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The flash writer is a disciple of the poet. The poet a disciple of the word. How to say much with few. How to have a word echo, bloom, unlock or unhinge, shudder or pop, show or embrace itself as thing, expand or fall into something off the page, become or allow a potential to become, something much larger than itself.
In Damien Dressick’s “Four Hard Facts about Water,” the words are steak sauce. The turn, to get us to the bitterness, the banality/absurdity of death, to the god/godlessness of the event, the thing, the disbelief. Steak sauce.
In “Dulce et Decorum Est” the word is flung. A body flung, and we are in 1914-1918, the human mind/technology meets the human mind/our perpetual desire to kill one another. Enter flame throwers/gas/machine guns/tanks/all of the etc. of technology. Degree of killing. Attrition as strategy. Everything upside down. Flung.
In Raymond Carver’s “Little Things,” the word is flowerpot.
In “Survivors” by Kim Addonizio, the word is parrot.
In Dave Eggers’s “Bounty,” the words are curved chips. Curved chips get us off the page, into the philosophical, curved chips off that last line, off God. Yes.
Jolly Ranchers in “The Last Stop” by Jenny Halper. Sometimes one object can characterize and exposition, can show, can let us inside.
It may be useful to seek the word in all poems, all flash fictions, as an exercise of the writerly mind. And then of course to ask your own self (the editor one)—where are my words, the ones that if omitted, would leave such a hole as to let all the air out, as to have the entire text collapse on itself like a pierced balloon? It is one way of looking, the word.
Women Matrix
Thanks to Lorian for counsel, and deflecting any calls of misogyny.
slaw
- The Broken Plate is open for submissions until the end of October. This magazine is run by undergraduate students in a literary practicum class at BSU. I can personally vouch the end product as a glow print artifact for holding your words. Think of it this way: service. These are students learning to edit. You could help them along their way. Do send.
- Stoked Press would be, uh, stoked if you would submit. Tyler Gobble likes to wear sleeveless shirts in the spring and you wouldn’t want to bring children to a Layne Ransom reading, if that helps you get mouth-feel for the pub. Submit like a vertebrae.
- The International Algae Competition in Algae Landscape Design is only open until Oct 11! Get growing, I advise. I bet some of you knowledge base hydroponics.
- Hobart needs more stuff about luck. Think of this way: If they accept you, you kick dino-ass. If they blar your work, no worries. It was just bad luck. Here is a pretty epic “wish-list” and I wish more editors would do this, announce what they are thinking, on a rolling level, week to week–I feel it germinates a writer. This list has made me write. I see a future where editors throw out sparks like such as this. Glow.
- Can someone confirm or deny that Brautigan left a suicide note saying “Messy, isn’t it”? It smacks of mean, lazy urban legend and sort of pisses me off.
- Creative Nonfiction would like your “True Crime” stories. All of my favorites are Morrissey songs. No, no, here’s my favorite: I’m a Memphis teenager. I shoplift Pac-man cards. I walk outside the mall and 5 kids surround me, threaten to go exponential on my spleen, rob me, of my stolen cards. Irony? I hate that dumb word. This: welcome to Memphis.
- John Dermot Woods–drawings or words or source material–is bad-ass right here, right now. Just saying.
- Betty has collected 11,020 labels from bananas. In a hundred years, we will know Betty. Us? Never. It makes you wonder.
- Airplane Reading is surprisingly OK, these little flashes about flying on airplanes. They want you. Fly.
- Go right ahead, friend. The entry fee is one dollar, sixty cents.
Why I Hate That Borders Sign
First a note about my perspective. I’m a bookseller. I’ve been a bookseller for almost 12 years. I’ve worked as a floor clerk, in an author events department, in Kids Books, claimed publisher coöp, cashiered, and now spend most of my time behind the scenes writing ads and newsletters and signs.
I know the customers referred to on that sign. I’ve dealt with them, too. I know retail work can be very difficult, and that in the face of a lack of empathy from customers who have never themselves worked retail one can lose one’s own empathy. I also know the folks who come in, ask you to help them look for a book they only have a little bit of information about (a partial title, a remembered book review from a two-month old magazine), follow you to the shelf, pull out their phones, and reward your diligence by scanning the bar code and placing an order through Amazon. Right there. With you watching. READ MORE >
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A WRITER
They're lining up for you.
All guests wishing to enter the signing line must have a wristband.
Days, sometimes consecutive, without showers.
Campus-or-city map.
Arc of narrative. Arc of argument. Arch-ness.
A boy who draws a teddy bear and a bumblebee and hands it to you on crumpled paper.
Wristbands will be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis beginning the day you decide to get off your ass and write something.
Sensitive skin lotion abounds.
Massage oil.
Grape flavored lubricant that tastes like Kool-Aid.
Ernie Els on Writing
Before we went out, I knew I had no chance.
I just got beat.
You’re trying to survive. It’s desperation… It’s sadistic. In a way it’s fun, if you’re into that shit.
I’m going to get on the airplane and have a couple of beers now.
You’re actually fucking yourself.
You’ve got to be ready for it. And it’s happening more often. I never knew about it, never thought about it, until it’s in your lap.
Last year’s Open probably took a month to get over that.
The timing is unfortunate.
There was a clause in my contract where I could get out, and I’m getting out.
It’s a bit crazy.
I knew we were all in trouble.
We don’t have much of a chance.
I was thinking of taking out a little frustration.
I’ve never seen that happen.
I get all kinds of people telling me I have the best swing in the world—it’s beautiful, it’s effortless. But I know when that isn’t true.
What the hell are you doing up?
A lot of very disorganized thoughts about being a writer
A few years ago, I had a student walk into my Intro to Women’s Studies class – late – on the very first day. She was a non-traditional student, probably older than me by ten years. As is expected for first day “ice breakers,” I asked my students why they were taking my class, what they thought feminism means, etc. This student offered to start the conversation. She asked: My religion tells me that I should submit to my husband, and I believe my religion. Can I still be a feminist?
I’d never been asked a question like that before, and it was jarring, sure, but I knew the answer: Yes, of course you can!
This is perhaps an odd way to begin a post about the “authenticity” of being a writer, and yet, it isn’t. A few weeks ago, someone commented that Starcherone wasn’t a “legit” publisher. A couple weeks ago, the BlazeVOX scandal hijacked the writer blogworld. The issue of legitimacy came up again and again. Last week, an anonymous blogger made the argument that I participate in some type of elite cronyism because I said I don’t like to submit to journals. All of these events circle around the question of legitimacy and authenticity. And I wonder: what the fuck does it really matter?