today’s forecast called for snow,
a prediction indifferent
to the calendar’s early border for spring,
as well as to my own personal feelings on the matter.
winter has these silences,
hidden between the refrains
of wind pushing past pine, through buildings, rattling
windows and bones.

—from “[swan song]” by #KatelynGrimes, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Grab your paperback or ebook copy: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition #earlyspring #poem #poetry #refrain #silence #writing

As she stepped outside, the tension in her limbs dispersed, and the potent perfume of new earth penetrated her nostrils. The loam wept dewy trails of moisture, softening the ground underfoot. Each day lengthened imperceptibly until the transition was complete, the edges smoothed and viable. The road no longer disappeared into denseness and instead opened and widened out in front of her.

—“In Velvet” by #JennyDunbar, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation #flash #flashfic

The world is this living room, and the world is cozy, and the world is these three people eating donuts and watching true crime and existing together. We are at rest. There is nothing to be done except be here. In fact, there is nowhere else to be.

—from “My Father Takes Me for Donuts” by Grace McGory, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Buy in paperback or ebook here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition #flash #essay #gracemcgory #cozy

Today’s #CapsuleCollective highlight: #AbigailFrankfurt is a #writer and #artist from New York. Her #poetry has been published in LIT Magazine, Unbroken literary journal, New York Quarterly, The Yale Review, Dead Skunk, and Three Room Press.

Her #poem “Thief River Falls” is published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

Winter is when the world is more like me
tired and quiet and craving comfort
Slow activities, slow days, unafraid of shelving energetic displays
or else hungry and wide-eyed for color and celebration
soaking it into the bones, rattling with green, gold, pink, red
fizzy with naive, admirable courage
high on the window view
of the many bright spots
of our fatigued world.

—from “Autism in the Wintertime” by #IzzyAmberWyskiel, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

Let’s show some #IndieBookstore appreciation! Tag your favorite indie bookstore.

We’re tagging #SubterraneanBooks and #LeftBankBooks in St. Louis, where you can find an amazing selection of #books, including Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, which you can buy in store or online. 😉

Buy #CapsuleStories online from either #bookstore here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition #bookstodon

Today’s #CapsuleCollective highlight: #MichaelColonnese is the #author of a hard-boiled detective novel, Sex and Death, I Suppose, and two #poetry collections, Temporary Agency and Double Feature. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Hendersonville, North Carolina.

His #poem “Cold House” is published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

Midnight unlatches:
cinnamon and milk
in a hot cup, the dog
waiting by the door.

The hydrangea head
in the window looks
like a woman unsure
if she’s still welcome.

All the green things
have nowhere to go
but down, returning
to the living cradle.

—“The Waiting Year” by #DanielleWeeks, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Buy it here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition #poetry #poem #poet #smallpoem

Today’s #CapsuleCollective highlight: #FrankWilliamFinney is the #author of The Folding of the Wings: https://bookshop.org/a/6998/9781646629534

His #writing has been featured in Livina Press, Pocket Fiction, Quibble.Lit, Taint Taint Taint, and elsewhere. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he taught at Thammasat University in Thailand from 1995 until 2020. His #poem “Hibernaculum” is published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, available in paperback and ebook: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

She would brave the outside armed in her jacket of velvet as winter blitzed, scavenging her cheeks, slowly pressing cold into her bones. The secret mantra she carried in her head—to be, to be, to be—protecting her as she disarmed winter with each booted step.

—from “In Velvet” by #JennyDunbar, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Buy here: capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition #flash

Each time she had glanced at her jacket in the back of her closet between a yellow shirt and a tweed gilet, she had a nagging feeling of regret, an uncomfortable idea of herself, a too hot season, lack of intention. Now she gently released the garment from its dark niche, felt its unexpected warmth as she slipped into its arms. This season’s rhythm haunted her with a new urgency; she sought solace, away from the acid chime of winter.

#flash #flashfic #capsulestories #jennydunbar

She looked out at the frozen road, a blackest brown loam. Dark as the velvet jacket waiting in her closet all these years, a bespoke vintage item bought from a Soho tailor. Those times had passed, the bad memories of loss and deceit banished. This season, she would celebrate the dark, indulge in its solitude, wrapped in the musky layers of the years through which she had hesitated, or resisted an urge, to be embraced.

#flash #flashfic #capsulestories #writing

I do not knit, crochet, or quilt,
so I sequester myself in writing,
pour my heart out on snowy pages,
shovel them into piles,
settle in to read poems and prose,
sleep deep in lyrical lines.

—from “Solstice Shivers” by #EvieGroch, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. These stories and poems #ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition #writing #amwriting

It is that red
fox face that knows more than
other animals within sight of people.
If you are lucky, the fox will reveal
through his gaze the soul’s hidden places,
and you will take his broken trails
of the woods with you where you trespass,
an uneasy feeling when quick feet
barely grace the newly fallen snow.

—“Small Wanderings” by #RussellThorburn, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Buy it here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition/ #poem #poetry #fox #naturepoem

Today’s #CapsuleCollective highlight: #KatelynGrimes (she/her) studied English and #creativewriting, psychology, and history at Carthage College. She now lives in Chicago, where she works for an immigration law firm while continuing to write #fiction and #poetry.

Her #poems “[december],” “[swan song],” and “[rađljóst]” are published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

exactly, but the sunlight still penetrates.
Isn’t it nice that we can stay here,

holed up like bears in a cave?
The drifts grow deeper and

the furnace sings its burning song.
All winter, we sleep under

heavy quilts, yet our ears hear
the snow as it sings in its silence.

—“Winter Song” by #WilliamReichard, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. These stories and #poems ruminate on hunkering down for the #winter and resting. Grab your copy: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition/

The snow won’t stop falling.
It seems like it’s been falling

for days. The house becomes
an echo chamber of my fears

and the million different ways
I annoy you and you annoy me.

But isn’t it pretty the way the wind
sculpts the snow in rippling

patterns against the fence?
And isn’t it lovely the way

the branches hang low
with their heavy white burden?

We piece a life together.
We patch what we can.

All of the windows are intricately
etched by frost. We can’t see outside,

#capsulestories

—from “The Stillness and the Change” by #ClaireDoll, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. These stories and #poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love.

Grab your copy here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition/

—“We’ve Been Waiting” by Izzy Amber Wyskiel, published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring #poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside. Buy it here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition/

Today’s #CapsuleCollective highlight: #CaitlinGemmell (she/her) is a #poet and #witch living in a woodland in Upstate New York. Her #poetry has been featured in Rue Scribe, One Sentence Poems, and the minison zine and is forthcoming in an anthology by Querencia Press. Her #poem “Cocooning” is published in #CapsuleStories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition