Category: Fiction
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God’s Got a Good Backstroke by Nicholas Viglietti
I was barren, stopped carin’ and my tomorrows weren’t promised.
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Last Frontier by Michael Igoe
At that moment none of the crowd was in the lobby. I cracked open the quart top and fiddled around with the radio.
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Liar by Doug Hawley and Bill Tope
I greeted a new face at the bus stop today, a big, florid, puffy fellow who rather resembled a pink marshmallow.
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A Gorko Gazette Borsch by Iryna Somkina
Half a cabbage, shredded with mild but palpable passive aggression. Click for complete recipe!
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THAT’S WHAT IT FEELS LIKE by u.v. ray
John Gambler sits on the towpath at Gas Street Basin trying to salvage what was left of the abysmal day.
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Le Penseur by Doug Hawley and Bill Tope
His torso and limbs were arranged in the same posture as Rodin’s ‘The Thinker,’ only in flesh tones.
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Last Seen On Wells Street by Michael Igoe
Reese was in again, and he was pleading with me to bail him out.
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Burden of Beasts and 1 more by Jamie Manias
A camel sees kaleidoscopic angles from which to kill you.
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pop-up speakeasy by Dee P. R. Kay
we sat on a concrete curb next to a trash can in the P-Cola Edgar Allan Poe pop-up speakeasy
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Plan B by Iryna Somkina
We were barely taught. I keep what I can carry: Majoritarian, Proportional, Mixed; the U.S. from school; Latin America.
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Untitled by Lisa Marie Zapata
The camera phone was angled to perfectly capture the pout and cleavage (with just enough slip of the nip.)
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A Letter to Maysam by Bill Tope
It’s been almost six weeks since I began my involuntary servitude and incarceration at the retirement home.
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Important Holiday Season Reminders from the Only Full-Blooded Jew in the Family by Eli Evans
Do not touch the dreidel while it is spinning.
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BEST OF THE GORKO 2025
The real gift of 2024 was the creative work submitted to this space by more than 100 contributors: humor, short fiction, CNF, poems, and more.
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T-E GA-NTL-T by Antoine Bargel
I ra-se my fl-g a-ain an- a-ain the e-i-or ch-ps it d-wn. The ed-t-r is m- moth-r and my fl-g, y-u k-ow.
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Interview with Up Yours! Editor and Publisher Charlie Fishead by Bill Tope
This interview was conducted on Dec. 4, 2025 by Writing Style reporter Llib Epot in the London headquarters of Up Yours!.
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Short fiction by Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Get your cards read by someone who really knows what they’re doing, that’s what you do.
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A Name for the Interim by James Callan
During this time, I ditched my Joan Baez albums and Jerry Bears.
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For Real not for Real by Antoine Bargel
Ever since I watched Earth explode I’ve had trouble sleeping.
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The Woman who Married a Bus by Ben Macnair
She craved stability. Predictability. A strong, reliable presence that wouldn’t suddenly decide it needed to ‘explore its inner child’.
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Blurred by Ben Macnair
Tucked at the very bottom, beneath a pressed flower and a lock of my baby hair, was a single, peculiar photograph.
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Excerpt from 5/27 by Eric Kong Angal
But goo is goo, she thinks, frowning. Goo is always bad; goo is never good.
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Cuddle Me Coco by James Callan
‘Coco-Mania’ made its mark in a big way in the late Nineties, claiming 716 lives worldwide.
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Firecrackers and Missing Fingers: A Documentary by Sean Ryan
My brother, Dr. Steven Cole, only sits in the front row at movies.
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Tiddly-Winks by Ben Macnair
‘Players, to your positions. Game four, round two. First to pot six winks, or squop all opponents, wins.’
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My Knight in Shining Armor by James Callan
He has baby blue eyes and flaxen hair, forget-me-nots and autumn wheat.
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Kevin by Rick White
It’s impossible to talk about the 2009 Sea World Dolphin Adventures Squad without mentioning Kevin.
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Brave Dreams & Dive-Bar Stew by Nicholas Viglietti
After 4-hours, and a few extra minutes of snooze, I’d be carvin’ waves like Thanksgivin’ Americans do.
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Prepared For My Demise by Bob Gielow
To help you avoid all that stressful planning while you are grieving for me, I’ve written out the following list of assignments.
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I Won’t Write a Poem About Us by Mileva Anastasiadou
about how we met on a plane years ago, and we talked for a couple hours
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The Secret Life of JC by Torrey Kurtzner
Upon his Second Coming, he had successfully carved a new identity for himself while blending in with the surf culture of Southern California.
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Little People by JD Clapp
They are stealing my stuff. Messing up the house. They move my favorite things so I can’t find them.
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The Wings of Fate by Antoine Bargel
My dear friend Tupelow, gambling life and limb in the vacuous hope to attain, through this only possible instrument, a happiness beyond measure.
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Robinson Crusoe Maybe by Colin Gee
Definitely not Robinson Crusoe, peer instead into the gluttony, cowardice and mendacity of Robinson Crusoe Maybe.
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Cast Away by James Callan
We high-fived our mutual stance, our joint assessment: marriage isn’t for us.
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Cave Folk by James Callan
In addition to the skull cult, there is the bear cult; the vulture cult; the cannibal cult; the horse head cult; the meat cult; fire cult; sex cult; serpent cult; blonde woman cult; the seven-breasted rhino cult.
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Bonus Round by Peter Gutiérrez
Hager would demur by explaining that he wasn’t ‘good at trivia,’ but rather was ‘just old.’
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2 stories by Matías Bragagnolo
As expected, he takes the form of a billy goat. He blinks with yellowish eyes and delicately rises on his hind legs.
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Record Review: Vivian Bismarck and the Soft Rats ‘Blind Alley Chartreuse Guillotine’ by Matthew Banash
Since they record dressed as plush rodents the Blues are turned on their head as his claw-gloved hands run amok over the strings summoning up the Devil, Robert Johnson and Richard Marx.
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Lost Watch by Eric Kong Angal
The chaw bulges from his distended mouth and is visible against his yellowed teeth and his oblong frown drips brown mucilage onto his undershirt.
