A Flash of Flash Fiction: 10 Stories by Women
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“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
I first became acquainted with this piece of flash fiction attributed to Ernest Hemingway in college as part of the annual Scavenger hunt. An item asked team members to write a six word erotica. Until that moment, I didn’t even know it was a thing. I later learned that flash fiction was basically any story under 1,000 words. It can be anything from six words to several pages, or even a single paragraph, like Somerset Maugham’s retelling of “The Appointment in Samarra. ”
Years later, I would be introduced to Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano in an Instituto Cervantes class. His short shorts were perfect for someone who wanted to keep up her Spanish but had difficulty committing to a giant tome. Moreover, his short shorts pulled you in and didn’t let you go. It was exactly what I wanted. A quick but deep punch. Years later, I had the pleasure of seeing the great man speak in Chicago from his new book Children of the Days. He structures the work around the calendar; each day is its own contained story. Some are humorous or poignant, while others are tied to the days of the year.
Now there is a proliferation of journals dedicated to Flash fiction such as Flash Fiction Online, MonkeyBicycle, Flash Fiction Magazine, 100 Word Story, and many more. This summer, the New Yorker even published ten flash fiction stories by a variety of authors, including Aleksandar Hemon and Amelia Gray. Recent collections of flash fiction have been published such as Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World, edited by James Thomas, Robert Shapard, and Christopher Merrill, and The Best Small Fictions of 2015 by Tara Lynn Masih.
Years later, I would be introduced to Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano in an Instituto Cervantes class. His short shorts were perfect for someone who wanted to keep up her Spanish but had difficulty committing to a giant tome. Moreover, his short shorts pulled you in and didn’t let you go. It was exactly what I wanted. A quick but deep punch. Years later, I had the pleasure of seeing the great man speak in Chicago from his new book Children of the Days. He structures the work around the calendar; each day is its own contained story. Some are humorous or poignant, while others are tied to the days of the year.
Now there is a proliferation of journals dedicated to Flash fiction such as Flash Fiction Online, MonkeyBicycle, Flash Fiction Magazine, 100 Word Story, and many more. This summer, the New Yorker even published ten flash fiction stories by a variety of authors, including Aleksandar Hemon and Amelia Gray. Recent collections of flash fiction have been published such as Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World, edited by James Thomas, Robert Shapard, and Christopher Merrill, and The Best Small Fictions of 2015 by Tara Lynn Masih.
