Just completed the first official Fast Flash© Workshop this past weekend and it went great! Had an amazing group of smart, talented writers who were so much fun to work with. And the September workshop is already filled! But watch this space for announcements of future workshops. Today, I received my contributor copy of Heavy Feather
One morning in January, when all was lost, a man rolled himself up inside the braided rug of the foyer of his home. It felt good there. It reminded him of how the nurses taught him and his wife to swaddle their babies, for comfort. Tight, tight. Babies are frightened of their own bodies. Un-used
Last night I finished my second read of Myfanwy Collins’ second novel, The Book of Laney. It is both a daring work and an extraordinary achievement. Daring, because it takes on one of the most heartbreaking and difficult to comprehend topics imaginable, that of mass killings on school property by students. The novel covers at
Woke up to a lovely surprise this morning. The editors of Blue Fifth Review have featured excerpts from my collection, Together We Can Bury It (The Lit Pub, 2012), along with gorgeous excerpts from Barbara Jane Reyes’ Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish Press, 2005) and Evie Shockley’s a half-red sea (Carolina Wren Press, 2006) as
I’m very excited. The beta test of my Fast Flash© Workshop was a success! And I’m getting ready to officially launch this two-week intensive, generative workshop. Thanks so much to my beta group, who were amazing! I’ve got a list of writers who’ve already expressed interest. Watch this space for the upcoming (official) announcement. In
Happy first day of summer! I’ve just completed the first week of the two-week flash fiction workshop and am enjoying the experience immensely! The writers who are helping me beta test it are excellent. They’re posting such inspiring work and are giving each other really insightful feedback. I am thinking of running the first “official”
[HA, OKAY, THAT FILLED IN LIKE FIVE MINUTES…THINK I’LL CAP IT AT THE EIGHT PARTICIPANTS I HAVE NOW, BUT STAY TUNED FOR FUTURE WORKSHOPS! THANKS!] Who’s game? I’m going to run a two-week generative flash fiction workshop right here on my blog beginning Monday, June 15th. I need fellow flash writers (or aspiring flash writers)
Busy week ahead as my youngest daughter graduates from high school (*sniff) and off to a wedding over the holiday weekend. I’ve got some new work recently published in two great places: Three flashes in the Spring issue of the always beautiful FRiGG: “The Children Called Him Yuck-Yuck” “There’s No Time for Prairie Dog Town”
I’ve sorely neglected the writing tips/exercises aspect of this blog because I’ve been writing so much lately! I promise to get back to it, but in the meantime here’s a link to my 50 random sentences exercise which originally ran in Lascaux Review: Fifty Random Sentences or How to Face the Blank Page
This week I have two new short shorts in one of my all-time favorite zines for flash fiction, the wonderful Wigleaf, edited by Scott Garson. The first is a triptych, called “Enigma” and the second is a blocky, one-paragraph flash called “Game Show.” Scott also gives his authors an opportunity to write a postcard to