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Jenn Leiker: Writing fresh fiction, travelogues, and short essays on expat life in Saudi Arabia Posts

A Pushcart-nominated Flash: Stranger Things

Under the bright atrium light of the food court between our buildings, I told Fati about the kiss. In Arabic. This was no time to make my cousin practice English.
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“Stranger Things” first appeared in 805Lit+Art (Volume 4, Issue 2), April 2018, and was also honoured as one of their three annual Pushcart Prize fiction nominations. Enjoy!

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Stitched

The Eastern Emirates Charity Ball is the most important night of Pranav’s year. Moments from now, a hundred of the Gulf’s wealthiest westerners will descend on the ballroom of the Arabia Grande Hotel. The fact that he turns thirty today—his tenth birthday on foreign soil—should be the last thing on his mind, considering. ……………….
“Stitched” first appeared in Cherry Tree: A National Literary Journal @ Washington College (Issue 4), 2018.

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Longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2017

Well, how ’bout that?  “Woman Wear For Love” was longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2017.  An honour, and many thanks to Pithead Chapel for the nomination!  It’s the first flash fiction piece I’ve sent anywhere.  ‘Spose it’s time to submit a few more stories before diving into novel revision…? “Woman Wear For Love” was inspired by…

The Other Men in My Life (Saudi Arabia)

Cap and I have taken to referring to life here on the compound as ‘our little alternate reality’. This is short for our shared awareness of getting on a plane a fortnight ago, expecting our wheels to set down in a new country… and somehow landing in a whole new universe. It looks, smells, and sounds like small-town Americana, it’s…