FlashFiction.Net

Way back when, after wigleaf and the selection editor Chad Simpson came out with Wigleaf’s Top 50 [very] short fictions of 2008, I interviewed Chad for SmokeLong Quarterly. Chad has a lot of great stuff to say about flash, in particular about the role of flash in the classroom. Here are some of the questions Chad expertly answers:

• Talk about the importance, as you discovered while reading through the final stories, of (1) openings and (2) endings.


• I love that you use flash fiction in your writing classes. What are the advantages of introducing your students to contemporary flash writers? What has been their response? How does it differ from their reactions to more traditional texts?


• Could you talk a bit more, in greater detail, about how you introduce and continue to use flash in your classes?


• How, for example, might you use the stories in the wigleaf list?


• How might you answer a student’s general question regarding how to write flash fiction?


• What would you say is the unique challenge of reading [very] short fiction?

Read his answers (and a whole lot more) here.

For further reading, check out FlashFiction.Net’s suggested readings of flash fiction and prose poetry collections, anthologies, and craft books, by clicking here.

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