Steve Almond's This Won't Take But A Minute, Honey

I ordered a copy of Almond's book through the Harvard Book Store, and like what I see (I got it quickly, too). I was curious about why he chose to go the self-publishing route and discovered that he has articles in recent Poets & Writers on that very topic. The articles are definitely worth reading. I was only vaguely aware of the EBM industry and Almond's article helped me understand a lot more about it along with help in understanding the potential in such publishing

In the July/August issue, he cautions,
"Unless you are already a famous author, it's highly unlikely you'll reach a huge audience with a self-published book." That stands to reason. BUT...

Almond also says (in that same article), "I foresee a day when writers will prefer to print chapbooks of the original work they read at events, and sell them for a few bucks, the same way musicians now sell copies of live performances."

As for Almond's book itself, it's filled with thought-provoking information. Part of the book contains flash fiction and the other part of the book contains essays on writing. It's amusing, too, in that the part with flash fiction has its own cover and table of contents. Then you have to flip the book over to get to the essays and that section has its own cover and table of contents as well.

I really like what Almond says on titles for our stories (from Minute, Honey, in his essay titled "Who Wants To Play With A Headless Doll?"):

"...titles are not an afterthought, or an indulgence. They are a signpostto the story's crucial ideas and motifs, an initiation into its tone, and an inducement to keep reading."

Then toward the end of the essay Almond says: "The search for a title should
force you deeper into the mysteries of your work. It's an invitation to
distill what Graham Greene called "the heart of the matter.""

FLASH FICTION COURSE

I'll be teaching another flash fiction course beginning on November 1, 2010. It runs four weeks and is done entirely online. The course always fills quickly so sign up soon at http://www.flashquake.org/online-classes/flash-fiction.html (where you can also see further details about the course along with some past course evaluations.)

I've been teaching this course (and an online course in writing haibun) for several years now. It's always refreshing and inspiring to meet so many gifted writers who are attracted to flash fiction. Soon I'll have my Part II course worked up and will begin offering it. Stay tuned!
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FLASH FICTION FLASH: NEWSLETTER

I'd love to get even more news on flash fiction publications, new collections/ anthologies for my newsletter, FlashFictionFlash http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlashFictionFlash

Subscribe (it's monthly and it's free) and you'll see all the types of flash literature news I send out. Then send me your own publishing news (pertinent to the newsletter). Or send me your flash literature calls for submissions. I'm always happy to spread the word.
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GROUP READ FIELD GUIDE TO WRITING FLASH FICTION
(Rose Metal Press).

There's a group reading/discussion sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at the University of Toledo (Kyle Minor's site) and it's going quite well so far.
It begins at http://www.groupread.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/hello-world/

The discussion then continues, chapter by chapter, and you can access discussion for each chapter from the menu on the right side of the screen. Just click the chapter you want. See discussion on my chapter, "The Myth-ing Link" at at http://groupread.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/the-myth-ing-link-24-30/

Some of the contributors who've stopped by to comment (so far) include myself, Nathan Leslie, Randall Brown, and Tara Masih (the editor). I expect even more of the contributors to comment as their chapters come up for discussion.

If you don't have a copy of this collection yet, you're really missing out. You can order it at:
http://www.rosemetalpress.com/Catalog/Field%20Guide_more.html
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BOOKS AND BEYOND: GREENWOOD ENECYCLOPEDIA OF NEW AMERICAN WRITING (4 vols). Edited by Kenneth Womack. (Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut/ London, 2008.)
http://www.amazon.com/Books-Beyond-Four-Volumes-Encyclopedia/dp/0313337381/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218401206&sr=1-2#_

(URL/ link above must be all together, unbroken, so cut and paste to get to the site.)

I also hope you get the chance to read my 8,000-word article on flash fiction in the above encyclopedia. You can always ask your library order it for you. My article on flash fiction includes a tenative working definition, a history, discusses contexts and issues, selected authors, reception, trends and themes, and includes a bibliography, and further reading recommendations. The encyclopedia set is wonderful for its in-depth articles on so many different types of writing (some types I'd not heard of).
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Found two new (to me) interesting looking markets for flash fiction.

THUMBNAIL MAGAZINE
http://thumbnailblog.posterous.com/pages/guidelines-2
The deadline for submissions for the fall issue is October 1, 2010.
Quarterly literary magazine accepting original, unpublished photographs and images of artwork in JPEG format, 300 DPI; prose (essays, fiction, review, commentary), unpublished, 800 words or less; poetry, unpublished, 40 lines or less. Will be publishing 10 poems and 10 works of prose (5 fiction, 5 non-fiction) in each issue, and will include one or two submitted artworks in each. Acceptance is somewhat competitive. Show us your best work. Pays contributor copy.

CONCISELY
http://www.conciselymagazine.com/
Quarterly print magazine interested in publishing stories under 500 words. All contributors get two complimentary copies of the magazine.

And here's a third for good measure (which is a high paying market).

SUBTROPICS
http://www.english.ufl.edu/subtropics/submit.htmlwill consider works of fiction of any length, from short shorts to novellas (up to 15,000 words) and self-contained novel excerpts. Pays $500 for short-short fiction. Submissions are accepted from August 31 to April 15

Subscribe to my Flash Fiction Flash newsletter for even more markets. It's free, delivered to your emailbox, and comes out around the first of each month.

To subscribe send a blank subject header email to
FlashFictionFlash-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or go to this site:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlashFictionFlash and follow the subscribe directions.

Please do please do tell your writer friends about my newsletter. New subscribers are always welcome and appreciated.

Some of my favorite writer quotes (especially useful for thinking about good flash fiction)...

"The rule of the writer is not to say what we can all say but what we are unable to say." (Anais Nin)
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"One who reads one hundred poets sounds like one hundred poets. One who reads a thousand poets sounds like oneself." (Chinese axiom)
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"Thus we respect the poet who observes no more than we do and conceives it no more profoundly than we should, if only he formulates it better than we could; we respect him still more if he does this better than most poets have. We respect still more the poet who observes more than we do, and still more the poet who feels or conceives more than we; and in proportion as the performance surpasses such standards, our respect increases. We range from the slightest esteem to the greatest awe and wonder according as he does surpass such standards; let him fall below them, and our feelings descend as far as utter contempt. We measure performance as against what it seems impossible anyone should have done; against what only the fine artist could have done; against what most artists could do, what most people could do, what anyone could have done, what only a fool would have done." (Elder Olson, from an article titled "The Nature of the Poet" from A Casebook on Dylan Thomas)
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"Creating stories is a special craft-- a special way of capturing reality on the page. It feels real, but it isn't. You can't just break off a piece of reality and stick it on the page. It won't work. It won't work because fiction is concentrated, heightened, intensified reality. It's the essence of reality. All reality doesn't contain such essence or truth, but all fiction must. You, the author, must create it. So even though you already have everything you need, you need to learn how to use it. That's craft. That's technique...." (Jerry Cleaver, Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course. New York: St. Martin's, 2002)
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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.

Flash Fiction Histories

Add Mary Austin's collection of One -Smoke Stories to the history of flash fiction. Originally published in 1934 (then republished in 2003) the collection includes multicultural stories (from Native American, Spanish colonial, mestizo, and European people of the Southwest)-- folktales, animals stories, sayings, and other popular genres. Some of the "flashes" are just a couple of pages in length.

In her introduction, Austin says the variety of cultures in the Southwest share an approach to storytelling in the one-smoke story-- a type of story that's especially suited for the communication of experience. Her description of the story-telling ceremony is rich and interesting. Here's a snip of her description:

Each participant selects a corn husk from the heap and gathers a pinch of "native tabac" from a dark bowl as it "passes the ancient ceremonial road from east to north by west to south," and holding the dry roll delicately between the lips, each participant tries to "dispatch the salutatory puffs to the six... or the four... world quarters."

Each participant holds the "crisp short-lasting cylinder between thumb and fingertips, unlighted, one begins, always gravely, and holding on for the space of one smoke, tales, each one as deft, as finished in itself as a ceremonial cigarette."

Each story ends with what Austin calls "the fang of the experience." Between participants, "the ingoing and outgoing sense of the universe pulses and spirals with the ascending smoke."

Noreen Groover Lape provides an excellent Critical Introduction to Austin's collection.

See info on this collection here

If, like me, you're interested in a general history of flash fiction do check out my 8,000-word article on flash fiction in Books and Beyond: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of New American Writing (4 vols). (Edited by Kenneth Womack. (Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut/ London, 2008.) See info on the encyclopedia here

Or you can likely order it through your local libary.

Now, off to explore more older anthologies that include flash fiction types of writing.

FLASH FICTION COURSE

There are a few more openings for my next online flash fiction course. It runs for four weeks and starts on Monday, August 9, 2010. I've been teaching online courses in flash fiction since 2002 and the course continues to be quite popular. Be sure to sign up soon so you can be part of the next session-- it always fills so don't wait too long.

See signup details at http://www.flashquake.org/online-classes/flash-fiction.html

Evaluations from the last online course I taught (permission obtained from evaluators):

Barbara Farnworth
This Flash Fiction Course was an extremely valuable experience. I have attended several writing courses (in person and online) and this course was by far the best. The facilitator, Pam Casto, provided us with an amazing amount of information which was well organized and applicable to the participants. I have saved all of the lessons so that I can review them again with more leisure. My fellow students actively participated in submitting their own work and providing thoughtful critiques of one another's work. I would highly recommend this course to other writers interested in learning about flash fiction. I would love to participate in the continuation of this class.
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Emma Munro
I've completed in-person and online writing courses and three factors determine a good writing course: the teacher/course facilitator; the quality of the information, and the level of interaction and support amongst the students. Pam, you are a standout as a teacher and course facilitator. You are motivating, encouraging & tireless...Your critiques and analyses teach so much. You have made this the most rewarding online writing course I've taken. I look forward to taking part in more of your courses. The quality of the information you offer is excellent. I feel I have a good grounding in flash fiction basics,
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Liz Martinez:
You certainly are a one woman encyclopaedia (to coin a new phrase - a pamcastopaedia ) of information about flash fiction. I feel I received my money's worth and so much more.... I have already recommended it very highly to several other writer friends and family, and I would happily take the same course again because I know I would learn even more on different levels. And Pam, thank you so much for your dedication. You obviously really care about the work you are doing here, and about giving good quality value for money no nonsense tutoring. I really appreciate that.

My next four-week online Flash Fiction Course begins August 9, 2010. It fills quickly so sign up soon. See details at http://www.flashquake.org/vol9iss4/online-classes/index.html (I limit the course to ten participants so I can give it my closest attention.)

More good news for Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips From Editors, Teacher, and Writers in the Field (edited by Tara Masih, 2009).
http://www.rosemetalpress.com/Catalog/Field%20Guide_more.html

ForeWord Magazine awarded a Bronze Medal (in their Writing Category) to Rose Metal Press’s Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction in their Book of the Year Awards. The criteria they use for their awards include editorial excellence, originality of subject matter, accuracy, contributor credentials, and professional packaging. Finalists are determined by a jury of judges consisting of editors and reviewers of ForeWord Reviews, booksellers, librarians, and other industry professionals. It should go without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that I’m pleased to have my article included in this fine collection. See the info (and other winners) at http://www.bookoftheyearawards.com/winners/2009/category/writing/

Do send your flash literature publishing news to me for inclusion in the Flash Fiction Flash Newsletter. And do subscribe to my free monthly newsletter by sending a blank email message to FlashFictionFlash-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and you'll see how to format your news for the newsletter (where I ask for specific labeling and specific info). I'd also like to get publishing news about your flash fiction/ flash literature collections or new flash anthologies you have work in (for the newsletter). So subscribe and I'll be happy to pass along your news.

Flash Fiction Course (Online)

I'll be teaching the next online flash fiction course starting on September 14, 2009. The four-week course always fills quickly so if you plan to sign on, do it soon (the number of participants is limited). To sign up go to
http://www.flashquake.org:80/online-classes/flash-fiction.html

Got my copy of Rose Metal Press Field Guide To Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field (Tara Masih, Editor. Brookline, MA: Rose Metal Press, 2009). The collection of articles on writing flash fiction is outstanding. I am also grateful to the fine writer, Robert Hill Long, for providing me with an outstanding example piece for my own article (on using myth to write flash fiction). To order your copy go to
http://www.rosemetalpress.com/Catalog/Field%20Guide_more.html

I'll be posting some reviews on the collection quite soon.