Editor’s Page – Yellow Mama Issue #105 (Aug. 15, 2024)

Hi all!

Here we are, in the depths of summer. At least where I am. Excessive heat and humidity, where it feels like we’re floating through warm broth. And that’s on a good day.

Yeah, there’s still bad stuff going on, like with both sides dogging each other over the upcoming elections. But at Yellow Mama, we try to stay out of that. YM is about gripping fiction and poetry, and kickass artwork.

Itching for even hotter summer reads?

Noir-wise, there’s J. T. Macek’s “A Hunting Place,” in which a good ol’ boy mistakenly shoots a hated neighbor instead of a deer. (Oh, really!) In Abe Margel’s “Have a Nice Trip,” two frenemies team up for a Mexican drug run. And David Hagerty’s “A Personal Scandal” gives us a news reporter out to bust a beloved local celebrity.

Wanna get creeped out before Halloween? You’ll be glad Taylor Hagood’s “A Memorable Family” is not your own. “The Migration,” by Kenneth James Crist, is like a suicide hotline in reverse. And in Bruce Costello’s “Of Frogs and Men,” a henpecked husband sees his wife as a predatory hawk.

Other fine stories include Daniel G. Snethen’s moving “A Woman and a Rabbit,” and Bernice Holtzman’s “The Hide,” about a gay bar whose mascot secretly pulls the strings.

Our poetry lineup includes works by regulars Liz Zelvin, Craig Kirchner, and our fave haiku poet, ayaz daryl nielsen. Also check out awesome poems from Allan Appel, James Croal Jackson, and others.

Full-length and flash fiction stories (and some poems) are individually illustrated by our gifted artists: Bernice Holtzman, Kevin Duncan, Hillary Lyon, J. Elliott, Sophia Wiseman-Rose, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Steve Cartwright, Michael D. Davis, John Sowder, Cynthia Fawcett, Darren Blanch, KJ Hannah Greenberg, Mandi Rose, and Jack Garrett.

Also check out Darren Blanch’s sizzling cover!

If you want to submit full-length fiction, flash fiction, or poetry, check out our guidelines page.

Also, please sign our guestbook! If you have comments about Yellow Mama or any stories or poems we publish, you may leave comments there.

And check out our Archives I and II to catch recent stories or poems by your favorite writers you might’ve missed.

 Thanks for reading!