Ghostographs, by Maria Romasco Moore
by Emily Nagin
“I think this is what Ghostographs wants from its readers: remembrance. While much of the book is about the wild dreamscape of childhood, in the end the story is about the end of a time and place.”
“I think this is what Ghostographs wants from its readers: remembrance. While much of the book is about the wild dreamscape of childhood, in the end the story is about the end of a time and place.”
“Reading A Bright and Pleading Dagger is a little like eating ortolan. Rivas’ stories are compact, tender, and razor-sharp. They combine the fairytale dread of Carmen Maria Machado with the dream-scape disorientation of Kelly Link.”
“Flash is slippery, hard to define. It has poetry’s short form and attention to detail, its disregard for what is technically possible, and fiction’s love of character and narrative.”
Given the vast quantity of Alice/Carroll-inspired work, the reader might wonder: “Is there anything new to add?” Here, happily, Seabrook proves it is still possible to make an original contribution.
“These spare pages please and engage the eye, heart, and mind, like leaves in a chapbook. Liliane’s Balcony is a small elegant book in every way. Readers will be inspired to visit Fallingwater and listen for Liliane’s voice above the falls.”
“These spare pages please and engage the eye, heart, and mind, like leaves in a chapbook. Liliane’s Balcony is a small elegant book in every way. Readers will be inspired to visit Fallingwater and listen for Liliane’s voice above the falls.”
As a creative writing professor at Boston College, I frequently use collections of flash fiction, stories which usually run 1000 words or less. Given time limitations and the varying writing experience of my students, these versatile, word-limited pieces are a very approachable and satisfying form to work within. However, I always find myself floundering about when I try to explain and define this genre for the first time. It was therefore with keen interest that I picked up The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, an unprecedented gathering of 25 brief essays by experts in the field that includes a lively, comprehensive history of the hybrid genre by editor Tara L. Masih.
