Tuesday, February 21 @ 7:30 pm
The Mercury Cafe: 2199 California Street, Jungle Room
It’s the 10-year anniversary of the Fbomb, the first and longest running flash fiction reading series in the country, and we are thrilled to celebrate at our original home with a very special Fat Tuesday reading and release at The Mercury Cafe!
The Mardi Gras season is upon us, celebrating the life, death, and resurrection theater, 40 days in the desert, rising again after the rapture. It reminds us to balance lightly on the edges of change with flair and panache, and it invites us to try on new masks as we celebrate our history and look to our future with hands thrown high, like a gorgeous parade float holding our Fbomb community and rolling into the creative horizons.
Join us live on Tuesday, February 21 from 7:30-10 pm at The Mercury Cafe! With featured readers Jomil Ebro, Krystal Summers, special guest Kona Morris, and your host and Fbomb founder, Nancy Stohlman with a Denver-only pre-release for After the Rapture. Open mic spots are 4 mins and first come first served. We will pass the hat in gratitude for the Mercury Cafe.
Masks encouraged!
Featuring Krystal Summers! Krystal Summers is a writer and nanny more magical than Mary Poppins. When she isn’t taking children through chalk paintings, she’s outside somewhere with her dog, relaxing at her home in Denver with her husband, or starting more stories than she finishes. She will be published in the forthcoming Listen to Your Skin anthology from Q Publishing in 2023.
Featuring Jomil Ebro! Jomil Ebro is a professor of Composition, Creative Writing, and Journalism, Philosophy and the Humanities at Arapahoe Community College. He is also an ABD Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature and Consciousness Studies at the University of Iowa, where he also trained at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. At New York University, he received an M.A. in Communication and an M.A. in Cultural Studies. His poetry and critical essays include “Seizure of Happiness, Or, Two Almonds” in Cobra Milk (Fall 2020); “A State of Otonomy: Henry Miller’s Obscene Autobiographical Form” in the Modern Horizons Journal (June 2018); “The Calligraphy of Trees: Towards an Ethics of ‘Mysreading’ in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy” in the Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies Vol. 3, Issue 2 (February 2018); “I’ll-iterate Thinking: Poetry, Perception, and the Dissolution of Center/Periphery Duality” in the Peripheral Matters Journal from the City University of New York (CUNY, Fall 2017); and “The Nearness of Elsewhere: Place and the Ethics of Remembrance in The Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin and Li Po” in the Modern Horizons Journal (June 2012).
He resides in Golden, Colorado where laughter, verve, and hope come in the form of his partner and son, walking by purple sunsets, steeping two different tea bags, trying to imitate Paul Simon’s guitar playing, and watering the long vineyards of desire. Jomil thinks in all sincerity and without hyperbole that poetry—in particular, the way it can teach us to give a name to the nameless so that it can be thought and sensed more fully—that poetry, as such, can save the world.
Special guest Kona Morris! Kona Morris is a writer, storyteller, and comedian. She has performed at storytelling events for The Moth, and most recently for the live RISK! show at The Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles. She was a regular on Monday Night Live L.A., a starring cast member of Denver’s Live Drunk History Comedy Troupe, and the Founder and Head Writer of the satirical comic book company Godless Comics. Kona has been featured at events around the world, and her stories have appeared in a variety of publications. https://www.instagram.com/kona_morris/
https://www.youtube.com/@konamorris
https://www.facebook.com/konamorris/
Hosted by Nancy Stohlman! Nancy Stohlman is the author of six books including After the Rapture (2023), Madam Velvet’s Cabaret of Oddities (2018), The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories (2014), The Monster Opera (2013), Searching for Suzi: a flash novel (2009), and Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction (2020), winner of the 2021 Reader Views Gold Award and re-released in 2022 as an audiobook. She is a fan of the short and the strange, and her work has been anthologized widely, appearing in the Norton anthology New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction and The Best Small Fictions 2019, as well as adapted for both stage and screen. She teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder and holds workshops and retreats around the world. Find out more at http://www.nancystohlman.com
Host Sarah Rodriquez! Sarah Rodriguez is a poet, educator, stage-practiced liar, bubblegum enthusiast, wine-led wanderer, failed manic pixie dream girl, Atlantic Ocean runaway, and the editor-in-chief of Punch Drunk Press. She organizes, hosts, and performs at arts events all over the Front Range, including Punketry. Her most recent publications include Spit Poet Zine and Stain’d Magazine.
Featuring Black Market Translation! Black Market Translation was born from dirt protesting songs written at the Second Wave Council of Punklandia in 1577 fully formed with electric instruments for hands, lighters as eyeballs, and a head of firewood for brains. They immediately walked off stage and had bad band practices hidden under the bursting bombs of minor revolutions misunderstanding banned ideas for several centuries before finally being apprehended by the Boulder Police Department and sued for breach of contract by God. Here, as part of the terms and commandments of their sacred indentured servitude, they have been tasked with providing a concert for which they have Prepared Nothing. Please boo Black Market Translation until they are motivated enough to fuck off in your drink, and remember, you are equally free to dance or leave or piss or slam and scream at any time.
Shelby Yaffe is a queer author, poet, and singer-songwriter living in Denver. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Suspect Press, South Broadway Ghost Society, and OutFront Magazine. She will always read third at events and she will write a poem for your girlfriend (if you pay her). Find her at 
Brice Maiurro is a poet and writer from Denver, Colorado. He is the author of Hero Victim Villain (Stubborn Mule Press) and Stupid Flowers (Punch Drunk Press). He is the Poetry Editor for Suspect Press, the Editor-In-Chief of South Broadway Ghost Society and the Founding Editor of Punch Drunk Press. His writing has been featured by The Denver Post, Boulder Weekly, Birdy Magazine, Pussy Magic and Poets Reading the News. He is the co-founder of Punketry! and was recognized by Denver Westword as a Colorado Creative. He believes that artists should focus more on self-discovery than self-destruction. He has so many things that he is grateful for.
Renuka Raghavan is the author of Out of the Blue, (Big Table Publishing, 2017) a debut collection of short fiction and poetry. She has been published in literary journals across the country, with most recent work featured in Mom Egg Review and Gravel Literary Magazine. Renuka serves as the fiction book reviewer at Červená Barva Press, and is a poetry reader for Indolent Books and the Lily Poetry Review. She is also a co-founder of the Poetry Sisters Collective. Her second poetry collection is forthcoming from Nixes Mate Press.
Host Kathy Fish! Kathy Fish has published five collections of short fiction, most recently Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018, from Matter Press. Her award-winning short stories, prose poems, and flash fictions have been published in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, Electric Literature, Guernica, and elsewhere. Her poem/flash fiction hybrid piece, “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild,” will appear in an upcoming edition of The Norton Reader. Additionally, this piece was selected for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 by Sheila Heti and by Aimee Bender for Best Small Fictions 2018. Fish’s work is also featured in the 2017 and 2016 editions of Best Small Fictions. She is a core faculty member for the Mile High MFA at Regis University in Denver, Colorado, and teaches her own intensive online flash workshop, Fast Flash©.
Featuring Randall Brown! Randall Brown is the author of the award-winning collection MAD TO LIVE, his essay on (very) short fiction appears in THE ROSE METAL PRESS FIELD GUIDE TO WRITING FLASH FICTION, and he appears in BEST SMALL FICTIONS 2015 & 2017 & 2019 and The Norton Anthology NEW MICRO: EXCEPTIONALLY SHORT FICTION & The Norton Anthology HINT FICTION. He founded and directs FlashFiction.Net and has been published and anthologized widely, both online and in print. Recent books include the prose poetry collection I MIGHT NEVER LEARN (2018), the novella HOW LONG IS FOREVER (2018), and the flash fiction collection THIS IS HOW HE LEARNED TO LOVE (2019). He is also the founder and managing editor of Matter Press and its Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. He received his MFA in Fiction from Vermont College.
Host David S. Atkinson! David S. Atkinson is the author of books such as “Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from my Pockets While I Sleep,” “Apocalypse All the Time,” and the Nebraska book award winning “Not Quite so Stories.” He is a Prose Assistant Editor for “Digging Through The Fat” and his writing appears in “Spelk,” “Jellyfish Review,” “Thrice Fiction,” “Literary Orphans,” and more. His writing website is 
Featuring Karen Stefano! Karen Stefano is the author of “What a Body Remembers: A Memoir of Sexual Assault And Its Aftermath” (Rare Bird Books, June 11, 2019), the short story collection “The Secret Games of Words” (1GlimpsePress, 2015), and the how-to business writing guide “Before Hitting Send” (Dearborn 2011). Her work has appeared in Ms. Magazine, California Lawyer, Psychology Today, The Rumpus, The South Carolina Review, Tampa Review, Epiphany, and elsewhere. She is also a JD/MBA with more than 20 years of complex litigation experience. To learn more about Karen Stefano and her writing, please visit 
Host Roseanna Frechette! Roseanna Frechetteis in love with words. Written. Spoken. Published. Or not. It’s all about words on page and energy on stage. Longtime member of Denver’s thriving literary community and former publisher of Rosebud Forum magazine, Roseanna believes in the power of small press and all things alternative and independent when it comes to art. Her writing has appeared on the pages of many small press publications including Lummox, Blink-Ink, Mad Blood, Punch Drunk, Semicolon, and Prairie Smoke Anthology. Featured on a variety of regional stages including Arise Music Festival, Colorado Poetry Rodeo, and Boulder Fringe Festival, she’s a guest host for Mercury Café’s Jam Before the Slam and a respected participant in the open mic scenes of Denver and Boulder. Roseanna’s integrative style reflects both a respectful love of nature and a bohemian appreciation for urban culture. She holds great passion for the beauty of creativity…expressed…live.
Featuring Susan Froyd! Susan Froyd started writing for Westword as the “Thrills Editor” in 1992 and never quite left the fold. These days she still freelances for the paper as an arts writer, in addition to walking her dogs, enjoying cheap ethnic food and reading voraciously. She’s also a slave to pop culture and every kind of music, and sometimes she writes poetry.
Featuring David Heska Wanbli Weiden! David Heska Wanbli Weiden,, an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota nation, is Associate Professor of Native American Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He’s an alumnus of VONA and the Tin House Summer Workshop, and is a 2018 MacDowell Colony Fellow. He received the 2018 PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship. His novel WINTER COUNTS is forthcoming in 2020 from Ecco/HarperCollins, as is the second book in the series, WOUNDED HORSE. WINTER COUNTS is the story of a local Native American enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation who becomes obsessed with finding and stopping the dealer who is bringing increasingly dangerous drugs into his community. It’s a Native thriller, an examination of the broken criminal justice system on reservations, and a meditation on Native identity. 
Featuring Jeff Campbell! Jeff Campbell has been a part of Denver’s creative community for over two decades, as a pioneering Hip Hop and spoken word artist, as well as a facilitator of arts in education programs for Colorado’s youth in public schools. In 2015, He was named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creative’s. He is also the writer of the critically acclaimed “Who Killed Jigaboo Jones?” a One Man Mockumentary on the Hip Hop Industrial Complex, and also “Honorable Disorder” the story of an Iraq war veteran from 5 Points, battling PTSD, and readjusting to civilian life. His brand of “Post Hip Hop Expressionism’flows from the influence of the culture, without having to conform to its conventional identity. His work is rooted in social commentary from his own personal experience.
Host Jay Halsey! Jay Halsey moved to the Denver area twelve years ago and soon after his prose, poems, and photos were being published in several online and print journals and a handful of anthologies. In 2018, his writing was nominated for a Best of the Net award and a Pushcart Prize. His photography has been used as cover art for poetry collections and novels, featured in fundraising campaigns for the Rocky Mountain Land Library in Fairplay, Colorado, and was part of a touring exhibit featured at libraries and bookstores throughout France to represent Editions Gallmeister’s American authors.
Featuring Byron F. Aspaas! Byron F. Aspaas uses images of landscape, etched onto white space, to create experience. He is Diné. With a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Aspaas hopes to teach and become a storyteller, and influence those along his journey. His work is scattered throughout journals and anthologies. Amongst those are: RedInk, Yellow Medicine Review, 200 New Mexico Poems, Weber: The Contemporary West, As/Us: A Space for Women of the World, Semicolon, The Denver Quarterly, International Writing Program Collections, The Rumpus, and CloudThroat. He is Red Running into the Water; born for Bitter Water. He resides northeast of the Four Sacred Mountains with his partner, Seth Browder, their three cats, and six puppies. He is working on a collection of essays, short stories, and poems.
Featuring Mairead Case! Mairead Case is a teacher, writer, and editor in Denver, Colorado. She publishes widely, and wrote the novel SEE YOU IN THE MORNING (featherproof), the poetry chapbook TENDERNESS (Meekling), the forthcoming novel TINY, and, with David Lasky, the forthcoming Georgetown Steam Plant Graphic Novel. Mairead holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD from the University of Denver, and she teaches English full-time in DPS, and part-time at the Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and the Denver Women’s Jail. She is a Legal Observer with the NLG and volunteers for a community response team supporting queer and trans survivors of violence. Previously Mairead lived in Chicago for a decade, where she worked and wrote for places like Pitchfork and the Poetry Foundation.
Host Kona Morris! Kona Morris is proud to be one of the original members of F-Bomb. She’s from the foggy redwood coast of Humboldt County and hasn’t stopped traveling the globe since she left. Kona was co-founder and editor of Fast Forward Press, as well as founder and writer of the satirical comic book company Godless Comics. She has been featured as a writer and editor at literary events and conferences across the country, and her stories have appeared in a variety of publications. Kona currently teaches letter regurgitation to college students in Denver, where she also dabbles in stand-up comedy, performs live drunk history lectures, and is the lone minister of the Secular Humanist Church of Freddie Mercury. 
Featuring Nick Morris! Nick Morris is the F-Bombingest F-Bomber who ever did F-Bomb, having only missed reading once in over six years. His work has been published online and in print in journals like Fast Forward, Cliterature, Danse Macabre, Connotation Press, and the Prose Podcast. He’s a professor of Humanities and the Community College of Denver, where he talks about Batman, rock’n’roll, and how women should have more pockets in their clothing under the guise of higher education. He’s originally from Arkansas, but lives and loves in the Mile High City with his partner Alyssa Piccinni.
Featuring Shelby Yaffe! Shelby Yaffe is a queer author, poet, and singer-songwriter living in Denver. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in the Fast Forward Anthology Flash 101: Surviving the Fiction Apocalypse, Suspect Press, and South Broadway Ghost Society. Her poetry is also featured on a continuing basis in a collaborative art project with Kate Carlton Photography, an award-winning photographer based in Colorado Springs. You can pay Shelby to write a poem for your girlfriend at: 
Featuring David Yaffe! David Yaffe is a Denver native who remembers “how it used to be.” He is a medical auditor and father of two amazing boys. David also blogs about motorcycles and navigating issues around depression and doing his best not to commit suicide. You can find David’s blog at: 
fbombdenver.com 