Bill Merklee

Bill Merklee is a writer in love with short stories, short films, and really short songs. He lives in New Jersey.

Interviewed by Jon DiSavino on the Short Story Today podcast:

Click here to view a video montage with orchestral score
created by André Assaiante for my reading of “Magic Bullet”

Fiction

All the Small Things in Stanchion Magazine
White Paper Gown in 10 by 10 Flash Fiction
Threshold in Third Street Review
The Wheels on the Bus in HAD
Birthday in Switch
Siren in Flash Flood Journal
Cleaning House in Your Impossible Voice
Grand Canyon, 1967 in Milk Candy Review
Papi in the House in Potato Soup Journal
At the Movies in Cheap Pop
Cupcakes in The Cabinet of Heed
Magic Bullet in Flash Flood Journal
Empty Nest in Ellipsis Zine
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes in Bending Genres
God at 60 in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine
Portugal originally in Ghost Parachute, reprinted in Flash Boulevard
A Note originally in Columbia Journal

Poetry

Harry Twenty Years On originally in HIV Here & Now

Non-Fiction

Breath originally in Gravel, reprinted in Anti-Heroin Chic
We Are What We Consume originally in The Record
The Lost Detail originally in New Jersey Monthly
A Lifetime in Bergenfield Belies Author’s Version originally in The Record

Selected Blog Posts

High Noon
Parting words left on my LinkedIn profile
Remarks At My Mother’s Memorial
Unsung Hero
Fine Tuning
Neil deGrasse Tyson Brings Radio to the Bronze Age
Dakota Cats
My Sister, Her Daughter, and the Kindness of Nanci Griffith
The Civil War Is Always With Us
The Ballad of Young Bill Merklee
Dreams So Real
Mark Becker (1960-2014)
Harry Root Merklee (1912-1971)

Shouts and Such

• 2024 Fractured Lit Chapbook Prize, short list
• 2024 Wigleaf Top 50, long list for “Grand Canyon, 1967”
• 2024 Best Small Fictions, nomination for “Cleaning House”
• 2024 Bath Novella-in-Flash Award, short list
• 2023 SmokeLong Grand Micro Competition, long list for “Grand Canyon, 1967”
• 2022 Best Small Fictions, nomination for “At the Movies”
• 2021 Best Microfiction, selected “Magic Bullet”
• Oct 2015 Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award, honorable mention for “Portugal”