Amelia Gray @ Wigleaf

And if you want more when you're done w/ that, head over to Shelf Life, where's she's got another new one that's really really good.

Sentences with 'Boy,' 'Girl,' and 'School'; or: My Kid's First Story

Can you see the boy?

Can you see the girl?

The school is on fire.

Four New Short Sets @ FRiGG

The Fall FRiGGis for sure the issue of the year if you're into shorts. There's a set by Beth Thomas, and three other sets by some great new talents: Ethan Bernard, Ryan Dilbert, and Fortunato Salazar. A whole lot of good stuff here, a mon avis....

Am I really the kind of person to end sentences w/ cute ironic bits of French?

p.s. I remember hearing Ellen Parker saying--I think over @ Kelly Spitzer's page--that she wasn't sure she was going to keep running shorts in this way, in sets--that she wasn't sure if it made sense. What I'd say: it makes sense, yes. I wish more places would do them this way.

2 1/2 Questions for Elaine Chiew...

...whose real-fine story "Chinese Equivalent" is just up @ Wigleaf.

1.

SG: A lot of writers come to the short-short story by accident. How is it that you come to it? That's a brief question, but go ahead and be expansive if you like.


2.

SG: I could be totally wrong about this—and feel free to shoot me down if I am—but I have the idea that you're one of those writers who, as a reader, engages happily in the study of fiction. If that's right, who have you been reading lately? And what are you finding?

EC: Good questions, Scott. I've reduced the answer to your 2 1/2 questions to 1 1/2. After the initial flurry of online Zoetrope/Gotham classes, I was hungry for instruction, but was in no position to get an MFA (I was busy making a family across the pond). But I started to read short stories analytically—first with the Best American Short Stories series, then basically any short story anthology compilation, moving onto individual short story writer collections. The most recent I've read is by Tobias Wolff, and he's amazing. I highly recommend Our Story Begins for Tobias' sharp economical prose and incisive moral quandaries. It didn't start out this way. but I don't read fiction to find perfect moral beings. I read them for the flawed ones, and you don't need a psychologist to explain why. They are far more interesting.

In the beginning, reading each short story was painstaking. It would take me ages to finish just one book! But all that work was worth it. It internalizes the form and the craft elements. The longer I read, the shorter my fiction got. From the usual 8000 whopper to somewhere about 2000 friable words. Reading short fiction is critical to developing your ruthless internal editor. I was happier slashing and burning my own prose when I was performing major reconstructive surgery in my head on the likes of Julie Orringer and Miranda
July. :-)

The move towards short-short fiction was therefore organic. Some stories were just that short and needed that starburst exhalation of breath to tell it. And the cloud they release was powerful. I think there are writers so natural at this form that I'm positively green with envy. But I began to read online fiction, and my respect and admiration for flash fiction grew. For me, it took experimentation with flash to get me down to the beauty of an individual sentence. Sometimes, that's all I want with my morning coffee.


3.

SG: What are planning to do with…?

EC: What am I planning to do with this empty coke bottle I'm holding as I write a response for your blog? Finish the last drop. Recycle it.

Obscure Anniversaries: "Rock 'n Roll Animal"

Thirty-five years ago, Lou Reed revisited some Velvets stuff in an NYC concert that would be released the following year as a live solo record, Rock 'n Roll Animal. The safest thing to say about this recording is maybe that it's classic. Classic rock-y?Classicallly painful? Classically over the top? All of that, for me. But I can't hate it because I heard the remake first and listened to it for a good while before encountering the original. If you know the original but haven't heard this, you're in for some fun. It's 1973, right? Reed is probably doing a lot of blow and has gone glamvestite, and he's got a big fancy stadium band behind him, one that will remind you of the Allman brothers for its merging lead-guitar duets, Yes for its diddly rock symphony stuff, and the Dead for its sugary jamband underpinnings. Aquarium Drunkard posted an mp3 of the show starter, "Intro/Sweet Jane," not long ago. It's still there if for some reason you want it. Here's the Songza link:

Intro/Sweet Jane

Is that not something?

Countdown

Saw that Myfanwy Collins put a real-time, to-the-second counter to election day up on her blog. I might as well do the same thing because in free time--i.e. time when I might write something here--I have trouble thinking about anything else. B and I invested in a hot tub this summer thinking we'd try to be less stressed during the school yr, and we thought to set up a rule: no talking about politics in the hot tub.... Yeah right.

I'm writing a story right now that begins w/ a line about people talking politics in a hot tub. It's a good story so far. I'll probably fuck it up....

"Natalie"

Tai Dong Huai's "Natalie" is up @ Wigleaf now.

The story is from a collection she's working on, I Come from Where I've Never Been. Other stuff from the project has appeared recently in some nice web venues, including jmww, 971 Menu, Hobart, elimae, Word Riot and Thieves Jargon. It's all good. Like, really good. After you read "Natalie," check out the Thieves Jargon story, "Ankles." Try forgetting that one.