Dripping Humanity

Fish: 'Swicks Rule!'

Kathy Fish has an uncanny ability to depict humanity in a very real, raw way. Her characters always seem to have a bit of grease on their nose and maybe a pimple on their neck. Not grotesque necessarily, though she does go there on occasion, but just very human.

Here, your heart just breaks for the narrator, sensing his tension and pain. He's being a good sport, surviving horrible heartbreak and loss. Just read it and let Fish show you.

I suggest reading this story and then heading to Google to find Fish's other works. You won't be disappointed if you do.

Don't forget to visit the main Wigleaf page, either.

Elvis by Hobie Anthony

Elvis by J. Hobart Anthony

I hoped they would change the pen name, but no dice. No biggie, it's still me and it's my story.

I based the dog after my friend's dog Elvis who has all four legs but who is a lab. Their earlier dog, whose name currently escapes me, was in fact bitten by a rattlesnake and had one of his back legs removed. So, I combined the two dogs, removed a leg et voila: Elvis!

I'm considering a rewrite here. I'm conceiving a collection of stories set during Chicago's infamous heat wave of 1995.

Maybe this One by Randall Brown

Word Riot

I read this one back when I first started really writing. I remember critiquing it and being somewhat of a jackass. Of course, it did need work as the piece was really a mess - written as though the author were on the way back from a Dead show with all the psychoactive implications of that.

But, it's neat to see the final form. Brown sets us up with a couple travelling and lost, a couple bound for nowhere. Free and easy out on the road until they run out of gas in a bilingual land. Love unrequited, but not by the 1st person narrator who is still yet left with something of a loss.

Check it out. Word Riot does good work, so be sure to check out the other flash pieces there.

Always Beautiful by Thomas Kearnes

w i g l e a f : (very) short fiction

I've read Thomas Kearnes work for a while at Zoetrope and I find this piece to be somewhat of a shift. Not only is he writing about a woman, or with a woman in the story, but he's taking a more poetic turn, it seems.

This is a rather nice piece, it seems to me. Anyhow, take a look and then hit the Wigleaf main page to find their other wonderful treasures.

freezebubbles

Links. That's about all I got until after Residency next week.

freezebubbles

I've just started 3 new flashes and I'd love to have one submittable by the end of the month if I don't explode first.

Funny Movie

Ok, so I haven't been posting much. I've been busy with other stuff (silly job.) So, here's a funny video featuring a dog to tide you over. I found it at Andrew Sullivan's site (he finds some really good stuff!)

Write a flash about it or something.

Oh, if you're going to AWP in Chicago, Dogzplot is holding a flash fiction contest. I believe the prize is $200 and there's no entry fee! So you might as well enter. Say hello to them for me. I'll be surely soaking in Portland rain.

DOGZPLOT FLASH FICTION

DOGZPLOT FLASH FICTION

HOLIDAY EDITION with an interesting and decidedly non-pc photo to welcome you.

Animaniacs - Twas the Night Before Christmas

Father Christmas - The Kinks

Updated Audio, Old Video (found at YouTube)

Funny Flash

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Tim Conley's, Pass the Mustard, cracks wise over a hotdog game. This almost reads like a joke, but it points to something more, something in the relationship of these two people. That thing might be funny, benign, or rather grave.

Read and laugh anyway!

Visitation

Fiction: Out of Love by Randall Brown « Euphony

This is one of those portrait Flash pieces. Call it a character study. Watch the writer, too, he's in there as well.

Brown carries us through this Lucy's life like a Ghost of the Past - to be seasonal, like Marley's Ghost. We find the longing and heartbreak Lucy has endured and coped with. She's done some shocking things, but we find compassion for her.

Brown shows us in the first sentence that she is a person who deserves compassion. She's an "sympathetic character" in more sterile language. This is what I look for. This is what Algren showed me was possible: finding compassion for a person whose actions we might otherwise find objectionable.

Lucy is not a horrible person. She sleeps with her Math teacher in high school, an incident we might (legally) find the teacher culpable for, but Brown also shows what drives Lucy to that alley.

Then there's the writer, "writing her." Lucy finds him at the end, reads over his shoulder in an intimate scene so palpable I know Brown feels her breath and senses her heat. Lucy is now a ghost, visiting the lonely writer scribbling at his desk, a ghost on a visitation.

A dream made real in the writer's studio.

How Does My Story Taste?

Cognitive Daily: Tasting words: A study of one of the rarest forms of synesthesia

Name Dropping

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor | Piano by Patrick Phillips

Patrick was instrumental in my deciding to pursue writing. He was gracious enough to do a complete critique of a story I'd sent to him, a story titled Transparencies. He raked it over the coals in a critique that was nearly as long as the story itself, but I was so pleased that he'd spent that much time with it that I decided to write more. I guess it was the few words of praise for a lyrical passage that really got me going.

So, check out Piano. It's a short and beautiful poem. I love the imagery so much it makes me drool. Get the podcast of it, too, I think Keillor does a great reading.

Not Flash, but Very Small

Conflict

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The above link is to a Stefanie Freele Flash, Sisters. I'm tempted to call it a microfiction, as it's so darn small. I'll stick to Flash for the sake of consistency.

Sisters shows us serious conflict in 3 brief paragraphs. The older sister has some serious stuff boiling under the surface. The younger one may have done something wrong, the older may simply be jealous. The younger is a free-spirit, travelling around. The older is stuck at home with a baby and calls out seemingly for help, to be recognized with the 137 iterations of her own name in a text message.

Sisters is a wonderful multi-layered Flash which took my breath when I first read it. Now that I inspect it again, I find more stuff. I re-read and am intrigued all over again. The writing is so tightly wound that I know I would love to revisit this one over and over again.