We are leaning into the white cold and feelings of winter for this general issue.

Our Guest Reader for this issue is Trash Family returnee, Gill O’Halloran

It’s not essential that your story has a winter setting (though we do love one) but it must incorporate some of the essence of winter: the feelings and emotions it can bring, or what it represents…
Shedding, ending, solidifying, struggling, bleakness, darkness, slowing down, falling, hunkering down, holding on, waiting.

To get you in the mood for winter storytelling, here are some images and prompts.

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ― John Steinbeck

“Nothing burns like the cold.” ― George R.R. Martin
“Winter’s coming.” ― George R.R. Martin

“The heart can get really cold if all you’ve known is winter.” ― Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“Like some winter animal the moon licks the salt of your hand,
Yet still your hair foams violet as a lilac tree
From which a small wood-owl calls.” ― Johannes Bobrowski

• stranded in a strange, snowbound town
• new love melts a wintered heart
• an unexpected mild spell unveils a buried secret
• travelling across a frozen sea/ landscape
• an animal needs help or offers help
• in a dystopian endless winter, what motivates survivors?
• snow games bring a broken family together
• winter is a state of mind
• How does a monster/alien/cryptid cope with a hard winter?

Time, time, time
See what’s become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
The Bangles, Hazy Shade of Winter

Stop, you’re cold against the skin
You take me in your arms when walls are closing in,
And I run, I run, I run, awakening my heart
But you overwhelm my lungs and it’s tearing me apart
You and I will not be shaken
By the winter sound
But my voice is suffocating
In the winter sound
Monsters and Men, Winter Sound

We are not huge fans of festive stories (Trash Cat is a Christmas grouch) but we’re willing to be convinced.

When your winter treasure is ready to submit, click HERE to return to the Submissions page