Yes, we at LongShortStories want to celebrate our Earth Mother today.

Mom has been more than patient with her errant kids. And still, she soldiers on, tolerating too many abuses. And freely giving all that bonding and love and nourishment. What a woman!

But one thing you may not know, or want to know, brothers and sisters. Mom loves us best!

I know, I know, it’s hard to hear but LongShortStories is the apple of good ol’ Mom’s eye. And we want to continue to have her put our stuff up on her refrigerator door for everyone to see and nod with approval.

LongShortStories has such a tiny carbon footprint that you would almost think we weren’t even here!

But we ARE here, turning in our creative homework on time, always dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s, and winning every spelling bee that Mom enters us in.

So now that we’ve strutted our stuff for Mom, please follow our lead and do something nice for her:

Put this blog onto your RSS feed.

Read our Free Sample short stories.

Buy a few stories to check out our quality and veracity.

Join our global subscription family.

Enter our Contests.

Oh, and one last thing.

Please donate to fund the LongShortStories Contest prize pot. Do it for Mom!

I can just hear Mom saying. “Do you think money grows on trees?”

Don’t make her mad. Her volcano is acting up right now.

Yes it can.

If by that you mean that the keen ginsu blade of LongShortStories can slice and dice the rotting tomato that is today’s troubling world.

You see, the traditional publishing world is comprised of just a fistful of accountant-driven firms whose big-box business model has finally met its match.

Not for much longer will readers shell out big bucks for reams of paper that are clear-cut from the pristine forests of the earth.

Not for much longer will today’s ecologically-informed readers accept the giant energy footprint left upon our teetering planet by old-school energy-wasting book distribution channels.

Not for much longer will readers pay for formulaic, genre-driven fiction that, in the end, stifles true artistic creativity.

[Enter LongShortStories, stage left].

LongShortStories is a new and exciting way of looking at Mother Earth.  A new way of showing her the respect she so dearly deserves if there is to be a sustainable future for us all.

LongShortStories throws off the chains of traditional short fiction, and shines like a beacon in the new global artistic bazaar: the Internet and its golden sibling, electronic publishing.

LongShortStories are NOT long short stories. They are owned by me, copyrighted by me, and even bear my last name, LONG,  in the brand. So don’t be fooled by imitations.

LongShortStories are carefully crafted miniature masterpieces of contemporary short fiction ranging from a microsized 100-word gem of Flash Fiction to as many as 3000 or so word jewels. But LongShortStories is not about counting words. Or pigeonholing fiction in the straitjacket of traditional genre fiction. No, LongShortStories is all about finding the unique! The uniquely beautiful, the uniquely horrifying, the uniquely fantastic!

But, you say, can LongShortStories really save the world?

Yes it can, if by that you mean can readers, by reading these cutting-edge pieces, be personally altered by a new approach to entertainment content.

Yes it can, if by that you mean that their author has focussed his state-of-the-art mental camera on the pressing issues of today and beyond.

Yes it can, if by that you mean that Wayne C. Long has his wordsmith motives clearly squared away and can therefore employ his unique second-sight talents to reveal for the first time in recent years the innate power of the short story form, a power thought lost to a bygone era. An era of Poe. Or Hemingway. Or Faulkner.

For LongShortStories is a Brave New World.

A world worth saving.

A world …

Where the Short Story LIVES!