Flash Fiction Chronicles

by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

I don’t want you to read my story.

I want you to hear my voice in your head.  I want you to feel as though I’ve been telling you something you just can’t stop listening to.

Or that you were walking past a doorway, heard something going on, stopped to listen.

I don’t want to frustrate you, lie to you, or disrespect your intelligence.

But I want you to be so intrigued by what I’m telling you that you’re willing to think it over in your own mind, take the time to make sense of what I’ve said.

I want you to feel that the characters were fully alive before you encountered them, and that a backstory, and perhaps an afterstory, feels not only possible, but undeniable.

Sometimes a story falls right out of my head onto the page.  The voice is already authentically alive and all I am doing is making it tangible for you.  Sometimes I want to write about something–that happens when the title falls out of my head without anything else attached to it.  Those are the stories I struggle with.  Those are the ones where–sometimes for months–I can’t find the right voice.  I have to leave those stories alone, let them sit quietly on their own, until that extraordinary moment when I’m reading the draft for the tenth time and a voice emerges that refuses to be shaped to an artificial demand, and goes ahead and tells its own story.

This is how the character thinks and speaks.  It might not be correct–but it’s right.

Sometimes, when editors have questioned a grammatical choice in one of my stories–one that might be technically wrong–my only defense is that it sounds right in my head.  This is how the character thinks and speaks.  It might not be correct–but it’s right.

That’s not to say I’m too big for my britches to revise an unsatisfactory story.  I’ve learned–painfully sometimes–that when editors say a story isn’t ready to be accepted, they’re usually right.  When that happens, it’s usually a plot weakness.  Occasionally, though, it’s because I hadn’t found the right voice.

A story worth reading isn’t words on a page–but the compelling recounting of a tale.

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Sarah Crysl Akhtar’s shtetl forebears gifted her with the genes that impel her to make much from little. So of course she writes flash fiction, cultivates orchards on her windowsill and bakes fabulous shortbread.  Her son gives her what’s immeasurable–the best of all possible worlds.

by Andree Robinson-Neal

“Why do you write?”

The question has stirred the souls of countless authors, most notably George Orwell and subsequently Joan Didion, who both share the idea that writing is a selfish enterprise during which we engage all the senses in an examination of ourselves; we write to put “I” in every scenario, image, and feeling. Orwell describes himself as a Robin Hood, destined to always be hero while Didion describes the experience of creating art out of one’s perspective through a pen put to paper. Having moved into a highly technological age, writers are now able to avail themselves of online writing communities in which their work is critiqued by their genre-similar colleagues and where there are opportunities to pool resources on short stories or multi-chapter sagas. The “I” is still very present in many of these offerings but there is the new element of “We” that collaborative efforts bring. I find that I am guilty of using writing in ways described by both Orwell and Didion, in that I long to express my personal artistic perspective through the descriptions, images, and feelings that I attribute to my characters.

“Why write for prompts?”

A writer’s motivation comes from any and every experience he or she has in a given day. Like many people who write, I keep a notebook near the bed so I can jot down ideas as they come to me in the middle of the night. I also keep one in the car so I can take down notes about interesting things that I see during my commute. Unfortunately, many of those wonderful thoughts were being left in the notebooks or the ideas behind them grew stale with time.

 Prompts are not meant to be a substitute for that next great novel writing experience but are a way to hone writing skills.

I then happened upon the concept of writing prompts and was able to start crafting stories around many of those midnight scribbles and roadside commentaries. Prompts allow me to combine my penchant for personal expression with the freshness that collaboration can provide by offering an idea, a photo, or a line about which I can craft more of the story. I understand that publishers are looking for memorable characters and a solid storyline but when I have a partial picture in my mind, for example of an alien anniversary celebration, a prompt might just be the thing that helps me fill out that incomplete image with which I began, especially if my finished project is shorter than what a journal-ready short story might require.

Prompts offer a writing challenge. The collaboration comes through someone else’s inspiration, to which I and other writers are responding; some sites run the prompts as contests, where the winner of today’s challenge provides the image or set of words for the next round. The need to contribute my artistry is satisfied because my take on a prompt is just that—my own unique vision in as many or as few words as I find necessary. A quick search through the “Flash Fiction Markets” page here will yield sites that offer writers the opportunity to respond with anywhere from six to an unlimited number of words per submission, or to respond in “tweet” fashion (with 140 characters).

…many of those wonderful thoughts were being left in the notebooks or the ideas behind them grew stale with time.

Prompts are not meant to be a substitute for that next great novel writing experience but are a way to hone writing skills. Many blogs and websites offer daily or weekly prompts designed to keep creative juices flowing regularly and to keep writers writing. Such sites are open to new and seasoned writers alike; contributors comment on one another’s posts and I find that the constructive criticism I receive helps me develop as a writer. I highly recommend the practice of writing for prompts and hope to continue on a regular basis.

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Andreé Robinson-Neal got bit by the writing bug back in the late 1970s while watching Rod Serling and reading Ray Bradbury; although she has worked in education for more than a quarter-century, she has never been cured of her penchant for speculative fiction. Find some of her flash fiction www.starvingartist.wordpress.com. She writes under the name AR Neal, who will hopefully one day be identified as a famous NaNoWriMo participant…

by Jim Harrington

Stephen Ramey‘s story, “Jump,” won the 2013 String-of-10 FIVE Patricia McFarland Memorial Prize for the story that best incorporated this year’s theme. The contest challenge was to use four out of ten prompt words in a 250 or fewer word story. Those words were: EVENING-QUARRY-ACCENT-ROSE-TEAR-MINUTE-GRAVE-CLOSE-ENTRANCE-BOW. An aphorism was provided for inspiration, but not necessarily to be used in the story. Here is the one for this contest: “I want to put a ding in the universe.” -Steve Job

 To find our more about the contest, go to the String-of-10 FIVE Guidelines. (http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/string-of-10-five-starts-feb-3/)

Now for:

 Jump

 fiction by Stephen V. Ramey

 Eric was the boldest of us, the brother who grew a beard, and taunted teachers to suspend him in the minute before the period bell. I was with him when he got his tattoo, a rose pushing from a grave, petals changing into fingers as they tore from the bloom. “It’s symbolic,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand.” Scabs marked his inner arm.

I thought of bee stings, the pustules that would follow. “Symbolic” was a word I had learned in school, how one picture might mean something else. A heart for love, a skull for death, a spiral for our DNA. I tried to speak, but the buzzing needle drowned me.

That evening he drove us to the limestone quarry. Cheryl made sandwiches, and we settled on the hood to watch the sunset. While shadow filled the excavation we talked about Mom and Dad, how they had lost track of who we were. How maybe we should re-introduce ourselves.

“Fuck that,” Eric said. “I want to make my own dent, don’t you?” He tossed his crust aside, hopped down, and ran full speed over the quarry’s edge. For a moment he hung there, legs pumping, and then he fell. I held my breath, waiting for the splat that would mean he had hit one of the imperfect blocks left to rot in green water.

A splash. My breath came free.

A year later Eric left us for the city, limestone buildings stacked up to the sky, and thorned with needles.

 _________________

 Interview with Stephen V. Ramey

by Jim Harrington

 Flash Fiction Chronicles: I like the way you set up this reader’s expectations with your description of Eric in the first sentence. I knew he was going to do something “different.” How important do you feel beginnings are to a story? Do yours go through many rewrites?

Stephen Ramey: Thanks, Jim. I take great pride in beginnings, and I think they’re crucial to drawing a reader into the story. The shorter the story, the more important they are. My typical process is to try out several opening lines/paragraphs before I actually launch into the story. I have to find something that interests me personally before I can really go on. Once I do find a beginning, I can trust the process. I often have no idea where the story will go, but the seeds of that ending are almost always planted when I commit to an opening. It’s at that point that I understand on some level that I’m undertaking a worthwhile journey.

FFC: Did you choose the prompt words prior to beginning the story, or did they evolve as part of the process?

SR: A little bit of both, actually. Several words evoked a setting for me. With that established in the back of my mind, I found a character who interested me, and then concentrated on creating story action and tension. I allowed the prompt words to guide some aspects of this process (e.g. the rose tattoo, which ended up being rather important), but was much more interested in creating a gripping scene than incorporating the actual words.

FFC: Your story won the Patricia McFarland Memorial Award for best use of the aphorism. Did you know how Eric was going to leave his mark before you began writing?

SR: I had absolutely no idea. As the story developed, I saw that it was obviously about family dynamics, and I hit upon the idea of family dysfunction described in terms of a formal relationship, how they “had lost track of who we were. How maybe we should re-introduce ourselves.” That intrigued me, but it also stalled me out. Where to go from there? Fortunately, Eric is ADD. He had no use for that thinking, and thrust himself into the narrative in a pretty unforgettable way. It was at that point that everything came together. I went back to add the drug thread as a way to tie the pieces together and provide more tension to release in the resolution. Once Eric started running toward that cliff, I saw that he was forcing me back on topic. He was reminding me of the prompt text. I guess I owe him a drink or a lap dance or something.

FFC: Do you enter contests often?

SR: Maybe one or two a year.

FFC: Do you find yourself drawn to particular themes or genre?

SR: I like to think I’m drawn to Science Fiction and Fantasy, but that’s not entirely accurate. What I’m drawn to, it seems, is the dark, quirky places in our human soul. I like Science Fiction because I care about our future, and Fantasy because I long to foster good and vanquish evil. In the end, though, it seems I’m always more interested in character than idea, how we dress our desires in Burqas, simple to outward appearance, but many-layered within.

FFC: Writing a 250 word story isn’t easy. What advice do you have for writers regarding short-shorts?

SR: Write lots of them. Cast out the ugly ones that merely squeal for attention. Keep the ones that give you that Mona Lisa smile.

FFC: What can we expect to read next from Stephen Ramey? What are you working on currently?

 SR:  I’m glad you asked. My first collection of (very) short fiction, Glass Animals, has just been published by Pure Slush books, and is garnering positive comments from the folks who have found and read it. If your readers would like to number among these enlightened few, please send them to http://pureslush.webs.com/store.htm#899065535. I’m writing a serial novel at JukePop Serials, a steampunkish tale of class tensions and masonic alchemy entitled The Golden Heart of the World (http://www.jukepopserials.com/home/read/259). I’m also working on the next Triangulation anthology, and the big honking fantasy novel I wrote with my wife over a ten year span is being marketed by our agent. And, of course, I’ll be writing weekly at Show Me Your Lits (http://www.showmeyourlits.com) and co-moderating the popular Write 1 Sub 1 site (http://www.write1sub1.com). Stop by and set a while, y’hear?

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/stephenramey

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Jim Harrington began writing fiction in 2007 and has agonized over the form ever since. His stories have appeared in Every Day Fiction, Liquid Imagination, Ink Sweat and Tears, Near to the Knuckle, Flashes in the Dark, and others.  He serves as the Interim Managing Editor for Flash Fiction Chronicles (http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/).   Jim’s Six Questions For . . . blog (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/) provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.”  You can read more of his stories at http://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

Robert Vaughan was the second-place winner in FFC’s 2013 String of 10 Contest, with his story “A Gauze, A Medical Dressing, A Scrim”.  The challenge was to use four of the ten prompt words in a 250 or fewer word story.  The word choices were: EVENING – QUARRY – ACCENT – ROSE – TEAR – MINUTE –GRAVE – CLOSE – ENTRANCE – BOW.  An aphorism was provided for inspiration, but not necessarily to be used in the story.  This contest offered, “I want to put a ding in the universe” – Steve Job.

 To find out more about the contest, go to the String-of-10 FIVE Guidelines.  (http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/string-of-10-five-starts-feb-3/)

Here is Robert Vaughan’s award-winning story…

 A Gauze, A Medical Dressing, A Scrim

 Gauze

When they converted the basement into his room, Billy was too young to know any differently. He just wanted his own space, didn’t want to share it with his five older siblings anymore. Then when he was around ten, he stopped eating dinner with the rest of the family. His mother placed his dinner plate on the top stair every evening. In exchange he only communicated by minute notes he’d send or receive by pulley-pails through the laundry drop.

A Medical Dressing

One time when Ethyl, the family dachshund, accidentally ventured downstairs, she was never seen again. Same for one sister, Darla, who thought she’d left a sweater atop the laundry machine. Disappeared. Eventually Billy was indistinguishable from any basement dweller, resembling the spider realm. Webs. Gossamer silver. Tears. Detecting vibrations, lurking toward eventual prey.

The family nearly forgot he existed.

A Scrim

Then one day while folding laundry, his mother noticed a note and she decided to read it aloud to the rest of the children at dinner that night: Here is your stormy day, the one with pressing clouds and chilling breeze. Here is your way you fall in step, synchronize laughs and moderate beliefs, acclimatize moods and medications. Here, then your last vestige of blue sky and fortitude. A mélange of mercurial designations. Bastion of sailboats emptying out horizons.

They all craned their necks toward the basement entrance.

Robert Vaughan leads writing roundtables at Redbird- Redoak Writing. His prose and poetry can be found in numerous journals.  His short fiction, “10,000 Dollar Pyramid” was a finalist in the Micro-Fiction Awards 2012.  ”Ten Notes to the Guy Studying Jujitsu” was a finalist in the Gertrude Stein Award for Fiction 2013.  He is senior flash fiction editor at JMWW, and Lost in Thought magazines.  He was the head judge for Wisconsin People & Ideas 2012 Fiction contest. He hosts Flash Fiction Fridays for WUWM’s Lake Effect, and his book, Flash Fiction Fridays, is at Amazon.  His prose & poetry chapbook, Microtones, is with Cervena Barva Press.  His blog contains more fascinating facts at http://rgv7735.wordpress.com.

 Karen Nelson:  How did you approach the challenge of the writing prompt?  Tell us how the story evolved.

Robert Vaughan: I wrote the first draft about four months ago. There were several personal things going on that went into this bizarre tale. The short list might include illnesses in extended family, year end holidays, a trip to Mexico, movies like “Lincoln,” and a chapbook section called Basement Tapes that I was creating (I’m currently shopping a new project called Amnesia in two parts: Absences and Basement Tapes.)

The last thing I did is to figure out how I could use the necessary words from the list that FFC provided with the contest rules.

There is a writing prompt called a word bank that I have done numerous times and I think this practice played into this last step. How could a word like grave, for example, be used as a verb or adverb?  Mincing up words and their use is one of my favorite things to do as a writer. However, this question leaves me wondering if I can ever pinpoint exactly how any story evolves, or what goes into a first, a fifth, or a fifteenth draft?

KN:  You have an unusual title.  Explain how the title affects or explains elements of the story.

RV:  I edit for two different magazines, so I read a lot of submissions. Too often titles give a story away all up front. I prefer suggestive titles that mystify, or give you pause, make you go, “hmm!” My title derives from the medical world on some literal plane, and the triptych, or three sections arrived in later drafts. I love to play with form, mix things up, and to challenge myself (and the reader possibly?) The use of three “sections” of this are akin to stanzas in poetry. They allow for breath, or time, and the reader can digest the dense paragraphs more easily. There is a consistent feeling in re-reading and assessing them that there might be a wound, or a filmy consistency to these that all add up to the strange and quirky essence of the overall character of the piece.

I like to write about characters in the shadows, down and out, homeless, in transition. Someone you might barely notice.

I write about what isn’t there, what’s missing, disappeared.

KN:  The boy seems to metamorphose in an almost Kafka-esque way.  Is this theme of change common in your work?  What seems to be the familiar thread that readers can find in your writing?

RV:  Kafka-esque! I like this, I also was very honored that Kathy Fish at the FFC site compared my work to Wes Anderson or David Lynch! Yes, there are some threads in this piece that are linked to other short fiction of mine. Humans morphing into other creatures, or shape- shifting into other forms, a la Kafka. Also the haunting or dark tone of “A Medical Dressing” then shifts with the lyrical prose-poetry of the note the boy leaves in “A Scrim.” Perhaps I am pushing the element of change (a given constant in life) to extremes. I relish surprises, and unsuspected twists in short condensed sentences. One interesting reader commented that he thought the boy (“Billy”) might be autistic. Certainly with a line like “The family nearly forgot he existed” I am inferring an outsider. I like to write about characters in the shadows, down and out, homeless, in transition. Someone you might barely notice. I write about what isn’t there, what’s missing, disappeared. Flights of fancy always comes to mind. Letting my imagination wander without limitation, then seeing where it needs to be sculpted, or shaped.

KN:  The ending carries a sense of expectation.  What do you believe is going to happen next?  What is the boy communicating in his final note, and are we to determine that it IS his final message, or is it a lost message from some time ago?

 RV: The ending does have an (hopeful? fatalistic?) open-ended quality. One aspect of flash fiction that is vital to me is use of “white space.” Knowing when to let the reader interpret for his or her own enjoyment, and the element of trust. So often an author is a little heavy handed, or guides the reader too much. In this story, I wanted the possibilities to be endless. As for the note he leaves, the repetition of the word Here brings about an immediacy yet one has to wonder Where does he mean exactly? The amorphous imagery, and the use of the word “bastion” in the sentence with “sailboats employing out horizons” is a paradox, which conjures the reader to wonder- is the entire note a seeming contradiction (tone, message, the way it is revealed?) So, we don’t know – is he “gone?” Was he “real?” It is disarming, and we are left to wonder the very same questions you’ve asked me here. Do we ever really know what happens when one leaves us?  A child?

KN:  Thank you for sharing your writing process with us.  Are there any other tips or secrets you would like to share with those just getting started in flash fiction?

RV: Write every day, or at least as often as you can. I do recommend reading Flash Fiction also. Kathy Fish’s chapbook Laughter, Applause. Laughter, Music, Applause and in fact, the entire collection of A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness from Rose Metal Press is a fantastic place to start. I also recommend the same press’s Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction by Tara Masih. Fantastic.

Read the online and print journals, like FFC, PANK, Wigleaf, JMWW. There is a world of flash fiction books from great writers available. My new book, Microtones, has just been released from Cervena Barva Press!

I also can honestly say I’d not be the same writer without writer’s groups. I lead two writing roundtables at Rebird-Redoak Writing and also bring in pages in another group. I do weekly prompts with local writers every Saturday and workshop in a small online group, also. Getting feedback on your work from those writers and readers you trust is vital. Don’t be afraid to edit your piece. This particular story morphed no less than ten times before submission for the FFC Contest. It’s one of the benefits of short fiction- you can fine-tune it, and please try! Each single word is vital to the overall story. Try to omit over-used words. Read it aloud, consider the aural effects. Is there unexpected tension(s)? Do you trust the reader?

These are all great questions! Thanks for this great opportunity, Flash Fiction Chronicles. I am deeply honored.

______________________________________

Karen Nelson is a writer in the Ozark mountains of Southwest Missouri.  Her years of teaching in the public sector and interest in young adult literature have led her to write integrated theme units for some of today’s best YA authors, as well as a host of teaching aids and lessons for fellow educators.
Her historical and local interest articles have been published in The Ozarks Mountaineer Magazine, All Roads Lead to Branson, The Independent Scholar, and online news journals.  She writes regularly on her blog (kbnelson.wordpress.com) and participates in weekly writing challenges with the Friday Fictioneers and Reason2Rhyme.  She is currently the Technical Editor for Flash Fiction Chronicles, and the Curriculum Coordinator for Goldminds Publishing.  She homeschools her two children from their small hobby farm, where every day brings fresh eggs and fresh ideas.

by Jim Harrington

I’ve been thinking about the kinds of articles I’d like to see here and came up with the idea for a series called 5 Tips For____.  I know.  That sounds an awful lot like Six Questions For. . .
(http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/).  Anyway, I thought this post would be the perfect inaugural piece to give the idea a try.

 If a 5 Tips For___ topic comes to mind as you’re reading, write it up and send it to us.

(http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/about/)

We’re open for business!

With 210 entries, String-of-10 FIVE was our most successful contest yet. We received many wonderful submissions and a few that, quite honestly, left the judges shaking their heads.  I want to thank Gay Degani, Aliza Greenblatt, and, especially Kathy Fish for helping judge the contest.  Based on the stories submitted, here are my five tips for submitting to writing contests.

Tip #1: Follow the rules

With so many stories vying for four prizes, a writer can’t afford to make silly mistakes. The rules for the String-of-10 contest specifically state that a story must use a minimum of four prompt words and be no more than 250 words. 251 or more words disqualified a story.  A handful of entries fell into this category.  A second handful contained stories that used fewer than four prompt words.  These were also disqualified.  Yes, we counted.

Tip #2: Don’t write about the first thing that comes to mind

We ended up with a lot of stories set in graveyards and big stone pits.  Not that this hindered the writer.  The winning story for the Patricia McFarland Memorial Prize, “Jump” by Stephen V. Ramey, was partially set in a quarry.  Still, I got a little antsy after reading fifty stories set in a quarry on a dark, ominous night.

When writing for a contest, I often sit down with paper and pencil and create a list of story ideas.  Then I cross off the first four and start from there.  Why?  Probably everyone else who plans on entering has written a story based on one of those top four ideas.

Tip #3: Spelling and grammar count

I don’t look for problems with grammar and spelling when I read a story.  I don’t have to.  They jump off the page all by themselves.  There were a few stories that didn’t make it past the first cut simply because they were poorly crafted.  In at least one case, the story idea was good, but the grammar was atrocious. There’s no way writing like that is going to win a contest, especially when competing against 209 other entries.

Tip: #4: Dare to be different

I don’t mean write a story about space aliens (oh wait, we had a few of those), or send a poem to a prose contest (yep, we received one of them, too).  But think about other meanings for the prompt words. Grave has multiple connotations. Explore them. Pull out your dictionary and make a list of the definitions before you start. Set your story someplace not suggested by the prompt words.

Gay looked at word use in the entries. Here’s what she found.

The words used most often were “evening,” “rose,” and “minute,” at around 13% each. The rest were evenly distributed. I liked that someone used “evening” as a verb, in that a character was “evening” out the dirt around a grave in an OCD way.  With “rose,” the sun rose, people rose, characters were named Rose, and things were rose-hued or rose-tinted.  “Minute” was most often used as time, but was occasionally used to describe something small.  Though “quarry” wasn’t used quite as much as the other three, it was used with interesting variety: the “Ali-Quarry” fight set the tone for one story; it served as someone else’s last name; most often it became a noun, a pit where rocks were removed and as a verb, removing or retrieving something from somewhere larger. It was also used as prey, of course.

“Tip #5: Have another writer read your entry

Yes, you only had a week to write and submit a story.  That’s no excuse.  I’ve participated in a 24-hour contest a few times and was asked to join a critique group set up specifically for that
challenge.  Another set of eyes may see things in your story that you miss, things that may make the difference between winning (or at least making it past the first round) and sulking around the house because you didn’t.

Following these tips won’t guarantee you’ll win the next contest you enter, but they should help improve your chances.

We plan on running a String-of-10 SIX in February of 2014. We hope to read your stories then, too. Maybe we’ll hit 310 entries.  Oh gosh, did I really wish that on myself?  And rumor has it that our guest judge for 2014 will be the one and only Gay Degani.  But that’s our little secret. Shhh…

Beginning Monday, we will publish interviews with the winners of this year’s contest. Give them a read and leave a comment for the authors. We know they’ll appreciate it.

_____________________________

Jim Harrington began writing fiction in 2007 and has agonized over the form ever since. His stories have appeared in Every Day Fiction, Liquid Imagination, Ink Sweat and Tears, Near to the Knuckle, Flashes in the Dark, and others. He serves as the Interim Managing Editor for Flash Fiction Chronicles (http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/). Jim’s Six Questions For . . . blog (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/) provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” You can read more of his stories at http://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

by Rumjhum Biswas

  Abha Iyengar is an internationally published poet, author and creative writing mentor. Her work has appeared in Pure Slush, Bewildering Stories, Danse Macabre,Muse India, New Asian Writing  and others. Her story, ‘The High Stool” was nominated for the Story South Million Writers Award (2007). She co-produced a poem-film, ‘Parwaaz’ (2008) which won the Special Jury prize in Patras, Greece. She was the Lavanya Sankaran  Writing  Fellow at the Sangam Residency(2009-10).

Abha is a certified Creative Writing Mentor from the British Council. Her published works are “Yearnings” (poetry), “Flash Bites” a collection of her flash fiction and her fantasy novel “Shrayan”. Read more at her website: www.abhaiyengar.com  and  Blog: http://www.abhaencounter.blogspot.com

‘There is promise and light in concrete

Opportunity in glass’ ~Abha Iyengar

Rumjhum Biswas:  When did the writing bug bite you and what happened next?

Abha Iyengar: On September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers fell, I was in the middle of writing my first story to be sent online for a writing competition. So I remember the time well. This was the start of my online writing contributions. Before that, in the non-virtual space, I had published a few poems in Femina, won a Haiku writing competition, but these were flash-in-the-pan things. I was not very encouraged by the desultory response of the Indian magazines and journals till the internet bug bit me. International literary journals snapped up my writing and now I have this rash of writing that never leaves me ever since the bug bit. Thank you, Internet Writing Bug.

RB:  Did anyone mentor you or encourage your writing as a child?

AI: My father bought us books by the dozen. My mother never insisted we do household chores so I spent my time reading and day-dreaming. And of course, we borrowed and swapped with friends and did whatever was required to get our hands on books and comics. I grew up in Calcutta (now Kolkata), which has literature coming out of its pores like breath. We received beautiful books as prizes at my school there, and I won many. I read Lorna Doone and A Tale of Two Cities in class 5. In class 7, I had this very smart, short-haired teacher of English who wore hipster cotton saris and smoked cigarettes, and she  loved my essays (e.g. ‘Autobiography of an Old Shoe’). We kind of worshipped each other. I think I realized then that I could write.

I do not believe, however, that any one writer has influenced me or that I have wanted to style my writing after anyone. I think all my reading leads to my writing.

RB:   Tell us about the writers who inspired you when you were young?  Who are the writers you feel you have learned from/influenced your writing?

AI:  Younger days I loved Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, P.G. Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, Guy de Maupassant, Premchand. At age 13, I read Harper Lee. I could not get over Scott and Atticus Finch and Boo Radley. Then there was a spate of Leon Uris, James Hadley Chase, Harold Robbins, Arthur Hailey, John Grisham, a novel a night.

Saadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chugtai, I read later, and I think their kind of radical, truthful and hard-hitting writing is the kind of writing I always want to do. Neil Gaiman is a favourite and so is Paolo Bacigalupi. Angela Carter. Elif Shafak. Khaled Hosseini. Closer to home and recently, Jerry Pinto. The writers whose work I enjoy are too many. I do not believe, however, that any one writer has influenced me or that I have wanted to style my writing after anyone. I think all my reading leads to my writing.

Flash is all about jumping in. You need to jump into the story, into the action.

RB:  You love flash fiction and have published a book of flash stories apart from your many publications. Tell us about your journey into this form.

AI:  Flash was all the rage online at the time I began writing and still is. My first flash ‘Tunnel Vision’ got accepted at Insolent Rudder. My writing was called ‘visceral’ by the editor (a compliment I have not forgotten) and after that there was no looking back.

I find writing flash is the easiest and best thing for me. Also, if there is any labour in it, I don’t feel it, it is totally a labour of love.

RB:  What is a typical writing day for you like?

AI:  I grab the day by its shoulders and try to write as much as I can. The thing is that the best ideas come to me when I am going to bed, and then I have to pen the thoughts down, for they never come back. So I scribble something half-asleep and then try to decipher it next morning and am amazed at what I have written. I do not remember those visitations in the morning.

E- publishing is the best thing that has happened to writers. Writers don’t have to wait anymore to be discovered by traditional publishing houses.

RB:  In the workshops that you conduct for fiction and poetry, what is the most common drawback that you find among your students?  What advice do you generally give to aspiring writers, especially for flash fiction?

AI:  Some students are self-conscious and hesitant. The word ‘I can’t’ is often on their lips. That changes when they realize that they actually can write. The shattering of inhibitions occurs in my writing class.

Flash is all about jumping in. You need to jump into the story, into the action. You don’t have the time nor space to use too many words. Also, there is a plot, a story line. For me, the title is of grave importance, for where words are scarce, the title can hold a lot of meaning. The last sentence has to be a kicker. It should be the final punch that makes everything fall…into place.

RB:   Tell us about your experience with e-publishing. Do you think this is what is best for flash fiction books?

AI:  E- publishing is the best thing that has happened to writers. Writers don’t have to wait anymore to be discovered by traditional publishing houses. The huge time benefit is there, apart from everything else. It is a good thing not only for flash fiction books but for all books.

I send myself long messages as I travel in an auto etc. Sometimes I lose my way because I concentrate more on the writing than on where the auto-driver is taking me. Or he bills me too much. But a story on the move is worth it, isn’t it? You lose some to win some.

RB:  What flash fiction genres do you enjoy reading and of course writing most?

AI:  Weird. Funny. Black. Touching. Not really genres, but there you are. Slot as you will.

RB:  Is there a flash fiction genre that is more popular than others? Do you agree? What do you think?

AI:  Yes.  Flash takes very well to weird and surreal. I am so clued on to that.

RB:   What is the shortest flash piece that you ever wrote? How did it challenge you?

AI:  I wrote a 50 word story called “The Masterpiece” for Blink Ink’s Special Noir print issue of September 2011. No challenge. I love cutting out the excess, trimming the story to size. For me it is a very expressive mode.

RB:   Do you have a special place for writing? What do you do when inspiration strikes you? Are you one of those always-carry-a-notepad-and-pen writers?

AI:  My laptop looks for a fine, flat surface to sit on, I look for some quiet in the environment, and voila, we are in business. I do have a desk, and it usually works as the flat surface. I work from home, so when everyone leaves for the office, I get my quiet time. Of course, I have to choose to ignore the doorbell and other such sundry intrusions.

I am one of those carry-your-mobile-on-the-fly writers. The tech-savvy kind. I send myself long messages as I travel in an auto etc. Sometimes I lose my way because I concentrate more on the writing than on where the auto-driver is taking me. Or he bills me too much. But a story on the move is worth it, isn’t it? You lose some to win some.

RB:   What are you working on now? Any plans for a second volume of flash?

AI:  Most recently, I have a story featured at Flash Frontier.  There are, of course, all  kinds of collections that are to happen: flash, short stories, poems. A novel. Nothing is ever enough. The Bug is insistent.

Read more works by Abha Iyengar at:

• www.abhaiyengar.com
• ‘SHRAYAN‘ an adult fantasy novel at Amazon Kindle:
• ” Flash Bites” a flash fiction e-collection on Amazon Kindle, BibliocracyE,  and smashwords
• ‘Yearnings‘, a poetry collection

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Rumjhum K Biswas has been published all over the world and has won prizes for her poery and fiction, including first prize in the 2012 Anam Cara Short Story Contest. Lifi Publications India is publishing her novel Culling Mynahs and Crows and also her book of short fiction The Vanishing Man and Other Imperfect Men this year.

 by Jim Harrington

 New Markets

• Static Movement (1000, monthly) Speculative fiction and poetry – View guidelines
• Postcard Poems & Prose (250, monthly) Open to most fiction and poetry – View guidelines
  
• Conium Review, The (1500, bi-annual) Literary fiction and poetry – View guidelines
  
• Funny Times ($, 700, monthly) Humor fiction – View guidelines
  
• Literary Juice (100-600, bi-monthly) Literary fiction and poetry – View guidelines
• Fireside Magazine ($, 1000, varies) Open to most fiction – View guidelines
  
• One Word (100, daily) Open to most fiction and poetry - View guidelines
• pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture (1500, bi-annual) Open to most fiction and poetry - View guidelines
• ARDOR Literary Magazine ($, 1500, triannual) Literary fiction and poetry - View guidelines

If you’ve visited the Markets page in the past few days, you’ve noticed a change in format. We are in the process of creating a search page for finding publications by word count, genre, etc., and this is the first step. While the word count headings no longer exist, the list is sorted by word count from lowest to highest.

View the complete listing.

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Jim Harrington began writing fiction in 2007 and has agonized over the form ever since. His stories have appeared in Every Day Fiction, Liquid Imagination, Ink Sweat and Tears,  Near to the Knuckle, Flashes in the Dark, and others. He serves as the Interim Managing Editor for Flash Fiction Chronicles. Jim’s Six Questions For . . . blog provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” You can read more of his stories at http://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

Susan Tepper writes fiction, poetry, interviews and essays. She is the author of four published books. Her current title “From the Umberplatzen” is a quirky love story set in Germany and told in linked-flash-fiction. Tepper has received 9 nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Her novel “What May Have Been” was co-authored with Gary Percesepe (Cervena Barva Press, 2010) and nominated for a Pulitzer. www.susantepper.com

Susan Tepper grew up on Long Islandwhere both her current books take place. What May Have Been: Letters of Jackson Pollock & Dori G is set in The Hamptons, home of the artist Jackson Pollock. In Tepper’s collection Deer & Other Stories, most of the stories are set on Long Island, or have a strong connection to The Island.

Before settling down to study writing, Tepper was an actor, flight attendant, marketing manager, tour guide, singer, television producer, interior decorator, rescue worker and more.

Rumjhum Biswas:  Reviewers of your work have called you a master of the short short fiction form, and a writer of spare prose who makes every word count. What is it about flash fiction that draws you?

Susan Tepper:  Rumjhum, you started with an intriguing question.  I’m actually drawn to longer fiction, as well, having written three full length novels (as of yet still unpublished).   For years I was the queen of the forty page short story.  But the ‘demographics’ for the short story began changing, and the magazines, with limited print space kept giving less and less space for stories.  The hand-writing, as they say, was on the wall.  Plus attention spans were changing in the culture.  I try and stay current as a writer.  But I think I picked up on the short form as an almost unconscious way of  assuring my survival.  I like getting published.  And there were many more opportunities for shorter fiction in the past five or so years.  I read it in the journals, and began to write it.  I seem to have gotten the knack.  I also think that being an economical type of poet has helped me to shape the fictional short form.

RB:  “From the Umberplatzen” is a novella that has effectively used the flash fiction form in its narration. Can you tell us about the inspirations and challenges during the writing process?

ST:  This question, or a variant, has come up before and I always sort of shudder and worry about what to say.  You see, I didn’t consciously sit down to write a novella in flash.  I just sat down one day and wrote one flash fiction.  Within it, the made up word Umberplatzen was born.  I’m the kind of writer who puts down one word and then the next, with no idea where the hell I’m going.  When that first story was done, I sent it out to Marcus Speh who published it in his kaffe inkatmandu.  I was so extremely happy!  Plus Marcus gave it a beautiful illustration to go along.  So I wrote another one.  A companion story which he also published.  And I was hooked.   I’m like a cat.  Stroke me and feed me, I’m yours.  Funnily, the female protagonist in “From the Umberplatzen” is a woman named Kitty who is called Kitty Kat by the male protagonist.  Marcus read about a half dozen of the stories as I was writing them, and he gave me encouragement.  In thanks, I dedicated the book to him.  Robert Olen Butler read the full manuscript early on and was extremely generous with his praise and wrote a gorgeous blurb for the back cover.  It was a project that brought me great joy.

RB:  Your Pulitzer nominated novel – What May Have Been – as well as your recent story collection – Deer and Other Stories – revolve around love. Is this a mere co-incidence? Or is love close to your heart as a theme for stories?

ST:  Love in all its myriad forms is most definitely a life theme for me as a writer.  The heart is the love core of the body and sends its signals to all the other organs.  I believe that people who can love others without expectation of return love are quite rare.  But they’re also probably very healthy.

RB:  You used to be part of a rock band. Can you tell us more about this part of your life and its effect on your writing? What has music taught you that helps your writing?

ST:  In the 80’s I was singing with any band who’d have me.  I did rock, country, folk, pop, you name it.  Well, not blues.  I couldn’t get a handle on blues music though I love it intensely.  I think all the arts intertwine and are feeders for each other.  I loved singing with the bands.  I loved the smoky rooms, purply-blue lights, stage, audience, musicians.  The intensity of it all.  It’s a sexy thing, being the girl singer in a band.  Sometimes it got a bit dangerous, a fight would break out in the audience or some other weirdness.  I remember ducking behind a bar in Keansburg,New   Jersey, to wait out a bar brawl.   Many of those experiences appeared years later on the page when I turned to writing.  I suppose it was a way of re-living those wild times.  Music has its way of opening you up, and in that regard I’m sure it helped me become the writer I turned into.

RB:  Have acting and reading plays early in your life played any part in the way you write?

ST:  Acting, oh yes.  When you are an actor you spend your life reading plays or scripts.  I read hundreds of plays which set my mind toward dialogue.  When I started writing, the dialogue flowed whereas the narrative was more difficult for me.  Acting characters made it easier for me to make characters feel alive on the page.  I think all writers could benefit from some acting classes.  Also, it’s such great fun!

Growing up I was mostly inspired by playwrights.  In my teens I read all of Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee William’s plays, Inge, and many others.   I was hell bent on becoming an actor, and so the plays were a normal progression.  I did read some fiction but I only remember reading Carson McCullers.  She knocked me out.

RB:  Can you share with us a typical writing day in your life?

ST:  My writing days are so atypical, and strange in some ways.  For instance, during the recent hurricane, we had no power so I spent my time working at a café in town that didn’t lose power and has wifi.  A lovely small café called Sandwich Theory.  It’s the kindest place imaginable with a staff of sweeties (Ben, Silvia, and Sonora) who served the food with grace and aplomb to hundreds during the outages.  They just never lost their cool!  Otherwise we may have starved!  Marcelo Silva, who owns the café, set up long tables in his hallway, with those multi-power adapters, so that people could get their work done!  Amazing!  We sat there, around twenty of us at a time, working on our computers shoulder to shoulder.  It was a warm and glorious experience in a period of cold uncertainty.  I also have a Mom who’s been sick a lot since the summer, and I’ve been writing from her hospital room, or in hospital corridors, waiting rooms, wherever.  All in all, it’s been an eclectic writing period for me.

RB:  When working on a piece have you ever turned flash into poetry and vice versa? Where does the line between flash fiction and poetry blur according to you? Where do they part ways?

ST:  I’ve never turned a poem into a flash, or vice versa.  It wouldn’t work for me.  I think form speaks for itself, dictates to its creator what it wishes to be.  It’s like sculpture, in a way.  If I were working on the human form in clay, I couldn’t turn it into an abstract object.  I don’t know the answer about where flash and poetry part ways.  My book “From the Umberplatzen” has been called: a novel, a novel in flash, a novella, prose poems, micro-fictions.  It all lies in the eyes of the beholder, I guess.

RB:   In an interview to Červená Barva Press you said “here was this suburban kid hanging at the farm, who went home for supper then read ‘The Great God Brown’ before bedtime. Mixing things up a bit, I think, but ultimately in a good way.” Can you tell us how all those things, including the music and acting, worked their way into your writing? I’m looking for specific stories and poetry here, if you can mention them. Any characters that were born of your varied interests and activities?

ST:  This is such a great question.  All my characters, female or male, animals, even, are a part of my own life energy.  For instance, when I wrote the voice of the artist Jackson Pollock, in my Cervena Barva Press novel “What May Have Been”, I was writing from my own pool of desires.  I let myself morph into Pollock, the way an actor inhabits a character.  Women have played male roles since before Shakespeare, and vice versa, so it wasn’t anything revolutionary that I wrote Pollock’s voice, or that my co-author Gary Percesepe wrote the voice of Dori, a made-up young woman who was Pollock’s love interest in this novel.  Jackson Pollock is my favorite American contemporary painter and so it was a great honor to be able to give voice to him in this way.

We sat there, around twenty of us at a time, working on our computers shoulder to shoulder.

In my collection “Deer & Other Stories” every single story has its roots in music.  I never realized it until Steve Almond pointed this out at a reading. Two that I’ll discuss here are Within You Without You and Elvis Out of the Meditation Garden.  Within You Without You is a title which I borrowed from the music of Beatle George Harrison.  It’s the driving metaphor of the story involving a young naïve woman who travels to India with the Beatles, and lives to tell about it some forty years later.  The other one, Elvis Out of the Meditation Garden, is a story I love reading aloud because it almost falls into farce when it’s read.  Plus I get to read Elvis’s voice which came out pretty authentic, or so I’ve been told.

RB:  Who were the writers that inspired you when you were growing up?

ST: Growing up I was mostly inspired by playwrights.  In my teens I read all of Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee William’s plays, Inge, and many others.   I was hell bent on becoming an actor, and so the plays were a normal progression.  I did read some fiction but I only remember reading Carson McCullers.  She knocked me out.

RB:  If you were to find yourself in a lift that’s jammed, which flash fiction writers’ works would you prefer to have with you to read? 

ST:  Uh, oh.  This is a semi-loaded question but I’ll answer anyway.  I’m entranced by what James Claffey is writing.  I will go with him because he saddens me in his deep Irish way, then makes me feel all is possible.

Read more in Susan Tepper’s interview with Pif Magazine at her website HERE

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Rumjhum K Biswas has been published all over the world and has won prizes for her poery and fiction, including first prize in the 2012 Anam Cara Short Story Contest. Lifi Publications India is publishing her novel Culling Mynahs and Crows and also her book of short fiction The Vanishing Man and Other Imperfect Men this year.

by Gill Hoffs

Gill Hoffs:  In the two years since you founded the straight talking site Pure Slush, you’ve gone from publishing non-fiction and themed flash fiction online, to putting together quirky themed print anthologies, single author collections (including mine – thanks!) and, most recently, the multi-authored novel gorge. What were the thrills and challenges that came from guiding 33 writers towards the common goal of a vibrantly written cohesive book – and what happened that you didn’t predict?

 Matt Potter:  Oh, gorge was both harder and easier to pull together than I thought. I can’t remember exactly when I realised what I and the other writers at the time – plus the few writers who fell by the wayside or pulled out … or stopped returning my emails – were working towards was a single and hopefully coherent story. But when I did, I started referring to it as “a novel in stories”, and that helped, certainly with convincing writers um, no, having your characters take a snack break in the desert is not going to work when all the action takes place on the coast of Maine, or no, your story is #42 so as the stories are chronological, yours takes place at night, so walking out and seeing the sun cast a shadow is not going to work either, and no, write what you want but please, don’t make any of your characters gay as we have so many gay characters in the book already and the town where it’s set only has 2000 residents, and it’s not Provincetown.

Over time a whole story arc, with character arcs within that larger arc, became apparent. And this was often the result of another writer – not me – writing an action or a revelation that influenced events far beyond what he / she realised. Which of course, can happen in real life.

For example, Stephen V. Ramey introduced a minor character, quite of his own accord: a graffiti artist, who witnesses Stephen’s main characters – a married couple – arguing over the menu, in the story Maine Thing. He has bright orange hair and smokes, this artist, though Stephen did not give him a name. So I thought, OK, who can introduce this character earlier in the book? I asked Mark Rosenblum if he would write this character, and sent him Stephen’s story, so Mark’s story The Visit concentrates on the graffiti artist, and while it was written after Stephen wrote his story, it takes place earlier within the novel.

Later again, there is a bit of a pissing contest between the artist and two other characters – after Maine Thing takes place – one of whom was mostly written by Robert Vaughan: the headwaiter (also called) Robert. So, I sent Robert a detailed breakdown of the action that needed to happen, 5 or 6 or 7 actions, one after the other, and Robert, to his credit, took those instructions and created the very funny Commercial Break. All within 1500 words!

 Many writers wrote things that were better and more extensive and more inventive than I dreamed…

One of the things I realised during the making of gorge (yes, it has always been very cinematic to me, the whole gorge experience) is that some writers are skilled when it comes to writing with or around things … and others are not so good. Some, actually, cannot or refuse to do this, even if they say they will. And it did become a battle of wills at times. But as the editor – and I am credited as editor on the book – I had the overall vision, and thus, the say-so.

That said, many writers wrote things that were better and more extensive and more inventive than I dreamed, so that was really great. And the great far, far out weighed the not so great.

It also helped to have worked with all the writers involved beforehand, either for Pure Slush online or in other Pure Slush print anthologies, so I knew what they could do and how they work. All of the writers involved were approached by me (there was no general submission call) except Nathaniel Tower, who asked if he could be involved. But I had also worked with Nate too beforehand, and knowing what he writes and how he writes, I shot back the question, “What do you know about burnouts?” So Nate wrote the story Rubber, which then lead on to other stories by other writers. Often the plot development was very organic. And sometimes it was very planned. So gorge had the best of both worlds.

I didn’t expect the excitement the book has generated … and nor did I expect writers to simply stop returning my emails, whether they had completed stories, or not completed stories. So that was disappointing. But my general philosophy is, Come on this journey with me. It’ll be fun. And we might learn something along the way too. And many many writers responded to this, and that is always exciting.

 GH:  Do you have a favorite character from the cast of gorge? One whom you’d like to meet in real life, or found particularly entertaining – or who you enjoyed getting their comeuppance? Or perhaps there’s somebody you identified with in there?

MP:  I wrote two stories myself for gorge, from the viewpoint of Aileen Wintergarden, a therapist whose client is the owner of the restaurant where much of the action in gorge takes place. She’s a mean bitch, to put it mildly, she’s very to the point and a ball-breaker but a really sad case. If I have any favorite, it’s her. I did, after all, actively create her. (She’s going to crop up again too, in another book.) And Versy, the local cat lady created by Linda Simoni-Wastila in her story Lucky is similar but a bit more hopeful, and I loved her from the moment Linda first introduced her at the beginning of the story.

Would I like to meet Aileen? Absolutely not! I would cringe. But Versy, yes, I think I would like to meet her. And maybe Joyce Juzwik’s crazy lady in Special, but I think I would want to refer her for a mental health assessment as well!

I can’t for a moment think of any character I identify with … though maybe the errant husband in Maine Thing and the later Sauce. In Sauce he steps in to defend someone and that’s the sort of thing I am prone to do.

GH:  It’s certainly been exciting to be a part of gorge and to hear about its progress via FaceBook. You have other unusual anthologies lined up this year, for example Catherine about the famous Catherine the Great. One thing I like about Pure Slush is it’s always moving on and embracing the new, whilst always remaining identifiably the shot of espresso for the eyes that’s Pure Slush.

MP:  I saw an exhibition on the life of Catherine the Great when I visited Edinburgh in July last year, and that’s when I got the idea: where’s the truth in this? What if there were lots of truth? Catherine will be about the real woman the writers involved think she really was, or might have been! (Submissions close 31st March. More info can be found here: http://pureslush.webs.com/catherine.htm.)

I think it’s really important to be basically consistent in your style, to develop a recognizable image or brand or style or outlook. And I don’t mean that in a cynical way, not at all, or in a duping way either. People should know what to expect, basically, which does not mean you can’t surprise or thrill or titillate them.

The name Pure Slush says so much about the attitude of both the site and the books it produces: it’s highbrow and it’s trashy, both at the same time! Many sites and journals have names that are confusing or meaningless or have little to do with what they produce or how they see themselves. This is how I see Pure Slush juggling the ‘old’ (‘the identifiable shot of espresso’) and the ‘new’ (‘moving on’):

The new: each idea or theme or prompt, online or in print, is different and has not been done before, at least not on the site or in book form.

The old, or as I prefer, the consistent: the fun, sexy, humorous, “let’s all go on a journey, it’ll be fun and we might learn something” attitude.

GH:  Do you think you’d ever take on a novel in stories again or coming to know the PS writers better, is your focus tending more towards individual collections this year?

MP:  Both! Books for publication from January through to April are close to being finished – Glass Animals by Stephen V. Ramey, Hard by Dusty-Anne Rhodes, a poetry anthology called Versus., and obit. – so that’s one a month, but three (and maybe four) books by individual authors are also in various stages at the moment (more to come on those) while other anthologies are in different stages too. Sometimes Pure Slush puts out a general submission call for these anthologies, and sometimes we don’t.

But the big project for the year is still forming in my head … a therapy practice, with Aileen as one of the practitioners, probably in Seattle. (Aileen’s husband is a fish disease expert!) Set over a short time span, a week or a weekend or something … some writers have already been approached … so stay tuned.

GH:  Sounds intriguing!  Are there any dream projects you’d like to be involved in?  And for any would-be Pure Slush writers out there, are there any stories you wish somebody would send in – and any you wish they wouldn’t?

MP:  I’d like to finish my novella On the Bitch and I have a sex manual idea floating around … that’ll be fiction, but fun … and I’d love it if an editor asked me to write something in the way that I ask other writers, a collaboration or a solo effort or something. I do like working with others, and almost never do this as a writer. No one asks me!

But as for Pure Slush, I want a lot more writers to send Pure Slush work. More, please! Joyce Juzwik recently sent me an email, saying how much she loved being pushed into areas she would not have gone herself … and that’s fun, pushing writers in areas they might not have gone without being pushed, by me. They usually surprise themselves and often they surprise me too. It’s a bit like a film director saying to an actor, I have this great part for you, it’s not what you normally do but I think you’ll be really good at it. And you’ll have fun. I commission a lot of stories for Pure Slush. Become a Pure Slush Facebook friend – or a Facebook friend of mine. I’ve developed a number of ideas and commissioned a number of stories from writers’ Facebook updates. Anything is possible.

What do I wish they wouldn’t send in? I’ve had a raft of stories sent in recently where the writers did not read the submission guidelines either for themes or for length. This drives me nuts. I send a polite reply, stating where the guidelines are on the site, and suggesting maybe they have something else that fits the guidelines … but it really tries my patience. (And my partner’s, who tires of me complaining about it!) I lead a full life outside of Pure Slush, and your story may be the best in the world but I’m not going to read it if it doesn’t fit the prompt or the length.

GH:  One thing I’ve learned from where you’ve pushed me with the raunchier stories is length can be key … I hope you include something about that in the manual! Okay, one last quick question. Pure Slush promotes all the work on site equally – have you noticed any trends towards which pieces are most (and/or least) read? Any theories as to why?

MP:  The key word here is ‘self-promotion’. Those writers who are good at promoting their work always get more hits on their online stories than those who don’t. Every time someone’s work is newly-published on the site, I send them an email telling them so. Of course, those who’ve had work on the site before have received the email before, but it basically says, this is what we’ve done or are doing to promote your story … and this is what you can do. It’s a two-way street.

Of course, some writers have a wider audience, but often that’s because they’ve built a wider audience through their own efforts.

As for print, of course sales reflect some measure of what’s read. I hope.

 You can find Pure Slush at http://pureslush.webs.com/

 You can visit the taste of gorge page here: http://pureslush.webs.com/atasteofgorge.htm, and order the book here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/pure-slush/gorge-a-novel-in-stories-pure-slush-vol-4/paperback/product-20609218.html

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Gill Hoffs lives with her family in the North of England. Find her on facebook or as @gillhoffs on twitter, email her a dirty joke at gillhoffs@hotmail.co.uk, or leave a clean comment at http://gillhoffs.wordpress.com/ ‘Wild: a collection’ is out now from Pure Slush. Her nonfiction book about the Victorian Titanic will be published in January 2014 by Pen & Sword. 

by Aliza T. Greenblatt

Flash Fiction Chronicles interviewed Kevin McNeil about Every Day Fiction’s Top Story for January, “The Merry Jester“  a story about a family heirloom and the power of faith.

Aliza T. Greenblatt:  From your short bio it seems like you have been active in the writing community; attending two intense workshops, reading for Lightspeed and Nightmare, as well as conducting a few author interviews yourself.  From doing a quick search (and correct me if I’m wrong), “The Merry Jester” appears to be your first published story.  Congratulations!  How does it feel to be a published writer?

Kevin McNeil:  Thank you!  And you’re right. “The Merry Jester” is my first published story.  I began writing fiction in 2010, and attended Kij Johnson’s novel writing workshop in 2011, which was my first chance to learn some of the fundamentals.  So I’m still pretty new to all of this, and up until now, I’d pretty much kept everything I’d written to myself.  Putting things out there is scary, but it feels great to see it on-line at Every Day Fiction.

ATG:  Can you tell me a little about your writing process for this story?

KM:  My approach to this story was very different from how I normally work.  I blame Jeanne Cavelos, who is the director of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, which I attended in 2012.  One of the requirements of the workshop is the Odyssey Slam, where everyone in the class reads a flash story at a Barnes and Nobles.  I hadn’t written any flash stories, so I worked this up in order to have something to read

I’ll be honest — my only goal was to write something I could read without embarrassing myself.  I deliberately excluded dialogue in order to make the reading easier.  I’m still at a stage where most of what I write is an experiment to improve some aspect of my writing.  In this case, I wanted to write something very focused, with a consistent tone, that would get me back into my seat before anyone realized I didn’t know what I was doing.  And in the end, the Odyssey Slam turned out to be a great time.

ATG: Your bio says you work as a physical therapist and that you are a coach for the Special Olympics.  Has working with people who are combating personal challenges influenced this piece at all?  Or was it inspired by something else altogether?

KM:  I’m sure the work I do with people overcoming injuries and dealing with personal challenges influences most things in my life.  I love getting people back on their feet, and coaching kids I consider to be the greatest athletes in the world is incredibly rewarding.  In the case of this story, if my background was an influence at all, it was unconscious.

The inspiration for this story was a wooden marionette (like the one I described) my wife and I purchased while we were traveling in Prague a few years ago.  I usually like to take my time and plot out my story ideas, but with this one I just thought about the marionette and wrote to see what I’d come up with.  At first, it seemed to be straight horror, where the jester wasn’t such a good thing to have around your house.  Eventually, the story ended up in another direction, exploring the idea of faith, which is why there are some hints to religion in the word choices.

ATG:Part of what I found so interesting about this story is the idea of value and how it changes as a person changes, though the object remains the same.  The jester becomes more valuable when Matthew has more in life to lose.  Do you think the jester is created to protect its family or is it Matthew’s belief in it that gives it power?

KM:  I suppose this could be interpreted however the reader wants, but for me it’s Matthew’s belief that gives the jester power.  Belief is powerful.  There’s a Henry Ford quote I like: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”  In my experience, what you focus on, what you believe, is what you get.  We’re able to give a lot of things power in this way.  And if we believe we’re right (politics, religion, whatever), it’s difficult to convince us we might be wrong.

ATG: By the end of the story, Matthew suffers from a form of survivor’s guilt.  He comes to both love and fear the jester and will never let any harm come to it.  But it makes me wonder, what sort of stories will Matthew tell his daughter about the puppet, knowing that she will one day have to face its painted smile?  How will he handle his own guilt?

KM:  This is a tough question.  I left Matthew in a confused place where he needs the jester, but is also beginning to question it in some ways.  But I think Matthew is committed.  He’ll deal with his guilt, thinking it’s what he has to do to protect his family.  He believes what he’s been told about the jester, and he’s seen enough to confirm these things for himself.  I think Matthew will pass the information on to his daughter as it was told to him, so that she and her future family will also be able to live a healthy life.  But I don’t know if the faith of the next generation is ever as strong as the previous one.  What I wonder is whether the daughter will truly value the jester, or if she’ll end up putting it in a box in a closet.

ATG:  What other projects are you working on now?  Are there other stories of yours, either upcoming or published, that you can point readers to?

KM:  Right now I’m completely focused on short stories – working on my own ideas, and also reading stories for Lightspeed and Nightmare.  I have a sports mentality, and a lot to learn, so I feel like I’m still in training, putting in my practice time, trying new techniques, and challenging myself.  I’m just beginning to submit stories to magazines.  Even “The Merry Jester” took some arm-twisting from a friend to finally submit to Every Day Fiction.  I’m enjoying the work right now, and hopefully I’ll have some more out there for people to read soon – as much as that scares me.

ATG:  Thank you very much for taking the time to chat with us.  Best of luck with all your writing endeavors

KM:  Thanks for the great questions, Aliza.  Every Day Fiction had some really great stories in January.  So thanks to everyone who enjoyed “The Merry Jester.”

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Aliza T. Greenblatt works in a firmly non-writing field when the sun is up and writes under a desk lamp at night.  Fueled by a sheer love of books and a tyrannical imagination, she writes the stories that appear over her morning coffee and won’t leave her alone until they are put down on paper.  She writes, raves, and blogs at http://atgreenblatt.com. and on Twitter @AtGreenblatt