The Better of the Web Anthology from Sundress Publications has been celebrating literary journals and artistic writers since 2006. Every year, they subject a name for nominees to place collectively a group of, properly, the perfect of the ‘web from that 12 months.

Submitted every September, the nominations should be for tales revealed inside their fiscal 12 months of July 1 to June 30. Journals are allowed two submissions in every class; since Hippocampus Journal publishes completely nonfiction, we’re capable of submit two in complete.

Our Better of the Web Noms

We chosen one piece from our flash submissions and one piece from our essay submissions:

“When We Used to Glow” by Tom McAllister

Flash editor Wendy Fontaine had this to say about Tom’s piece:

Our readers liked this story for its delicate stability of wistfulness, marvel, and fear. It hits the fitting notice of nostalgia with out drifting into sentimentality, with the central picture of the lightning bug woven all through.

We’re extremely happy with this piece and its continued success. This essay was additionally chosen for the 2025’s The Finest American Science and Nature Writing, edited by Susan Orlean. We beforehand nominated it for final 12 months’s Pushcart Prize.

“Squatter’s Rights” by Ryen Nielsen 

Essays editor Steph Auteri had this to say about Ryen’s essays:

I instantly fell in love with the voice behind “Squatter’s Rights” by Ryen Nielsen when it popped up in our queue. The best way Ryen tackled gender dysphoria and (a irritating lack of) physique autonomy, all with a laugh-out-loud humorousness, made this one a no brainer for me.

Congratulations to Ryen and Tom! We want each of those unbelievable writers the perfect of luck as their items are reviewed by the  sequence editors.