Talking Flash with Nancy Stohlman: Exercises in Cross-Pollination
Nancy Stohlman is drawn to the performative in life and fiction, which means her words don't seem to live just on the page. They tend to always be looking for a stage.
Kim Addonizio Confined
Kim Addonizio tells writers to "imagine a sentence as a hall with a series of doors," in her book Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within. We asked Addonizio about the tiny rooms that some of those doors open upon to find out what drama, what lyricism, what life can reside in the small spaces of life.
Kathy Fish: Finding Significance in the Small Moments of Life
The word "precision" is mentioned by many who describe Kathy Fish's flash fiction, along with "effortless" and "unparalleled" and "masterful," so we decided to talk with Fish and explore her fiction-writing process.
Sherrie Flick: Finding Truth in Compression
Why did we interview Sherrie Flick? First, we loved Sherrie Flick’s recent story collection, Whiskey, Etc. Second, we’ve heard a lot of great things about Sherrie from others in the flash fiction community, such as, "Wow, you have to read Sherrie Flick's flash," and "She's an amazing food writer." Third, we wished we would have asked her questions about Pittsburgh, but fortunately she told us about a road trip she’d have with Gertrude Stein.
One Plus One Equals 3: A Couple Co-Writing as ‘Alvarado’
Jacqueline Doyle and Stephen D. Gutierrez are San Francisco Bay Area writers and professors, each with an impressive writing résumé. Additionally, the spouses co-write as the invented Alvarado O’Brien. This time around on 100 Words, learn about three flash aficionados at once!
Robert Scotellaro: The Secret Is Out
Bob Scotellaro, a noted master of flash fiction, talks about the art of writing short shorts and what he learned during San Francisco's Underground Comix scene, when he chummed around with famed cartoonists Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman.
‘Writerly Redemption’ Paved with 100-Word Stories
Meet Jane McDermott, author of "Look Busy: One hundred 100-word stories by and for the easily distracted," published by Fourteen Hills Press. McDermott’s work runs the range of styles and moods, from the darkly comic to the unabashedly romantic.
Grant Faulkner Writes about Life’s Fissures
Grant Faulkner, the author of Fissures, is a living Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. He is both the director of National Novel Writing Month and the co-founder of 100 Word Story.
Tara Masih: Flash as One Deep Truth
Tara Masih was attracted to writing flash as a high school student because it allowed her to get to the "heart of a scene."
Kim Chinquee: Flash as Little Gems
Kim Chinquee has lived all over and done many things, from farming as a child to a career as a military medical technologist. Then she took one creative writing class and a new course was set.
Stuart Dybek: Blurring Forms
Stuart Dybek is a quiet master of the American short story. He doesn't cry out for attention, and he doesn't seem to need it, yet his stories demand re-reading in a way that few authors do.
Dinty W. Moore: Writing Essays with Brevity
Dinty Moore discusses how his many professions formed him as an author, the role of "divine dissatisfaction" in art, and what's creative about creative nonfiction.
Kona Morris: Written Word Adventures
Who wouldn’t love a writer who references glam rock band Queen in the same breath as Baudelaire? It’s not a surprise, though, coming from Kona Morris.
Six Questions with the Maestro of Six-Word Stories
One of the biggest challenges any writer faces is to write it short. Larry Smith, the founder of the phenomenon known as the Six-Word Memoir Project, tells how these tiniest of stories became such a big thing.
Talking Funny with Tom Hazuka
Accomplished writer, editor, singer-song writer, and teacher Tom Hazuka is also the man behind the humor collection Flash Fiction Funny. Learn what Hazuka thinks is funny (or not).
Luis Jaramillo: One Story, Many ‘Flash’ Chapters
Luis Jaramillo wrote The Doctor’s Wife in response to a friend’s request for a poem. Jaramillo compromised by writing a prose poem. “Bee Sting,” a chapter in his book, was the result—and the genesis for Jaramillo’s story about three generations of a family in the Pacific Northwest.
Meg Pokrass Turns Poems into Stories
There are few authors out there as daring and honest and real as Meg Pokrass. She possesses that rare gift of a writer, knowing how to poetically tell a tale while not flinching from the uncomfortable truths she discovers along the way.
Frances Lefkowitz: The Energy and Surprise of Flash Fiction
In just a few spare sentences, Frances Lefkowitz can tell a life's story—of an aging ballplayer or of a mother's love.
Thaisa Frank: Flash as Seizure of Language
Thaisa Frank is an instinctual writer in the best of ways. Her stories often read as if they take place in a dream world, yet without any forced contrivances or showy surrealism, as if she's simply tracing a path from one mystery to the next.
