They Kept Running (University of North Texas Press, 2022) by Michelle Ross is the 2021 Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. As I read this gem of a book by one of my favorite writers, I was not surprised this collection of flash fictions...
Microviews
A review of Jayne Martin’s Daddy Chronicles by Jonathan Cardew
Less is more, so they say. But more what? In Jayne Martin’s case: more devastating, more incisive, more insightful. This book is a case in point. Through 37 bite-sized chapters, each about 100-300 words, Martin recounts her experiences growing up without a...
Triumph of Female Empowerment: a review by Claire Polders of Let Our Bodies Be Returned to Us by Lynn Mundell
I’ve been a fan of Lynn Mundell’s writing ever since I discovered her work in 2015, so when her debut collection won the Yemassee 2021 Fiction Prize, I was not surprised. Mundell is a master of the darkly funny and tenderly magical. In this collection, she...
How Far I’ve Come by Kim Magowan
How Far I've Come by Kim Magowan, review by Dan Crawley Kim Magowan’s How Far I’ve Come (Gold Wake Press, 2022) is a collection of flash fictions and a few longer works that brought me joy while I read. Yes, I smiled with delight, finding myself smiling time...
In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (reviewed by Haley Papa)
Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir reads like a whispered truth only she can give the reader, and a different take on what a memoir entails. Machado first entered the literary world with her short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties in 2017, and now sets...
Juliet the Maniac by Juliet Escoria (reviewed by Emily Bertholf)
Juliet is an adolescent girl. Juliet is a cutter. Juliet is dizzy. Juliet is bored. Juliet is afraid of birds. Juliet is feeling helpless. Juliet is a machine. Juliet is any old kid. Juliet is...
the Internet is for real by Chris Campanioni (reviewed by Emily Bertholf)
Chris Campanioni’s the Internet is for real: a review in phrasal substitutions and futuristic fabrication by Emily Bertholf Rad Fib #1: from Only You Can See What You Saved (Full Size Render) Full Size Render is the stranger of this shadow. Full Size Render is...
Bending Genres Q & A with author William R. Soldan
Bending Genres Interview with Author William R. Soldan: What went into the decision to attend the Taos Mabel Dodge Bending Genres July 2018 Writing Retreat? -With the exception of attending a weeklong writing workshop in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2014, after being...
The In-Betweens by Davon Loeb (reviewed by Levi Andrew Noe)
Identity. To say it’s complicated is like saying that losing an arm might hurt a bit. Family is complex too, except that’s more like saying that lopping off your head might make filing your own taxes problematic. For Davon Loeb, identity and family are the foundations...
Some Field Notes on Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003 – 2018 by Kathy Fish (in Randomized Order) Published by Matter Press
Final Thought: Buy this Book. The Lines That Would Not Be Considered “Killer” But Are “Killer” Because They Are Not Necessarily “Killer”: “The man stretches his legs out. He mutes the television and chuckles. She thinks he muted the television to make sure she...
You Might Want to Get a Handjob from Rick Moranis: A Review of Madam Velvet’s Cabaret Of Oddities by Nancy Stohlman
I mean, possibly. Nothing’s beyond the conceivable, especially when Stohlman’s in the car. When she’s driving it, and it’s a clown car, and one of the clown’s in the upside down position “because Marty needs a break,” anything becomes possible (like fantasy handjobs...
Random-and-Oftentimes-Fabricated Statistics About Sad Laughter (Brian Alan Ellis), by Ryan Werner
(329) The number of times I thought “These were tweets, right?” (0) The number of times I actually went to Brian’s Twitter to check if these were tweets because, much like the aura and culture of literature are constantly pointed out to be in Sad Laughter, that would...
Three Men on the Edge by Michael Loveday; V. Press, U.K.
Everything explained? Boring. Linear plot? Boring. Long chapters? Boring. Three Men on the Edge by Michael Loveday? Not boring. This book—the first full-length flash collection from UK-based V. Press—takes us to the edge of traditional prose and veers into poetry....
Show Her A Flower by Peg Alford Pursell; Second Edition, WTAW Press
Ever focus so hard on a star that it disappears? The human eye’s anatomical constraints allow for only oblique attention to life’s wonders. The heart likewise skews in relation to life’s calamities. In her collection, Show Her A Flower, A Bird, A Shadow, Peg Alford...
Bending Genres Q & A with author Lynn Mundell
Lynn Mundell attended our first Bending Genres retreat at Synergia Ranch, outside of Santa Fe last September. We asked Lynn six questions about her experience at the retreat and her writing: What went into the decision to attend the Synergia Ranch September 2017...
Kiss, Kiss by Paul Beckman, Truth Serum Press
It’s not especially shocking to find a teenaged narrator playing strip poker with his elderly babysitter in Paul Beckman’s latest flash fiction collection, Kiss Kiss. In fact, that kid is probably better off than the boy who finds his brothers waiting to kill the...
I Don’t Know About You But by Kara Vernor
I Don’t Know About You But by Kara Vernor, [A Craft Essay] I read and write because it’s cheaper than travelling and the second best way I know to surprise myself and feel something new. To remind myself that my daily trappings—showering, running my face through a...
The Expanse Between by Lee L. Krecklow, Winter Goose Publishing
Wisconsinite Lee L. Krecklow's novel raises interesting questions about storytelling and ethics. He pits the “I saw it, I own it” social media mindset vs individual privacy rights. Thomas Stone, a reclusive writer whose early success never gained traction, is...
A Report on Reports by Brian Evenson (The Cupboard, 2018)
A Report on Reports by Brian Evenson (The Cupboard, 2018) by Jonathan Cardew I was going to write a report on Reports by Brian Evenson—and I still am, it’s still happening right now—but I must admit to a little bit of trepidation in doing so....
All The Ghosts We’ve Always Had by Jules Archer, Thirty West Publishing, 2018
All the Ghosts We’ve Always Had by Jules Archer, Thirty West Publishing House, 2018 By Robert Scotellaro Here is a gutsy mosaic of moments. Moments masterfully and poetically rendered. Authentic travels through growth and living. Of family fractures and survival....
We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida, New Stories from a Sinking Peninsula, edited by Shane Hinton, Burrow Press, 2017
We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida, New Stories from a Sinking Peninsula, edited by Shane Hinton, Burrow Press, 2017 by Jennifer Fliss Burrow Press has curated a collection as weird, wacky, and diverse as that southern spongey mass of terrain and people… in a good...
Plots Are For Dead People by Jacqueline Doyle
PLOTS ARE FOR DEAD PEOPLE Jacqueline Doyle Who knows what attracted me to flash ten years ago? I hate following rules, for one thing, and as far as I could see it was a genre without rules. Within the maximum word count, anything was possible. My first flash was a...
Other Household Toxins by Christopher Allen, Matter Press, 2018
A collage review of Christopher Allen's Other Household Toxins by April Bradley (in author Allen’s own words) Waves like they fathered the tides: “My world is not broken. My world is not broken.” Freaks to Lynn are portents, stunned by the big dumb beauty of men...
Michelle Ross’s They Kept Running, review by Dan Crawley
They Kept Running (University of North Texas Press, 2022) by Michelle Ross is the 2021 Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. As I read this gem of a book by one of my favorite writers, I was not surprised this collection of flash fictions...
A review of Jayne Martin’s Daddy Chronicles by Jonathan Cardew
Less is more, so they say. But more what? In Jayne Martin’s case: more devastating, more incisive, more insightful. This book is a case in point. Through 37 bite-sized chapters, each about 100-300 words, Martin recounts her experiences growing up without a...
Triumph of Female Empowerment: a review by Claire Polders of Let Our Bodies Be Returned to Us by Lynn Mundell
I’ve been a fan of Lynn Mundell’s writing ever since I discovered her work in 2015, so when her debut collection won the Yemassee 2021 Fiction Prize, I was not surprised. Mundell is a master of the darkly funny and tenderly magical. In this collection, she...
How Far I’ve Come by Kim Magowan
How Far I've Come by Kim Magowan, review by Dan Crawley Kim Magowan’s How Far I’ve Come (Gold Wake Press, 2022) is a collection of flash fictions and a few longer works that brought me joy while I read. Yes, I smiled with delight, finding myself smiling time...
In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (reviewed by Haley Papa)
Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir reads like a whispered truth only she can give the reader, and a different take on what a memoir entails. Machado first entered the literary world with her short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties in 2017, and now sets...
Juliet the Maniac by Juliet Escoria (reviewed by Emily Bertholf)
Juliet is an adolescent girl. Juliet is a cutter. Juliet is dizzy. Juliet is bored. Juliet is afraid of birds. Juliet is feeling helpless. Juliet is a machine. Juliet is any old kid. Juliet is...
the Internet is for real by Chris Campanioni (reviewed by Emily Bertholf)
Chris Campanioni’s the Internet is for real: a review in phrasal substitutions and futuristic fabrication by Emily Bertholf Rad Fib #1: from Only You Can See What You Saved (Full Size Render) Full Size Render is the stranger of this shadow. Full Size Render is...
Bending Genres Q & A with author William R. Soldan
Bending Genres Interview with Author William R. Soldan: What went into the decision to attend the Taos Mabel Dodge Bending Genres July 2018 Writing Retreat? -With the exception of attending a weeklong writing workshop in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2014, after being...
The In-Betweens by Davon Loeb (reviewed by Levi Andrew Noe)
Identity. To say it’s complicated is like saying that losing an arm might hurt a bit. Family is complex too, except that’s more like saying that lopping off your head might make filing your own taxes problematic. For Davon Loeb, identity and family are the foundations...
Some Field Notes on Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003 – 2018 by Kathy Fish (in Randomized Order) Published by Matter Press
Final Thought: Buy this Book. The Lines That Would Not Be Considered “Killer” But Are “Killer” Because They Are Not Necessarily “Killer”: “The man stretches his legs out. He mutes the television and chuckles. She thinks he muted the television to make sure she...
You Might Want to Get a Handjob from Rick Moranis: A Review of Madam Velvet’s Cabaret Of Oddities by Nancy Stohlman
I mean, possibly. Nothing’s beyond the conceivable, especially when Stohlman’s in the car. When she’s driving it, and it’s a clown car, and one of the clown’s in the upside down position “because Marty needs a break,” anything becomes possible (like fantasy handjobs...
Random-and-Oftentimes-Fabricated Statistics About Sad Laughter (Brian Alan Ellis), by Ryan Werner
(329) The number of times I thought “These were tweets, right?” (0) The number of times I actually went to Brian’s Twitter to check if these were tweets because, much like the aura and culture of literature are constantly pointed out to be in Sad Laughter, that would...
Three Men on the Edge by Michael Loveday; V. Press, U.K.
Everything explained? Boring. Linear plot? Boring. Long chapters? Boring. Three Men on the Edge by Michael Loveday? Not boring. This book—the first full-length flash collection from UK-based V. Press—takes us to the edge of traditional prose and veers into poetry....
Show Her A Flower by Peg Alford Pursell; Second Edition, WTAW Press
Ever focus so hard on a star that it disappears? The human eye’s anatomical constraints allow for only oblique attention to life’s wonders. The heart likewise skews in relation to life’s calamities. In her collection, Show Her A Flower, A Bird, A Shadow, Peg Alford...
Bending Genres Q & A with author Lynn Mundell
Lynn Mundell attended our first Bending Genres retreat at Synergia Ranch, outside of Santa Fe last September. We asked Lynn six questions about her experience at the retreat and her writing: What went into the decision to attend the Synergia Ranch September 2017...
Kiss, Kiss by Paul Beckman, Truth Serum Press
It’s not especially shocking to find a teenaged narrator playing strip poker with his elderly babysitter in Paul Beckman’s latest flash fiction collection, Kiss Kiss. In fact, that kid is probably better off than the boy who finds his brothers waiting to kill the...
I Don’t Know About You But by Kara Vernor
I Don’t Know About You But by Kara Vernor, [A Craft Essay] I read and write because it’s cheaper than travelling and the second best way I know to surprise myself and feel something new. To remind myself that my daily trappings—showering, running my face through a...
The Expanse Between by Lee L. Krecklow, Winter Goose Publishing
Wisconsinite Lee L. Krecklow's novel raises interesting questions about storytelling and ethics. He pits the “I saw it, I own it” social media mindset vs individual privacy rights. Thomas Stone, a reclusive writer whose early success never gained traction, is...
A Report on Reports by Brian Evenson (The Cupboard, 2018)
A Report on Reports by Brian Evenson (The Cupboard, 2018) by Jonathan Cardew I was going to write a report on Reports by Brian Evenson—and I still am, it’s still happening right now—but I must admit to a little bit of trepidation in doing so....
All The Ghosts We’ve Always Had by Jules Archer, Thirty West Publishing, 2018
All the Ghosts We’ve Always Had by Jules Archer, Thirty West Publishing House, 2018 By Robert Scotellaro Here is a gutsy mosaic of moments. Moments masterfully and poetically rendered. Authentic travels through growth and living. Of family fractures and survival....
We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida, New Stories from a Sinking Peninsula, edited by Shane Hinton, Burrow Press, 2017
We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida, New Stories from a Sinking Peninsula, edited by Shane Hinton, Burrow Press, 2017 by Jennifer Fliss Burrow Press has curated a collection as weird, wacky, and diverse as that southern spongey mass of terrain and people… in a good...
Plots Are For Dead People by Jacqueline Doyle
PLOTS ARE FOR DEAD PEOPLE Jacqueline Doyle Who knows what attracted me to flash ten years ago? I hate following rules, for one thing, and as far as I could see it was a genre without rules. Within the maximum word count, anything was possible. My first flash was a...
Other Household Toxins by Christopher Allen, Matter Press, 2018
A collage review of Christopher Allen's Other Household Toxins by April Bradley (in author Allen’s own words) Waves like they fathered the tides: “My world is not broken. My world is not broken.” Freaks to Lynn are portents, stunned by the big dumb beauty of men...