Welcome to the first Round Up of short fiction recommendations for 2021. And it’s happening in the first week of 2021 even! Happy New Year. Welcome. I hope it’s a great year for everyone.

Now, a bit of a strange thing happened when I put this round up together. In attempt to be proactive and organized I started diving into some of the magazines I subscribe to that had new issues available for stories to read this week. Start the new year off ahead of the game for once, right? Well I ended up very ahead of the game as none of the stories I read and recommend below are currently available for free. Most magazines release their full issue to subscribers first and then release the content online slowly over the course of the month. That is one of the perks of subscribing. So, four of these five stories will be available for free eventually. But if you want to read them right now you’ll have to buy the relevant issue or subscribe (assuming you don’t already).

I felt a little worried about that when I realized what I’d done, but, on the other hand magazines need support to survive and I don’t feel it’s wrong to point that out sometimes. So, for now each link takes you to the website for each magazine where you can purchase a copy of the issue. As the stories are released online I will update my links to take readers directly to each story.

“Delete Your First Memory For Free” by Kel Coleman from FIYAH Magazine #17

There many different ways a story can surprise you. Some are great, like cleverly subverting and playing with tropes. Some are not great at all, like the “shocking twist” ending that is only a surprise because it was completely unearned.¹These can work, especially in flash fiction, but often just feel lazy at best. This story surprised me by simply not going where I thought it would. In a story about a character dealing with anxiety and the technology for deleting memories (such as an embarrassingly bad joke told the first time you met your crush) I expected something in the sci-fi horror realm to develop. In some, perhaps many, writers’ hands I think it would have. Instead we get something sweeter. Something kinder. With more understanding of just how awful and very real it can be to kick yourself months or even years later for that awkward thing you said when you were trying to be anything but. It is also a wonderfully real take on just how things probably would play out if a nascent memory deletion technology were to become available.