Long Gone

by Jenny Bitner

In the old days if something important happened, you would whisper it to the bees and they would protect you—births and deaths were all told. But nobody is telling the bees the news anymore. No woman late on her period is whispering, “I’m pregnant,” and no grieving husband announces, “Julie is gone.” What do the bees do if they aren’t filled with stories? Like a lover waiting for a text that never comes, they disappear. “My father died,” I whisper to the empty night.

Jenny Bitner’s fiction and poetry has been published in Mississippi Review, The Fabulist, The Sun, Fence, Corium, Fourteen Hills, Mid-American Review and PANK. Pine Press published a chapbook of her poetry entitled Mother. Her story “The Pamphleteer” was published in Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her work was also included in the anthology Writing That Risks. Her nonfiction has appeared in Utne Reader, To-Do List, The San Francisco Bay Guardian and Men’s Health. She earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Virginia. She is a hypnotherapist and a member of the Writers Grotto. Her novel Here Is A Game We Could Play is coming out in Spring 2021.

Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.

Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.

Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.

Submissions

Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again September 15, 2025. Submit here.

Upcoming

05/04 • Leath Tonino
05/11 • Chris Pellizzari
05/18 • Chris Clemens
05/25 • Clayton Eccard
06/01 • TBD
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09/21 • TBD