Well, who’d have thought we would make it this far. And what a journey. Thin Skin was born after an impulsive tweet in December 2023, and within months we had five editors, ten readers and hundreds of submissions to sift through. A lot goes on behind the scenes at a magazine, including setting up and maintaining a website (not as easy as it sounds), emails flying between editors and readers debating the merits and demerits of a particular work, correspondence with authors, sometimes bearing bad news, sometimes good, sometimes annoying as we ask for edits, not to mention creating a presence on social media.
We now feature on Duotrope, Chill Subs, and Christopher Fielden amongst others (for those not in the know, they are literary magazine listings) and we’ve nominated several authors for the Pushcart Prize (no winners yet, but it will happen). Many thanks for taking a chance on us: to all who submitted but didn’t make it, and to all those whose work features in the magazine. And most of all, a huge thanks to our readers, who were prepared try out this new magazine when there are so many to choose from, and another huge thanks to those who became subscribers, all 261 of you, at the time of writing. We’re not in the big league yet and nobody earns big bucks from doing this work – in fact, nobody earns anything at all – but it’s heart-warming how much support we have.
And now to the Issue 5 authors. As usual, a wide range of topics, but this time no clues. You’ll just have to read them to find out what they’re about.
SHORT STORIES
Claudia Coleman: Fresh, no Fog
Daniel Jeffreys: Funny Billies
Jim Steinberg: Uncle Eno’s Bad Day
Joy Oden: Waiting for the Thaw
Rachel McCarron: Through with Blue
FLASH FICTION
David Henson: The Garden of our Dreams
Debbie Rainer: Diabo’s Tachinomiya
Nicole Brogdon: My Growing Boy
Photo by Mohammad Danish: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photography-of-pink-birthday-cake-851204/