BEST OF THE NET
From the BotN website: The Best of the Net is an awards-based anthology designed to grant a platform to a diverse and growing collection of writers and publishers who are building an online literary landscape that seeks to break free of traditional publishing. This space has been created to bring greater respect to the continually expanding world of exceptional digital publishing.
THE GORKO’S 2025 NOMINATIONS
PUBLISHED JULY 2023 TO JUNE 2024. CLICK TITLE TO READ!
POETRY
Donna Dallas
‘All Roads’
Bruce Gee
‘Palm Sunday’
Peter Magliocco
‘Diatribe of Deceit’
Kushal Poddar
‘The Jewel of a Lone Tobacco Stick’
Bruce Reisner
‘Breaking Out’
G.M.H. Thompson
‘AN ODE TO JERKIN AND JERKIN OFF, A JADED JOURNEY SPENT JERKIN OFF, OR JUST ‘JERKIN OFF’, IF THAT’S YOUR THING’
FICTION
Mehreen Ahmed
‘Of the Blue Evening’
Robert Fromberg
‘New York City Mayor Ed Koch Will Work out the Details Later’
CREATIVE NONFICTION
Antoine Bargel
‘In the Changing Room’
ART
Irina Tall
‘Sirin. Childhood memory’
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Mehreen Ahmed is a novelist. Her historical fiction novel, The Pacifist published in Canada by Cosmic Teapot was a Drunken Druid Editor’s Choice in 2017. Her collection of short stories, Gatherings published in the UK by Bridge House Publishing, was nominated for James Tait Award, 2020. Her recent novel, Incandescence has been published in the UK by Impspired. She has published with Cambridge University Press, Litro, UK, EllipsisZine, RogueAgent Journal: Sundress Publication and others. Her full bio is available on Amazon and Goodreads.
Antoine Bargel writes poetry and fiction in English and French. His stories have been published in Easy Street, Jellyfish Review, Harpang, and elsewhere. His first novel, Ma vie parfaite, is currently being translated into English. He has a Ph.D. in Romance Languages from the University of Oregon, and has translated over 30 novels from English to French. His personal website is https://antoinebargel.com
Donna Dallas has appeared in a plethora of journals, most recently The Opiate, Beatnik Cowboy, Tribes, Horror Sleaze Trash and Fevers of the Mind. She is the author of Death Sisters, her first novel published by Alien Buddha Press. Her chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, launched in 2022 with New York Quarterly. Donna serves on the editorial team of NYQ. @DonnaDallas15
Robert Fromberg’s latest book is Gee, That Was Fun: Unhappy Accidents and Planned Damage, October 14-20, 1983. He also wrote the memoir How to Walk with Steve (Latah Books, 2021), which won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for memoir, and the essay collection Friends and Fiends, Pulp Stars and Pop Stars (Alien Buddha Press, 2022), which won no awards.
IG: @robfromberg
Bruce Gee Son of Bayard, middle named Bayard. Spent his life searching for the meaning of Bayard. Raised a quiver of young ‘un. No regrets.
Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where for years he’s been
active in the small presses as editor, poet, and publisher of his own
lit-zine, ART: MAG. He has recent poetry in Knot, Zin Daily, Trouvaille
Review, Impspired, and elsewhere. His recent poetry books are The Underground Movie Poems (Horror Sleaze Trash), Night Pictures from the Climate Change (Cyberwit.net), and Particle Acceleration on Judgement Day (Impspired) – & his latest sci-fi/horror novel is Eye of Aliena, available at Amazon…
Steve Passey is from Southern Alberta. His the author of many things, and no one likes him.
An author and a father, Kushal Poddar, editor of ‘Words Surfacing’, authored eight books, the latest being ‘Postmarked Quarantine’. His works have been translated in eleven languages. Find and follow him at: amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe
Bruce Reisner is an artist/writer living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems, short fiction and visual art have been seen in Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Sledgehammer Magazine, Readthisplease (an anthology) and the Ranfurly Review.
Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor’s degree in design. The first personal exhibition ‘My soul is like a wild hawk’ (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, draws on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. Writes fairy tales and poems, illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorns, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man – a bird – Siren. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection ‘The 50 Best Short Stories’, and her poem was published in the collection of poetry ‘The wonders of winter’.
G.M.H. Thompson was born on February 15th, 1990, in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his father was from Chicago, Illinois. On his father’s side, he was an eighth cousin to Ezra Pound four times removed, which means that in the 1600s, their bloodlines converged on a single person (whose name only G.M.H. Thompson’s father knows, for it was his research that uncovered this fact, unknown even to Ancestry.com or MyFamilyTreeBuilder etc.). In 2018, Spartan Press of Kansas City put out G.M.H. Thompson’s first collection, Yard Sale at the Devil’s Petting Zoo. In 2020, G.M.H. Thompson was nominated for a Pushcart but did not receive the laurel crown. In 2023, G.M.H. Thompson put Quetzalcoatl out on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH2CXSM7
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