“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” It might be said that
these six words indicate merely something for sale; it might be said that they
manage to convey an entire novel’s worth of loss. Very short stories, or flash
fictions, have been around for a very long time. In the recent past, Richard
Bausch has said that “when a story is compressed so much, the matter of it
tends to require more size: that is, in order to make it work in so small a
space, its true subject must be proportionately larger.”
As writers, we are always navigating how to get our story
onto the page. What should we show? What should we tell? Writing flash fictions
presents us with an even greater challenge because we have only so many words
with which to convey so much world. The successful flash fiction, then, not
only presents to us a world but lets us know what all is going on there, and
why it matters.
Intrigued? Want to learn more, including how to craft
your own flash fiction? Then make sure to attend Chad’s workshop June 26-28th at the David R. Collins Writer’s Conference at McCarthy
Hall on the St. Ambrose University campus in Davenport, Iowa. Attendees will read flash fictions and
attempt to ascertain which elements of story the pieces contain to begin to
answer questions of what makes a story a story or a flash a flash. They will
also be given prompts to write their own flash fictions.
Chad Simpson is
the author of Tell Everyone I Said Hi, which won the 2012 John
Simmons Short Fiction Award and was published by the University of Iowa Press.
His work has appeared in many print and online publications, including McSweeney's Quarterly, Esquire, American
Short Fiction, and The Sun, and
he has received awards from the Illinois Arts Council, the Atlantic Monthly,
the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference. He
lives in Monmouth, Illinois, and is an Associate Professor of English at Knox
College.
The conference also features other three day workshops on
memoir, poetry, essay, and novel. Critiques, pitches, and free evening events
open to the public are also planned. Discounts are offered for MWC member and
early bird (before June 15th) registrants. Click here for more details. The
conference is made possible by our generous sponsors: Modern Woodman of
America, St. Ambrose University English Department, Illinois Arts Council
Agency, and Genesis Health Systems.
