To write quality flash fiction one needs to actually embrace the concept of the
vignette, to loosen one’s bond to the “tightly” plotted story concept… Every
word bears weight. Thus, lyrical writing tends to work well in this form.
–Nathan Leslie
That “V” Word, quoted from The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (p 10).
Contents
- In defense of the exercise : You and the piano bench / Pamela Painter
- Contemporary and historical roots of flash fiction : That "v" word / Nathan Leslie
- Old wine in new bottles? Flash fiction from contemporary China / Shouhua Qi
- The myth-ing link (or, linking up to myth) / Pamelyn Casto
- Flash fiction from embryo to (very short) adult / Tom Hazuka
- Finding freedom and feeling in the form : "Cheers," (or) how I taught myself to write / Jayne Anne Phillips
- Great thoughts / Stuart Dybek
- Beginnings and endings : Titled : the title : a short story story's own short short storty / Michael Martone
- Fireworks and burnt toast : the process of opening up your writing / Vanessa Gebbie
- Smart suprise in flash fiction / Jennifer Pieroni
- Making flash count / Randall Brown
- Imagery as inspiration : Forty stories in the desert / Lex Williford
- Staying true to the image / Robert Shapard
- Hanging fire : a meta-narrative on flash fiction / Stace Budzko
- Poetry versus prose : A short story theory / Robert Olen Butler
- Getting the lead out : how writing really bad poetry yields really better short stories / Steve Almond
- Flash fiction, prose poetry, and men jumping out of windows : searching for plot and finding definitions / Kim Chinquee
- Taking risks : Put yourself in danger : an examination of Diane Williams's courageous short / Deb Olin Unferth
- Flash in a pan : writing outside of time's boundaries / Sherrie Flick
- Focusing and editing : Expose yourself to flash / Mark Budman
- Plaster dust and sleeping jockeys : tapping your story for load-bearing sentences / Pia Z. Ehrhardt
- Editing and revising flash fiction : how to COAP / Rusty Barnes
- The future of flash fiction : Writing fixed-form narratives : who's going to stop you? / Bruce Holland Rogers
- A flash before the bang / Julio Ortega
- A call to action : On writing flash fiction / Ron Carlson.
Nathan Leslie’s ten books of fiction include Three Men, Root and Shoot, Sibs and Drivers, among others. He is also the author of The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice, a novel, and the poetry collection Night Sweat. Nathan’s work has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines including Boulevard, Shenandoah, North American Review, Hotel Amerika and Cimarron Review. Nathan was series editor for Best of the Web anthology 2008 and 2009 (Dzanc Books) and edited fiction for Pedestal Magazine for many years.
Recently Nathan was interviews editor at Prick of the Spindle and over the past two years he wrote a monthly music column for Atticus Review. His work appeared in Best Small Fictions 2016 and earlier this year his work was published in Flash! A flash fiction anthology published by Norton and edited by John Dufresne. Check him out on Twitter and Facebook. He is the founder and host of the monthly Reston Readings series and he teaches in Northern Virginia at Northern Virginia Community College.
