Fiction Writers Review » short-shorts

I’ll see your 140 characters and raise you 55 words.

Celeste Ng — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:00:42 +0000

We’ve talked about Twitterfiction quite a bit here on the FWR blog (see the Further Reading section, below), but meet a new form of microfiction: 55 Fiction.

Actually, 55 Fiction isn’t all that new: for years, The New Times, an alt-weekly paper in San Luis Obispo, California, has been running contests challenging writers to tell a story in 55 words or less. Here’s one of this year’s winners:

“Kinda Blue,” by John Garaci

Chillin’ on the sofa. Text from Michelle. She’s comin’ over. Roll a doobie. Play Kind of Blue. She melts at this song. thanks Messieurs Davis and Coltrane. She’s pregnant. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Working two jobs to pay child support. For sale on eBay: CD collection, played once.

You can see the rest of the winning stories–with illustrations–at the New Times’ website. And in case you get hooked, here are last year’s winners, too.

Further Reading:

Here’s a primer on Twitterfiction from the FWR blog archives.
If you’re skeptical of the literary value of these micro-forms, James Poniewozick makes his case.

Curl Up with Some Good Flash Fiction: Stories by Tara L. Masih

Anne Stameshkin — Sat, 14 May 2011 13:00:12 +0000

Short Story Month wouldn’t be complete without some first-rate flash fiction. This morning, enjoy the following selections by Tara L. Masih, editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction and author of the excellent collection Where the Dog Star Never Glows (Press 53, 2010) and the flash fiction chapbooks Fragile Skins and Tall Grasses.

Below are first-line teasers; click on each story title to read (or listen to) the rest.

“Dodging Frogs on Blackbird Road,” via Electric Flash (page 25 of the PDF)

Never mind hindsight . . . after stretching and straining our bodies in training one hot afternoon, slapping at flies that dove into our faces varnished with sweat, we returned to our cabin when darkness reminded us to wash up, dress up, head for the local bar…

“A Haunt of Memory,” via The Drum

Somehow, my friend Finneus makes do. He makes his way through life with a stick, an ear tuned into a different station, hands and feet that know this world better than you or I ever will…

“This Heat,” via Midway Journal

Bats are flying around on the third floor again. Trapped. We live on a hill, so the height attracts them…

“Fire Island, 1977,” via Apollo’s Lyre

My fourteenth birthday on Fire Island I was rocked by many things for the first time. It was the first time my mother let me go, having heard of the dangerous waves and of the men who wore earrings pierced through their nipples…

“Huldi (India 1990),” via the Asia Writes Project

Day 1, twilight

Surrounded by voices murmuring, laughing, and giggling as skin makes unaccustomed contact with her. She is the center of it all, sari radiating from her anointed body in iridescent petal folds. Women—relatives, friends, neighbors—hover about in a hum like honeybees eager to stroke and gather. What do they want? …

From the FWR Archives:

In 2009, Sophie Powell reviewed The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, edited by Tara L. Masih.

Thursday morning candy: Wigleaf

Lee Thomas — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:00:25 +0000

There’s something to be said for simplicity. An afternoon spent at the park. Only what you can fit in your pocket. A bowl of fresh apricots straight from the tree (sorry, New York has me dreaming of summer already).

Every time I visit Wigleaf, their clean design aesthetic, wide margins and punchy, brief stories of under 1,000 words feel like a cool drink of water on a hot day (even when I am looking at several inches of snow outside the window). Wigleaf started in 2008, and we have Scott Garson to thank for the design and main editing on the site. Wigleaf accepts submissions this year during the months of September, November, January and March. They publish new work at least twice a week – so there’s always some new candy up for your literary jonesing.

Grackles, Image Credit: Flickr

Their most recently posted story, “Plague of Grackles” by Jim Ruland, draws one of those sustained images that sticks with you through the day. In fact, a flock of birds I noticed settling on a rooftop cistern this morning made me think of being in rehab. Read the story, you’ll see what I mean. That’s one of the distinct pleasures of very short stories: they create such a fleeting scene or image that I often fill in the margins with further imagined bits and pieces of the characters’ lives.

Enjoy your Thursday morning candy. And to our readers in the Southern Hemisphere, enjoy some summertime for me.

NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction Contest

Celeste Ng — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:30:19 +0000

Alan Cheuse / photo by Josh Cheuse, 2008

NPR has just announced its third Three-Minute Fiction Contest. This year, the judge will be writer and critic Alan Cheuse.

The challenge? Write a story about this photo that can be read out loud in under three minutes–that’s about 600 words.

Cheuse compares a good short story to a lyric poem — both forms pack the biggest emotional punch and the most information into the smallest possible space. “It’s a love affair, rather than a marriage,” he says. “Or maybe even a one-night stand compared to a love affair.”

He’ll be looking for entertainment as well as emotion in the stories you send us. “I want to get the sense of life that my old friend Bernard Malamud used to say about a short story,” Cheuse says. “He wanted a short story to do what he called ‘predicate’ a life, that is, give you everything about the life of the character that you need to know, in the same way a novel does.”

The winning story will be read on the air. For full details and to read last year’s winners and finalists, visit NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction page. And for more information, NPR host Guy Raz discusses this year’s contest with Mediabistro.

Also on FWR: A 2008 interview with Alan Cheuse by our Editor-in-Chief, Anne Stameshkin.

Harvard Book Store Short-Short Contest

Celeste Ng — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:40:55 +0000

photo from the Harvard Book Store website

Boston-area readers know Harvard Book Store as one of the best independent bookstores in the country. The store hosts author events and readings nearly every night, and the knowledgeable staff is always ready to help should you need a recommendation. Now, they’re encouraging writers as well. In honor of the shortest month, Harvard Book Store is running a short-short contest:

Let’s make these 28 days count! Write a short short story (500 words or less). Send us your entries (no more than 3 entries per person) by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17th. We’ll read them, pick our favorites, and, at the end of the month, we’ll print them in a book, using our very own in-store print-on-demand machine, Paige M. Gutenborg!

Entries must be unpublished and written between February 1 and February 17. If your story is chosen, you’ll receive a copy of the yet-to-be-titled collection and will be invited to read their story at the bookstore on March 1. One grand-prize winner will also receive a $50 gift certificate.

Full details and rules are here. And if “Paige M. Gutenborg” caught your attention, check out store owner Jeff Mayersohn’s essay about why he invested in the book-making machine.