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Thrilled to announce that my poem. “Legacy,” was published today in Dulcet! My poem is on page 44. The theme is “Moonglades: A Reflective Issue.”
It’s also a great joy to be publication twins with my talented friend, Terri McCord; check out her amazing poem, “the world turns pointillist,” on page 21!
Dulcet is open for submissions. Check out their theme calls and submission guidelines at: clickety-click.
Photo courtesy of Camille Brodard at Unsplash.com.
Photos by yours truly. 🤗
Splendid news to share: two of my poems, “Yellow,” and “Listening to a Grandfather-Clock ASMR Recording after Reading a Short Poem by Lorine Niedecker” were just published in the latest issue of October Hill Magazine!
Check out the opening lines of “Yellow” below, and clickey-click on this link to read the two full poems at the issue, as well as the work of many talented fellow authors as well. Also, consider submitting your own work—they were wonderful to work with.
“Yellow”
today it feels exceptionally good
to use this yellow
marker, to draw it across
the lightly lined page,
just to run as heavy as possible a line
with the fine nib
pressed into the thinner gray line
to mark it off that I’ve already
answered early work emails, had
lunch, cleaned up after, organized
my desk, sorted through a stack of books
for donation, and it feels good, too,
to hover in the air above the page
to think about drawing a sun with wavy rays,
the petals of a sprightly daisy, a compact car
negotiating a curvy road, but then…
[continued at October Hill Magazine: clicky]
I recently had the joy of meeting fellow fictionist and flash writer Jason Brick for a delightful conversation we shared via messages about this art form we love.
Read on for a few excerpts of our lively conversation about flash fiction—including the coolest place Jason’s newsletter has gone and Jason’s bio. Then, check out his newsletter and submit your flash fiction.
Also, my In a Flash craft book from Vine Leaves Press is the perfect holiday gift for yourself and your writer friends for the upcoming holidays! Buy In a Flash! Writing & Publishing Dynamic Flash Prose by Melanie at: Vine Leaves Press website
or at: Amazon
Or, for signed copies, Melanie’s Etsy page
Without further ado, the discussion about flash fiction:
Q: What drew you to flash fiction?
Jason: It’s the variety. For the reader and the writer, you’re not committing to a long narrative, so you get to play with genres, styles, crossovers, characters, languages, tropes you otherwise wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pencil.
Melanie: Flash is super flexible—it combines the narrative and action elements of fiction with attention to poetic language. It’s also compact and helps writers learn compression (which I always need!), integrating language like dynamic verbs and precise imagery, which I find exciting.
Q: What makes flash special or stand out from other literary genres?
Jason: Sort of what I mentioned above. It’s super-short, so there’s more room for variety and creativity than with other lengths of fiction.
Melanie: It combines the best elements of fiction and poetry and yet brings its own special qualities to the table, including a variety of formats and styles.
Q: Tell us about your book in a sentence or two, as if it were a birthday present you were describing.
Jason: Flash in a Flash is just the coolest gift, because I get to open it twice a week! It’s a literary newsletter that puts a super short story - under 1,000 words - in my mailbox every Monday and Thursday! All kinds of genres. All kinds of styles.
And it gets better! I’m a writer, and they’re seeking submissions. So with a little luck I can have my own micro-stories get out into the world. They’re a paying market, too!
Melanie: Very cool. Always great to learn about writing markets, especially those which pay. My book, In a Flash, sizzles the pen and sparks a thunderstorm of dazzly new ideas that have never crossed your mind before and will continue to deliver awesome exercises and fabulous flash examples that you can return to again and again, at any season of your writing life ahead. You’ll want to keep it handy and gift a friend interested in the genre. 😊
Q: What’s the coolest or wackiest place(s) your book has been read OR where would you like your book to be read?
Jason: The easy answer is that many people tell me, because of the short time commitment, they keep and read their copy in the bathroom. Besides that, I compiled the first volume in the series while living in Malaysia, so I read several of the submissions while on a boat in a river in Borneo.
Melanie: Wow! Malaysia and a boat in Borneo—so awesome! My favorite place readers have told me my book has traveled is in a gift bag to encourage a friend who has hit writer’s block or who isn’t familiar yet with the joys of flash. Writers are incredibly supportive and kind friends, and I love hearing that my book resonated with a reader so much that they want to gift it to a friend.
Q: Does your book contain exercises for writers? If so, what’s your favorite one that you’d like to share now?
Jason: Not exactly, but anybody can submit…and there is no better writing exercise that finishing a story and submitting it.
Melanie: I love what you say about finishing a story and submitting it. Very encouraging! My book contains a bunch of exercises that writers can use on days when they’re not sure what to write and how to even begin. I love hearing that someone used my exercises to draft a story, submit it for publication, and subsequently received an acceptance letter.
Q: What’s your favorite flash story? Or a flash story that you remember reading and being excited about exploring more in your own writing?
Jason: As of this writing, my favorite remains “The Apocalypse According to Dogs” from my first anthology. It just tickles me.
Melanie: I look forward to checking out that story you mention. The first flash I remember reading and thinking about how amazing it was and wanting to explore more in my own writing was the one often attributed to Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” That just hits me in the gut. As a poet as well, the imagery just says it all. That so very much emotions could be contained in six short words is super inspiring and challenging. Every time I read it, I both get the chills AND want to write something that eloquent and that compact.
Bio:
Jason Brick is the skipper at Flash in a Flash, a biweekly newsletter delivering fiction to mailboxes all over the world. When not writing and editing, he travels, cooks, practices martial arts, and spoils his wife and two sons. He lives in Oregon.
Connect with Jason:
https://www.facebook.com/brickcommajason
Contact Jason: brickcommajason@gmail.com
I’m excited to announce that my flash fiction, “It was just supposed to be,” was published this week at Bright Flash Literary Review! 📚
Check out my story below as well as the awesome stories by fellow authors at their current issue. If you write flash, consider submitting, too.
“It was just supposed to be”
a quick zip through aisle seven and back.
Somebody said she’d moved outside Rawston somewhere after, so it never occurred to him that Tuesday before New Year that he’d turn the corner with the laundry detergent in his right hand and there was Maisy.
“Hey,” was all he thought to say.
“My sister needed a few things,” she half-smiled.
Photo courtesy of Eduardo Soares on Unsplash.com, free stock
There was a baby strapped onto her in one of those carrier things he didn’t know the name of. She was someone’s mom now. That was weird, and new. Fifteen years together. They never. He never thought she’d wanted one. He didn’t. Doesn’t.
The baby bopped legs and arms in herky-jerky movements. The baby had Maisy’s curls.
“Just getting this,” and he held up the neon plastic jug like he was proving something, as if until he’d pointed it out it’d been invisible.
Should he have said something, asked about the baby—Maisy’s baby—a name maybe? An age? He hadn’t seen any teeth when the baby had grinned at Maisy, but how old are kids when they get front teeth? Do back ones come in first?
Maisy had bounced a bit on the balls of her feet near the stacked boxes of soda crackers; the baby laughed in reply. They made a tableau together like he’s seen mothers and kids do on TV.
“Yep, everyone needs clean clothes,” she said.
She looked tired in her eyes, but happier than she ever was their last few years. Calmer somehow.
“Good…good point. Hey, great seeing you,” he said, because he could think of nothing else to say but random inanities. The baby’s hair the exact raven black of Maisy’s the night they’d met as freshmen. He’s got some grays now.
The baby had some other guy’s eyes. Weird. He’d turned away.
“You, too, Darvin,” she said, using her sympathy voice.
The baby kicked into cracker boxes, and the front one wobbled but didn’t fall.
“Look what you’ve done, little cutie. Yes, you, my little cutie,” Maisy cooed and laughed.
He ducked into aisle four; he dropped the detergent onto a random shelf. No longer any energy left for waiting in line, for another possible sighting. He couldn’t. He was outta there.
He lightninged through electronic double doors, out of breath but not running.
He’ll grab another detergent at the QuickShop after work tomorrow and stew about Maisy tonight. He leans back in the tan recliner; they’d picked it for their first apartment after college. He’d liked the red one, but Maisy said tan would go with more things. She’d been right about that. About more than that, he guessed.
He should take his mother up on her offer to reupholster it.
“Give it a new look,” Mom had said. “Or else donate it to charity, get something new.”
Yeah, but the chair’s the last thing left from their years together.
He keeps the living room lights off tonight; his laptop casts a pale green light that wobbles against the opposite white wall, the same color it was when he moved in.
Is Maisy still at her sister’s on Root Lane? Seven miles is nothing; how easily he could jump in his truck, drive out that way. Just to see.
He presses back into the tan upholstery, but there’s nowhere further to go. It was far easier when he could think of Maisy as alone, like him, near Rawston at night.
He feels it in his gut: Maisy’s gone home to the man whose eyes the baby shares. Their baby.
Biography: Melanie Faith is a night-owl writer and editor who likes to wear many hats, including as a poet, photographer, professor, and tutor. Three of her craft books about writing were published by Vine Leaves Press in 2022, including her latest, From Promising to Published. She enjoys ASMR videos, reading, teaching online writing classes, and tiny houses. Learn more at https://melaniedfaith.com/ .
Excellent news! A light-hearted CNF flash memoir piece I wrote a few months ago about new shoes was just published at The Bluebird Word.
Read the piece here: “Buy the Fanciful Ones: A Tale of New Shoes” [clickety-click].
This has been a wild and wonderful week so far: I got a rejection letter this morning for some poetry, then I got word this afternoon that my shoe piece was published, and I have another piece that was accepted a few weeks ago which will be published this week as well. Stay tuned, and thanks for all of your continued support!
Write on through all the lows and highs of this writing life—you just never know what’s next. 🎉
P.S. Here are the mentioned shoes. 😁
Very pleased to have one of my photos, “Open Space Silhouette Portrait,” published in the current issue of Suspended Magazine. Check out the issue, and consider submitting poems, art, or short fiction to this amazing literary magazine: details here.
More insights from the magazine about my photo: “I’m interested in the numerous exciting permutations portraiture and self-portraiture can take. From precise likenesses to figures that could be a stand-in for almost any character or human form, the possibilities when documenting the self and others are encouraging for photographers who wish to explore. I took this self-portrait using a Nikon 35 mm DSLR, creating a window reflection and then playing with filters that introduced light leaks that offered a compelling interplay between buoyant, yellow warmth and movement against deep, calm shadows of introspection and stillness. I’m intrigued by how the finished photo suggests both anchoring and spaciousness.”
***
Also, just a reminder that Women on Writing’s Thankful for Books Giveaway runs up to November 20th! 🍂📚
Copies of my book, From Promising to Published , will be part of the prize packages for three lucky winners.
Read more and enter the contest at: Thankful for Books Giveaway!
I’m so pleased to announce that a poem I wrote about roller skating was published today in Songs of Eretz Poetry Review’s Spring 2023 issue! The theme is “Growth.” It’s also a great joy to appear in the same issue as my dear friend, Charles. Follow the linky-link to check out the issue, filled with poetry and photography by many talented artists.
A splendid way to start National Poetry Month! To all of the poems we’ll read, write, and celebrate this April!
Shout-out and much appreciation to @baitswit.ch and Lu Valena for the wonderful experience I had making this #cyanotype print in response to a riveting piece of art by @shawnathon01 that appears in Volume 3, No 4 and for featuring my work today on Instagram. It was a great joy to be part of this publication. Many thanks to talented @christinetierneyphotoart for sharing her awesome work and encouraging me to submit to @baitswit.ch. It's a treat to be among such marvelous artists!
Check out the issue for much more amazing art and consider submitting to this ever-evolving, inspiring publication: Bait/Switch clickety-click!
Thrilled to be interviewed for the first issue of a wonderful new literary magazine, Aôthen Magazine. Check out the interview here.
Shout-out to the fabulous Samantha Ng, Editor in Chief, who was a joy to work with—I highly recommend checking out the magazine for a great read, considering submitting creative work, and/or advertising options for authors.
More about “Aôthen Magazine (named after the Doric Greek term for the earliest dawn) is an upcoming zine dedicated to all kinds of Classics inspired content! (art, poetry, essays, photography, etc.).”
Check out their submission guidelines for future issues.
“Return to Beck” excerpt:
I look down this very long set of rectangular tables pushed together and there is Beck, dressed like the ’90s, singing along to Beck. And I walk past him, also singing Beck, thinking: “Keep it cool. Pretend this is just a normal thing, Beck sitting here, singing his own song”…
Beck never made eye contact (cool customer); he just went about his business, giving off 100% Beckness. The Beckness was just real-life rolling off of him, down the tables, and people milling around but nobody saying this was any big thing, this was just the same old Beckitude, any day of the week. And I was trying to keep my stuff together. Sure, I could mill around, I could keep it cool…
I took down some fizzled balloons, some soggy streamers wound around my bare arms, outside the party, outside the door, but didn’t see the trash can, didn’t see anybody, so I turned back to Beck, walked back in. There he still was, being all 100% Beck, Beckalicious, Becktastic. He hadn’t moved….
I was trying to keep it together, “just keep it together,” and walking around him at the terribly long tables and him not making eye contact, and the ’90s were back but we had nowhere to take them. So Beck kept singing Beck, Beckifically, and the Beckness was all around, 100% authentic, the ’90s were oozing…
For the entire, much longer prose poem, check out Issue 2.
