FLASHFICTION-W

FlashFiction-W (my free online workshop) has been going strong since 1998. In addition to the usual submitting and critiquing we all do for each other, we also analyze published stories (working to identify effective writing strategies and/ or techniques). Here are just a few of the fine stories we've looked at as a group.

Colette's "The Other Wife"
http://www.101bananas.com/library2/otherwife.html

Lydia Davis' "Therapists" at:
http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c17-ld.htm

Yasunari Kawabata's "Love Suicides"
http://translation.rassaku.net/kawabata_lovesuicides.htm

Yasunari Kawabata's "The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket" http://kr.blog.yahoo.com/bakahana@ymail.com/6

Heinrich Boll's "The Laugher"
http://www.101bananas.com/library2/laugher2.html

Lon Otto's "Love Poems"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123719736

Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl"
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/fiction/Girl/story.asp

Donald Barthelme's "The School"
http://www.npr.org/programs/death/readings/stories/bart.html

Dino Buzzati's "The Falling Girl" .
Text: http://peter-mclachlin.livejournal.com/tag/dino%20buzzati
Audio http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/99665

I Am The Period At The End Of This Paragraph by Ben Greenman http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/7period.html

Italo Calvino "The Man Who Shouted Teresa"
http://des.emory.edu/mfp/calvino/calteresa.html

Octavio Paz's "The Blue Bouquet" http://lisabloomfield.net/occ/193/weekly_html/bluebouquet.pdf

All of the stories are outstanding and it's amazing how much more can be noticed when several writers put their eyes together to take a look.

If you're a serious writer of flash fiction, do join us at FlashFiction-W. To join, send a blank subject header message to [mailto:listserv@listserv.uta.edu] and in the message section write only this: subscribe FlashFiction-W joe@whatever.net (your email address). When there's an opening in the active online workshop you'll then get a copy of our workship guidelines. (All writers must be at least 18 years old.)

Til next blog.

Flash Fiction Film

I'm fascinated with flash fiction translated into film. Nine of Raymond Carver's stories were turned into one feature-length film with Robert Alman's Short Cuts and many of us are familiar with that film. Now I'm making new discoveries as I find flash fiction turned into short-short film on the 'net.

See Yasunari Kawabata’s “Love Suicides” --an outstanding flash fiction piece which can be read here: http://translation.rassaku.net/kawabata_lovesuicides.htm

And here’s the powerful film version: http://www.fluxusonline.com/2010/film.php?cod=14

Then there's Fernando Sorrentino's “There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella" (a story I'm very impressed with) which can be read at: http://www.badosa.com/bin/obra.pl?id=n084-en

And here’s the film version (my favorite from among the several versions I found) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BftjbyTk-OU

I'll be posting more as I run across them. (I have info on others but don't have the details close by so I'll save that info for another post.) And if you know of flash fiction turned into film. I'd love to hear about it.