Magazine
R. A. Allen: “Bluing”
James Benger: “pep talk”
Bonnie Demerjian: “A Lesson Not Taught in Supermarket School”
Adele Evershed: “loopy”
Hedy Habra: “Whatever Remains of What We Once Knew So Well?”
Madison Woodle: “Worms”
Robin Wright: “Rough Waters”
Ruth Bavetta: “My Father’s Shirts”
Jacob Butlett: “Feeding Time at the Zoo”
John Compton: “the musical of the bell jar”
A.M. Hayden: “Ghost Leg”
Joshua Lillie: “What Becomes A Tumbleweed”
Joseph Mills: “Retinue”
J.R. Solonche: “The Ceiling”
Alicia Wright: “She doesn’t wish me dead”
Sam Culotta: “A Winter Coat”
Paul Ilechko: “Memories of a Memory”
Madison Isbell: “corpus christi, early march”
Lindsay McLeod: “Sleeping Dogs”
Andrew Mulvania: “Self Portrait As The Grasshopper Trapped Inside Van Gogh’s Olive Trees”
Abner Oakes: “Floating Teeth”
Sterling Warner: “Slap Shot”
Susan Cossette: “Five Things I Will Do in Aegina”
Tony DeGenaro: “Flight Path”
John Grey: “On a Funeral Pyre”
Jeremy Jusek: “Prescriptions Written in Calligraphy”
Cindy Rinne: “Ghost Turkey”
Patricia Russo: “The Dead Time Traveler”
As It Ought To Be is proud to announce our nominees for the 2026 Best of the Net Anthology.
Laurel Benjamin: “Motel Room Without a Night Light”
Jane-Rebecca Cannarella: “Quilted Rainbows”
Karina Castrillo: “I never wanted you to be like us”
Felicia Clark: “Chrome Cheers”
Paul Ilechko: “A Life in Art”
Jimmy Pappas: “The Ineffable”
Sarah Angstadt: “Counterproductive Side Effects”
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal: “Hearing Aid”
Sue Blaustein: “Serving Orders at Brother’s Foods”
John Brantingham: “The Greening of Creatures”
J.D. Isip: “Triceratops”
Paul Jones: “Two Flamingoes at Pea Island Reserve”
Samuel Prestridge: “My Father, Hailing from Ignorant Hill, Texas…”
Diana Rosen: “NEWS ITEM: Westside Pavilion to be UCLA Biomedical Research Center”
M.J. Arcangelini: “A List of Lessons”
Susan Cossette: “Bad Marguerite”
Joseph Geskey: “STEM As Part of A Flower”
Justin Karcher: “In Buffalo, Our Dads Come Back From the Dead to Watch the Big Game With Us”
Robert S. King: “Behind Some Photographs”
Tim Peeler: “Before the Storm, the Hawks”
Agnes Vojta: “Refuge”
Jennifer Worrell: “Behind the Lines”
James Benger: “Entrance”
Barbara Daniels: “White Horses”
Cal Freeman: “Always”
Mari Kitina: “Only the Rice Cries”
Michael Lauchlan: “Trout”
Richard Levine: “For Want of Care”
Dudley Stone: “Turbulence”
Meredith Wattle: “Erie Goliath”
Ann Weil: “Living Through”
Jean Biegun: “On Call”
Karina Castrillo: “I never wanted you to be like us”
John Grey: “Photographs”
Geoffrey Heptonstall: “Floating”
Andrea Horowitz: “Behind Midnight’s Curtain I Recompose Your Birth”
Leonard Kress: “A Night at the Opera”
Laurie Kuntz: “Sooner or Later”
Leigh Parsons: “Still Frozen”
Matthew Pritt: “Joseph F. Seaborn, 1898-1956, Mary B. Seaborn, 1906-“
William Taylor Jr.: “Poem for the New Year”
Rose Mary Boehm: “Boil them”
Rebecca Clifford: “Climatic Divinations”
Sam Hendrian: “Magazine Ads”
Paul Ilechko: “A Clock Is Ticking”
Tricia Knoll: “Next Time You Interview a Unicorn Prepare Better Questions”
H.K.G. Lowery: “Villa Diodati”
Samuel Prestridge: “Why I’ve Not Cut Down The Yes Ma’am Bush”
Tamarah Rockwood: “Persephone’s first day out”
Jason Ryberg: “No Great Hurry”
Matthew Ussia: “Home Improvement Advice for Anyone Owning a House More Than One Hundred Years Old”
As It Ought To Be 