The Gorko Gazette

BEST OF THE GORKO 2025

What a year for humor, poetry, short fiction, CNF, ugly memes, Rocky Balboa, Rambo, MacGuyver, short jorts, big hair, New Coke, Madonna, and Duck Hunt. Oops no, that was 1985. Forty years gone in the blink of an eye!

Although still grateful for all of those misbegotten 80s things, 2025’s biggest gift to us has been the creative work submitted by more than 100 contributors: humor, short fiction, CNF, poems, and more.

This is a big thank-you to everyone who helped make The Gorko what it was this year. Below you will find our favorite pieces from 2025, beginning with The Gorko Serial Offenders. Obviously their pieces were among our very favorites, so we have stuffed the EDITORS’ CHOICE stockings with other work we wish to acknowledge.

The three READERS’ CHOICES are based on the top clicks of 2025: congratulations to dirt hogg, Jeff Kennedy, and Hugh Blanton. Thank you for joining The Gorko.

2025 READERS’ CHOICES

what the poets are doin’: 5 poems by dirt hogg sauvage respectfully
An Important Inflight Announcement by Jeff Kennedy
Provincial Squirming: a book review by Hugh Blanton

THE GORKO SERIAL OFFENDERS

Laszlo Aranyi
Antoine Bargel
James Callan
Bruce Gee
Bob Gielow
Ken Kakareka
Tark Mackintosh
Karol Nielsen
Bruce Reisner
Cheryl Snell
William Taylor Jr.
Ken Tomaro
Theodore Wallbanger
Lynn White

EDITORS’ CHOICE: HUMOR

Introducing the Three Stooges Program for Raising Healthy Kids by J.L. Asmundsson
Little People by JD Clapp
Presidential Suite: Tempers, Temperatures, and Two Ex-Presidents (When Hissy Fits Make History) by Zenith Knox
Around the Nation, if We Still Have One by William M. McIntosh
IT DOESN’T END WELL, FRITZ LANG! by Steen W. Rasmussen
Regarding Use of Your Markers For Graffiti Sex Propositioning by Dan Weaver

EDITORS’ CHOICE: POEMS

I Won’t Write a Poem About Us by Mileva Anastasiadou
3 new poems by Oliver Baer
Degraded Toast and All Things Delight the Maker by Salvatore Difalco
The Catalogue of Ships and 1 more by Damon Hubbs
3 poems by Conor Hultman
The kapok tree at the edge of the plaza by Nas Jolaade

EDITORS’ CHOICE: FICTION

Lost Watch by Eric Kong Angal
My Knight in Shining Armor by James Callan
Accidental Zeitgeist Novelist by Ben Macnair
The Judge by Steve Passey
Sun on the Patio by George Vincent
Porn On Standby by Kevin Richard White

EDITORS’ CHOICE: ART

Rituals of Survival by Mark Blickley
Collages by Irina Tall
Three new chalks by Theodore Wallbanger

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