About

Lost Balloon launched on February 1st, 2017. The site’s name was inspired by those small and sad but whimsical moments in life: the birthday balloon that slips from your fingers and floats into the horizon, or the dropped ice cream cone.

Pieces from the magazine have been anthologized in Best Small Fictions (Sonder Press), and Best Microfiction (Pelekinesis Press). They have been long-listed for the Wigleaf Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions and for Best of the Net. To learn more about our award-winning pieces, please click here.

If you have any questions that are not answered by the guidelines on the “Submit” page, please email us at lostballoonmag at gmail dot com.

STAFF

Editor-in-Chief: Chelsea Voulgares lives just outside Chicago. Her fiction has been published in journals such as Passages North, gravel, and Cheap Pop, and has been recognized by a number of organizations and magazines including The Hambidge Center, Glimmer Train, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Illinois Arts Council. Her stories have been longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50 (2019 & 2020). You can follow her on Twitter @chelsvoulgares and learn more about her at chelseavoulgares.com.

Assistant Editor: Madeline Anthes is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Recently, she won the Barren Magazine Flash Fiction Award, had an Editor’s Choice pick in CRAFT Magazine‘s flash fiction contest, and was a finalist for the SmokeLong Quarterly flash fiction award. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and her flash has been longlisted for Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Fictions. You can find information about her chapbooks and publications on her website, madelineanthes.com, or follow her on Twitter at @maddieanthes.