“One thing I have learned is that I can get interesting results if I start at the point of most contentment, the most satisfying moment, instead of the most jeopardy. The idea is to overturn an expectation, maybe the expectation of drama, of coming up against something. So the question becomes: what does calm feel
The first (contemporary) short story I ever read was “Appetites” by Kathryn Chetkovich. It was the first story in the 1998 volume of The Best American Short Stories, edited by Garrison Keillor. That story knocked me out. I think I read the whole volume in one sitting. I was 38 years old and falling in
Yes. Molly’s a great person and this is an excellent cause.
“You’re the girl, aren’t you?” the woman says. I’m sidled up to the bar at the Knights of Columbus Hall. It’s 11:00 in the morning on New Year’s Eve and we’ve just buried my dad. I ask the bartender to splash some more rum into my drink. I call him “barkeep” like we’re in a
“This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings. This music was her—the real plain her…This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time
I’ve been reading the Spring, 2014 Flash Fiction issue of New World Writing and swooning over some of the lines. It is said that in flash, you have to make every word count, every sentence, and it’s true. There’s no room for the ordinary. Here are some of my favorites: How many Monarchs are there?
“A lot of people…when they’re hurting, they turn hard and want to close themselves off and love less….but what about the people who open up even more…want to love even more than before? Those people interest me. Those are my favorite kind of people. God bless those people. That’s the kinda person I want to
Love this. “Art can and should do a million things. But speaking purely for my own tastes, I want art that makes the world seem more unreal. I want fiction that can crumble the world and build it back into something new. This does not have to be done through a form of non-realism though.
When Jane was greedy, her mother would say she had a little pink pig inside her. All you do is want and take, sweetie, she said. They moved into a new house when Jane started high school. A bigger one they could all fit into, in a better neighborhood, but Jane liked the old house