Blog
Celebrating Caelyn Cobb's Publication in Short Story, Long
by Writing Workshops Staff
15 hours ago
There's a moment in Caelyn Cobb's new short story "Time Management" when a young woman working at a relentless corporate job discovers a tiny brass bell that can send her back in time—not to escape the grind, but to reclaim it on her own terms. It's the kind of quiet, sideways speculative twist that makes you grin with recognition, and it's exactly the sort of playful, genre-bending fiction that has made Caelyn one of the most exciting voices in contemporary short fiction.
"Time Management" appears in Short Story, Long, the acclaimed Substack literary journal edited by Aaron Burch—founder of the legendary magazine Hobart and co-editor of HAD—who has built the publication into one of the most exciting weekly venues for contemporary fiction. In his editor's note, Burch praised the story's hypnotic voice and the way it introduces a speculative element that turns the narrative "a little sideways in the most fun and perfect ways." High praise from an editor whose career has been defined by championing fiction that balances formal daring with genuine heart.
The story follows "our girl"—an unnamed young woman navigating the dehumanizing rhythms of corporate work in a big city. The refrain of "our girl" threads through the narrative like an incantation, pulling the reader into complicity and care from the very first line. When the protagonist stumbles upon a brass bell that can transport her back in time by one hour per ring, what begins as a private hack for survival slowly becomes something much more powerful: a story about collective action, solidarity, and women reclaiming their labor. The tale unfolds in the cadence of a modern fairy tale—its third-person narration both intimate and sweeping, its humor dry and devastating, its stakes deeply felt. It's the kind of story that does what the best short fiction can do: contain something enormous within something small.
Caelyn is a writer and editor living in Queens, New York. Since 2017, she has served as the acquisitions editor for global history and global politics at Columbia University Press—a role that gives her a rare dual perspective on storytelling from both sides of the publishing desk. She studied literature and gender studies at the University of Chicago and international politics at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service, and that intellectual range shows up in fiction that moves fluidly between the realistic and the fantastic, the personal and the political. Her work has appeared in Passages North, X-R-A-Y, HAD, Longleaf Review, and elsewhere, and she's the author of the novelette chapbook Boomerang from ELJ Editions.
This publication comes at the start of what promises to be a landmark stretch for Caelyn. Her debut short story collection, Saturn Return—which explores womanhood and the specific griefs and joys of coming of age as a millennial—is forthcoming from Whiskey Tit Books in 2026. She's also at work on a creative nonfiction project about growing up on the early internet. Readers who love fiction that plays with form, challenges expectations, and still lands with genuine feeling will want to keep Caelyn Cobb on their radar.
We're thrilled that Caelyn was part of our community, having joined Amber Sparks for our Editing Short Fiction and Essays Through Play and Games Zoom Seminar—and it's no surprise that a writer this talented continues to find homes for her work in the best literary venues around.
Ready to explore your own creative possibilities? Browse our online creative writing workshops and learn from acclaimed authors who bring both craft expertise and creative daring to every class. Join a community of writers committed to the work—and start your own story today.
