gorgeous home

Title: Mangoes and Tequila Author: Anna Vangala Jones Image of a large mango Text of the story: My ex-boyfriend—who we now say is my best friend which hurts my actual best friend’s feelings though it’s not a real title accompanied by any sort of perks—helped me move into my new apartment in a faraway state today, so I tell him he can stay over for the night before his long drive back home alone. It’s only fair, I try to explain to my actual best friend over the phone but she laughs and says we’ll probably fall into bed together one last time for a wistful unhealthy goodbye. I think she’s wrong and this move is us starting fresh. Right now we’re at my neighborhood grocery store and I’m struck by that strange sense of being lost in a dream. I’m squeezing fruit like I’m touching the body of a new love while my heart is still longing for the familiarity of the one I’ve just left or lost. My ex-boyfriend / best-friend-in-name-only reaches for a mango at the same time as me so we can touch hands and pretend it is an accident of fate, but I pull away before he can prove my actual best friend right. In the liquor aisle, we hesitate but buy some tequila so as to make the temptation tonight almost too much to bear or resist. “Am I here because I come running whenever you call or because I can lift heavy furniture for you?” He’ll ask this when we’re almost asleep and I'll tell him, “you're here because you’re my best friend and I'm going to miss you.” That last part will be true.

I have a tiny new micro today in @bulbregion.bsky.social. grateful to @sarpsozdinler.bsky.social & any of you who read this story! 🥭 🥃 bulbregion.com/Mangoes-and-...

804 lit salon

www.eventbrite.com/e/804-lit-sa...

Neon Night Mic AWP Offsite Reading Hosted by [neonpajamas] Alina Stefanescu Jose Hernandez Diaz Michael Martone Annelyse Gelman Nicky Beer Chen Chen Johannes Goransson Alina Pleskova Katie Jean Shinkle C.T. Salazar David Simmons David Wojciechowski Kenyatta Rogers Henry Goldkamp Matt Bell Grant Wamack Jon Woodward @ Old Major 900 S. Carey St. Batimore Wednesday, March 4 Doors: 6:00pm Readings: 7:00pm-10:00pm

AWP 💥 BALTIMORE 🚨 Mark your calendars‼️

It’s all happening on March 4. See you there?

thank you, Joshua!! 🤍🤍

i miss you most when it snows

blue square with green square showing the text; red X through "1/15" and rewritten as "1/18"

DEADLINE EXTENSION!

We've had several folks reach out who'd appreciate a little more time to get their applications together. So we're extending the application window through 11:59pm CT on January 18th. Use your holiday weekend wisely!

splitlippress.submittable.com/submit

in my head, i read it as an aggressive command: “DIE, YOUR HAIR”

screenshot of an opening comment on a dating app: “Die your hair - you are beautiful but gray doesn’t fit you. Click block button now haha”

the damn shame of it is how hard it is to find a man who can spell

THE BULB REGION is now online!

🚀🚀🚀

Make sure to read our four inaugural pieces at:

www.bulbregion.com

—

why isn’t it hopeful romantic

matchbook Submission Manager Submit to matchbook (a project of matchbook literary magazine). Powered by Duosuma: Duotrope's Submission Manager.

Subs are open until Jan 12!

duotrope.com/duosuma/subm...

🤍😘, always.

Mechanical Pencils | matchbook

"I’m having an affair with distance. The morning house is settled and known. I sip coffee, listen to the lonely call of the 4am freight train,...."

My lord. I love, love this piece by @dinalrelles.bsky.social so much. In @matchbooklitmag.bsky.social 💙💙💙
www.matchbooklitmag.com/mb/relles/me...

Dan! thank you, thank you for this kindness 🤍🤍

said i love you to a stranger outside the thrift store the other day

how am I supposed to take a year seriously when it starts on a Thursday

maybe they call it yearning because it persists year after year after year

January 1, 2026 My therapist asks me what gives me hope this week Bre D'Alessio South I tell her about the widow behind my house. How she died three months after her husband passed. The last time I saw her she handed me a basket of cucumbers severed from her garden. Pressed on tip toes she lifted them over a shared fence line. Her eyes that permanent crinkle old people get from years of laughing at the same shared joke. I told her I would return the basket but she patted my hand and waved me off.

start the new year off with this little poem of heartbreak & beauty & hope

Bre D'Alessio South

https://www.havehashad.com/0kwmp

well this is properly lovely

Cream background with the white Sarabande logo bleeding through in the background. Black text at top reads: Submissions Open. Underneath in pink text it reads: Sarabande Annual Prizes. Along the left hand side are the judges headshots. Top to bottom reads: Photo of Kaveh Akbar, black text next to his headshot reads “Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction selected by Kaveh Akbar”; Underneath is Adrian Matejka’s headshot and text next to his photo reads “Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry selected by Adrian Matejka”; followed by the headshot of Aimee Nezhukumatathil and next to her photo is text that reads “Sarabande Prize in the Essay selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.” At the bottom right in pink text it says “open submissions” and underneath in black text the open submission dates “Jan 1 - Feb 15”

✨ SUBMISSIONS OPEN for the 2026 Sarabande Annual Prizes through Submittable starting today Jan 1 - Feb 15. This year’s judges are: Kaveh Akbar (Short Fiction), Adrian Matejka (Poetry), and Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Essay)!

Winners receive $2,000 and publication! Full details at link in bio ✨

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GOOD MORNING!!! It's a NEW YEAR, and that means it's a NEW OPPORTUNITY for you short fictioneers to find your book a home! We're now OPEN for your short story and flash fiction books. Our SS/FF editor @egreenberg.bsky.social + our fantastic SS/FF reading team are eager to read your book, so SEND IT!

thank you so much & happy new year to you!

Sara! thank you, thank you, love 🤍

It was a failure of my imagination that made me keep leaving people. All I could see in the world were beginnings and endings: moments to survive, record, and once recorded, safely forget. I knew I was getting somewhere when I began losing interest in the beginnings and the ends of things. Short tragic love stories that had once interested me no longer did. What interested me was the kind of love to which the person dedicates herself for so long, she no longer remembers quite how it began.

i’m sorting through old fragments of texts + ephemera & am thoughtful about this bit by Sarah Manguso: “I knew I was getting somewhere when I began losing interest in the beginnings and the ends of things.”

i’m not there yet. endless love to all of you ruminating on + reveling in another ending 🤎

thank you so much for spending time with it, Kirsti. this means more than you know 🤍