Esquire Magazine recently (February 2007) created a great project. Their staff sent out napkins to 250 writers across the country and asked these writers to write a "napkin story"-- a story that would fit on a napkin.

Some of the 100 writers who participated include Madison Smartt Bell, Ethan Paquin, Aimee Bender, Ron Carlson, Tony Eprile, Rick Moody, and 96 others. Some of the tiny stories are great. Some are minimalist stories, some are full and lush, and the stories range from hilarious to downright disturbing.

What is also interesting about the project is getting to see the actual handwriting of all the writers. I'm so used to seeing their writing in print that I was surprised to see plain old-fashioned pencil/pen writing. (I also love doing handwriting analysis for fun and sport.)

Flash fiction use sall sorts of forms and all sorts of materials for creating stories, so now, thanks to the Esquire Napkin Project, we see that napkins can work for writers too.

Go to http://www.esquire.com/fiction/napkin-fiction/napkinproject to read the fine variety of stories.