“Underbite,” part of the “My Sweet Word” series, is up at Silver Birch Press.
I just finished another super summer writing workshop with the amazing teens of Tiverton Public Library! Thanks to Abby Porter, teen librarian, for inviting me back for another year, and to all the teen writers whose creativity and energy always inspire me.
I was thrilled to have my flash piece “Bricolage” published in Smokelong Quarterly recently. Read the story here, and an interview with me here.
From The Gashlycrumb Tinies, © by Edward Gorey
And, as a long-time Edward Gorey enthusiast, I was especially pleased to find a home for my story “Under the Skin” in Goreyesque, an online journal dedicated to all things Gorey.
My prose poem “What Daisy Knew” was featured in The Great Gatsby Anthology, published by Silver Birch Press, and I gave a reading at Books on the Square in Providence, along with fellow Gatsby Anthology writers Sam Cha and Marybeth Rua-Larsen.
Coming soon: I have work forthcoming in Saranac Review, KYSO Flash, and the Bye, Bye Bukowski anthology from Hyacinth Girl Press, and I’ll be teaching a writing workshop at the Rogers Free Library in Bristol and reading in the Summer Poetry Series at Symposium Books in East Greenwich, RI. Check back for more updates soon!
This Thursday marks the third and final week of the Swansea Public Library Flash Fiction Workshop, but there’s more flash to come. I’ll also be giving a workshop as part of the Providence International Arts Festival in June, teaching a teen writing workshop at the Tiverton Public Library this summer, then returning to the Bristol Public Library in early fall for another workshop.
For our final reading, I’d like to share one of my favorite flash pieces: “I Am Holding Your Hand” by Myfanwy Collins, originally published in Monkeybicycle. I had the chance to talk with Myfanwy about her writing process, and we’ll talk about craft, inspiration, and learning to trust yourself when we discuss this story at the next meeting.
Also, if you’d like to challenge yourself with another prompt before we meet again, here’s one that’s similar to the prompt that inspired “I Am Holding Your Hand.”
-Write a story set at Christmas (or Memorial Day, or Fourth of July, or Thanksgiving, or any significant family gathering). You can draw on memories of your own holidays, or even invent a completely fictional holiday. The story should be primarily set in one particular year, but should include at least one flashback or flash-forward set outside that time-frame.
Have fun! See you again on Thursday, May 28 at 6:30 p.m.
Learn to write for fun and profit! (No guarantee on that “profit” part.)
We are now in Week 2 of the Swansea Public Library flash fiction workshop, and here are some updates and an important announcement.
SESSION 3 POSTPONED:
Due to a conflict with another library event, the third and final class of the series has been rescheduled from Thursday, May 21 to Thursday, May 28, still at 6:30 p.m. Just to keep the momentum going, though, I’ll post some extra prompts.
Week 2 Readings and Writing Exercises
We talked about compression in fiction: strict word limits and how they can push us, as writers, to choose images that do double duty, to make each word count, and to leave open spaces for readers to fill in what’s suggested but not said.
We read Courtney Watson’s “Hard Time,” an example of a 100-word story, and my 53-word story “Seapowet Mills Picnic, Purgatory Lake, 1912.” We wrote our own 100-word stories, then cut them in half(ish), and shared both versions.
Challenge for this week: continue to work on your very brief fictions, and if you want, submit a 100-word story to the online journal 100 Word Story, OR enter the 53-Word Story contest and submit a 53-word story on the theme of rebirth to Press 53 by May 31.
Writing prompt for Week 3:
Write a flash fiction story using at least one word from each column in the list below. Use more than three if you want. It may help to choose a word you don’t use often, one you need to investigate first.
Set a timer for 20 minutes and let yourself go: any topic, any style. If you find yourself on a roll, keep going!
In the meantime, I’ll be writing away, too … and looking forward to our final meeting on Thursday, May 28.
Are you feeling it yet?
As the Flash Fiction Workshop at Swansea Public Library moves into its second week, here are some prompts and readings to keep you motivated. If you can’t attend the workshop in person, you can follow along at home.
First, commit to spending three hours a week writing. If you can do more, good for you! But if you’re like most of us–juggling jobs, families, and the nagging need to do some laundry–three hours a week may be all you can commit to. That’s okay. Three hours can take you through three drafts of a flash story, or the creation of three new stories.
Recap of our first week’s reading: we read “The Story of an Hour,” an early (1894) example of flash fiction from Kate Chopin. It’s available in many anthologies and online here. Take-home reading was “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, from Sudden Fiction (Continued), an anthology worth seeking out. You can also read the story here.
Our in-class writing exercise was to choose a visual prompt from a collection of vintage postcards and write a story from a single character’s point of view, set in a specific place and time period. If you’d like to try this (or try it again) at home, here’s a collection of visual prompts that may inspire you.
And for homework, the challenge was to write a 10-sentence story, using a variety of sentence lengths and structures, including one sentence fragment with only a few words, one short sentence with five words, and one long, complex sentence. There is no limit on theme or format, other than the 10-sentence limit.
I hope to see both continuing and new students at our next workshop!
Goff Hall, a beautiful 100-year-old building in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, is home to Blanding Public Library and also hosts Poetry in the Village, a monthly open mic and reading series.
For National Poetry Month in April, I decided to take the poetry plunge and competed in my first-ever slam contest at Poetry in the Village. I came in second–not too shabby, considering the strong competition!
I’ll be back next month as a featured reader on Wednesday, May 20. Open mic sign-up begins at 6 p.m., and the reading begins at 6:30. I hope you’ll join the fun and bring a poem (or flash prose) of your own to read.
Goff Hall – Blanding Public Library
Inspiration to go!
I will lead a free Flash Fiction Workshop at the Swansea Public Library in Swansea, MA on three consecutive Thursday nights in May: May 7, 14, and 21, 2015, from 6:30-8 p.m,
Each class will look at different forms of flash fiction and provide real-time practice, encouragement, and inspiration.
Come prepared to write, and plan to finish the series with at least three new stories and the creative mojo you need to keep writing on your own.
To register, call the Swansea Public Library at 508-674-9609.
Stories here, stories there. Little stories everywhere.
Literary Orphans, Issue 17 (Ella Fitzgerald): “From A Short History of Black Bread Lake.”
The Flexible Persona, Issue 2.3: “With Holden Caulfield in the Panic Room.” Listen to this audio story on Soundcloud.
Litro NY: “So You Want to Be a Poet.”
KYSO Flash, Issue 2: “Happy Meal” (microfiction).
Also in this issue:
“Wendy and Brian on the Last Night of the World” (fiction) and “Penny Postcard, 1902 (No Cancellation)” (poetry).
From a Short History of Black Bread Lake
My flash memoir “Dial-Up Days” is featured in the January 2015 issue of Carbon Culture Review.
Kurt Cobain and friend, 1990s.
Once there was a Blockbuster on every corner, and from every radio Kurt Cobain sang about teen spirit. But Kurt was no longer a teenager at the time, and neither was I. We were a generation waiting to be named, a weak signal of discontent arcing our way across analog airwaves into a digital wilderness.
Read the rest of the story here.
Two new flash pieces, “Stolen Car” and “Polaroid 1971” are featured in the December 2014 issue of Gravel, a beautifully designed online journal.
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