Short Fiction

The reception to the on-line publication of her first short story, "Pomp and Circumspection" in Story Quilt has been quite positive. It's based on a chapter from the upcoming novel, Hawk Lane, and describes the main character Anneliese Sinclair's gut-wrenching desire to be part of her daughter's life. But celebrating Ella's plans for college, the first boyfriend, prom, and graduation are excruciatingly out of reach.

In the short story, "The Mystery of the Wife of Bath," you can enjoy a girls' private school experience in the 1980's, spun from the vantage point of an irreverent and talented teenager. Thea is skating on thin ice with the school's leadership and her parents as yet another prank risks yanking her scholarship and tearing her away from dear friends. Empyrean Literary Magazine Issue 15 can be ordered here.

"Queen Jane," plunges the reader into what begins as a middle-aged couples' ordinary weeknight dinner at a Chinese restaurant but turns down a dark corridor from which there is no return. This short fiction piece appeared in print only in the Schuylkill Valley Journal in December, 2025. Volume 61 can be ordered at the link.

Goyal imagines a fable for our times in "The Old Woman, the Cow, and the Peepal Tree," published in the digital magazine specializing in bite-sized pieces of fiction to be read on the go, Commuter Lit. You can read it for free at the link.

The first of two companion short stories, "The Red Dirt of Lake Manyara" explores themes of inequity, loss, guilt, and the healing power of nature in the lush interior of Tanzania. This piece appeared online in the August 3, 2026 issue of Novellum Magazine, which can be purchased here.

In "Weeknight Tacos and Other Feckless Pursuits," a nostalgia-laced reconnection sparks a dormant lust for life. This short fiction appeared online in the October 2, 2026 issue of Wilderness House Literary Review.