Flash 9/2010, #1: Andrew Gudgel
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“Dini went three minutes thirty-two seconds before she couldn’t take it anymore,” Mel said, staring at me. “You think you can beat her, April?”
It wasn’t a question; it was a challenge. Mel was my best friend. But last week she’d uploaded a vidbit of her brother snorking milk out his nose, and it went viral. Fifty thousand hits a day, and suddenly she was all stuck up and bossy.... Read more: HTML
In This Issue: Jake Freivald
You’ve Seen These Faces Before
This turned out to be an alumni issue: Andrew Gudgel, Alan Grayce, and KJ Kabza have given us a near-future science fiction, mainstream, and light fantasy story, respectively. Our Classic Flash is from that humourous old standby, Punch. And Bruce Holland Rogers switches topics from techniques to the short fiction writer’s career. Enjoy! Read more: HTML
Flash 9/2010, #2: Alan Grayce
No Show
Amy never relaxes until the third song, imagining everyone’s staring at her hands. But when she sings Styx and Stones, the music takes her places where, even if they are, she doesn’t care. So large as to be almost grotesque, her hands allow her to play a Martin Dreadnaught and to hold a man so he feels held. She wrote that song for freaks like herself: Read more: HTML
Short-Short Sighted #25: Bruce Holland Rogers
Big Success on a Small Scale
This month, I want to take a break from examining the forms of flash fiction and consider another aspect of flash entirely: the career aspect. What would it mean to have a successful career in flash fiction?
As readers of my essays in Word Work will know, I’m wary of any definition of success that makes money the sole measure.... Read more: HTML
Flash 9/2010, #3: KJ Kabza
Now Open
I was walking through the mall when I saw a kiosk that claimed to be selling time. And I don’t mean in a “buy some labor-saving device” kind of way. I mean, little white boxes each labeled “10 minutes”.
I stopped and picked one up. The act of holding the box made me feel strange. I couldn’t tell if I were suddenly relaxed or impatient.
“Hey, what is this?”... Read more: HTML
Classic Flash #41: Punch, November 11, 1914
A Tobacco Plant
I had done the second hole (from the vegetable-marrow frame to the mulberry-tree) in two, and was about to proceed to the third hole by the potting-shed when I thought I would go in and convey the glad news to Joan. I found her seated at the table in the breakfast-room with what appeared to be a heap of tea spread out upon a newspaper in front of her.... Read more: HTML