We at Random Width—publishers of Thirty Cabins—are embarking on a new project. It’s called Classifieds.
We’re inviting writers to submit fictional classified ads under the topics Pets, Lost & Found, Computers/Tech, Matters of the Heart, Services (miscellaneous), Legal, Health, Rentals (Wanted and Offered), and Help Wanted.
All ads should be 100 words or fewer. Deadline to submit is October 15, 2026. We’ll let you know shortly after the deadline whether your ad will be published.
We’ll print Classifieds on newsprint and make the publication available in time for the holidays.
Submit your classified »
Second from top, the original ad placed by Kiss in the Village Voice (1972)
Classified Ad
I teach fourth grade
batik and weave plant hangers
with seashells bound in the yarns,
pine cones and stones glassy
from waves and age.
I make ceramic vases and cups,
bake breads, dance and read books.
Last summer I hiked forty-seven miles
alone in the High Sierras.
I do not smoke or take drugs.
I have lived four years
in a cottage on a hill.
My windows face the sky.
I am responsible.
Painters have shared my bed,
stockbrokers and psychologists.
All are strangers,
sleeping encased in sheet
strange unreachable mounds
fearful I will touch their dreams.
They close doors while they piss
and decline my shower.
Breakfast finds them angry
staring at a black well of coffee
complaining my cats bit their toes,
restless, wanting to change
their underwear. Winding watches.
Bound to other things.
I want to love a blue-eyed man
and have blue-eyed babies,
sleek and smooth as cats.
And a yard perhaps,
to grow spices and flowers.
I am twenty-six
I embroider, I sing.
I am punctual and clean.
– Kate Ellen Braverman (The Paris Review, Winter 1975)