Publications
Why I Write Gay: Eric Schlich Channels His Bisexuality Through Queer Protagonists, Lit Hub, January 18, 2024.
My Beautiful Bearded Wife, American Short Fiction, Issue 75.
Winner, 2021 Short(er) Fiction Prize. Judged by Susan Steinberg.
“‘My Beautiful Bearded Wife’ is a wonderfully written piece on the often-gendered competitions, roles, and power dynamics in a marriage; the narrator’s fragilities and identity unfold in the shadow of the unnamed wife’s new, and true, object of affection.”
—Susan Steinberg
Journal of a Cyclops, The Massachusetts Review, Fall 2018.
Sunscreen, GUlf Coast, Summer/Fall 2018.
Honorable Mention, Barthelme Prize for Short Prose, Judged by Roxane Gay.
Unpresidented!, Fairy Tale Review, Spring 2018.
Winner, 2017 Fairy Tale Review Award in Prose. Judged by Helen Oyeyemi.
“I love the way fairy tales tend to look at rules with X-ray spectacles on, noting which ones change at the core, which remain fixed, and which only seem to do so. ‘Unpresidented!’ travels so lightly over this very terrain, like the voice of someone who left home so suddenly that there was only time to bring along an extra-sharp switch of satirical wit. This story’s blending and separation of the literal and the symbolic is delicious and ominous in just the way that only true fairy tales—or the split second before a deluge of apple pie—can be.”
Quantum Convention, Crazyhorse, Fall 2017.
Winner, 2017 Crazyhorse Prize. Judged by Justin Torres.
Lucidity, Nimrod, Fall/Winter 2017.
Music Lessons, River Styx, Summer 2017.
Third Place, 2017 River Styx Schlafly Beer Micro-Fiction Contest.
The Keener, Mississippi Review, Summer 2017.
Finalist, 2017 Mississippi Review Prize
Merlin Lives Next Door, Nimrod, Vol. 60.2, Spring/Summer 2017.
Finalist, 2016 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction.
Music Lessons
Fresh Picked Prose, WFSU. 20 March 2017.
Night Thieves, Redivider, Vol. 14.1, Fall 2016.
When You Are Old and I Am Gray, Hayden's Ferry Review, Fall/Winter 2016.
Winner, 2016 Hayden's Ferry Review Flash Fiction Contest. Judged by Tara Ison.
“It’s difficult to avoid cliché or sentimentality when writing about the most universal experiences – love, death, illness – but Schlich’s jewel of a story reveals the profound in the most mundane details of a life, and of a lifelong relationship. This is an exquisite miniature portrait of a love that endures, like those tulips with their ‘slooping grace,’ until the end.”
Head Over Knees, Selected Shorts, "Fateful Encounters," Public Radio International, November 16, 2016.
Performed by Robert Sean Leonard.
LIPLESS, new South, Fall 2016.
Winner, 2016 New South Writing Contest. Judged by Matthew Salesses.
Alices in Manhattanland, Jabberwock Review, vol 37.1, Summer 2016.
Second Place, 2016 Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize.
Head Over Knees, Electric Literature, May 18, 2016.
Winner, 2016 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize. Judged by T.C. Boyle.
“This story, from its terse and provocative first line to the exquisite ending, reveals its meaning like a palimpsest. The first indication of what is going on here—the first jolt—comes when the narrator, instead of giving us the expected response to his classmate’s death, thinks, instead: ‘good.’ This leads to a beautifully compressed recounting of his resentment toward that classmate and finally to the knockout punch of the last line. To my mind, ‘Head Over Knees’ stands as the very model of what a short-short story can achieve, opening up to the kind of richness and depth one might expect from a much longer piece. Bravo!”