Smoking With Joseph Scapelatto by Meg Pokrass Epilogue by Joaquin Villaverde via Creative Commons license Avalanche is a beautiful story, one that I have reread many times. How did this story come to you? Thanks for the kind words! I'm so honored to have work appearing in SmokeLong Quarterly. This story sprouted from my novel (which is still in progress). Spending a great many hours inside a novel, I've found, can lead to sudden cravings to write flash fiction. The craving happened; I peeled off a passage that I thought might provide the raw stuff for flash and began to radically revise. (There's something liberating about this, too—taking a polished piece of novel and going wild, tearing the passage open, writing FROM it and TO it, finding its new story.) The end result was "Avalanche,"� an entirely independent work of fiction. (Only one paragraph remains similar.) The story feels as though it were about a whole life, not just one moment in a life. The reader begins to identify with the boy through the way you show us glimpses of how he sees his family and the things that happen, and by what the boy notices. How are lovable, empathetic characters created by a writer in a short space? For me, deeply felt characters (of any stripe—the lovable, the despicable, the despicably lovable) are created with distinct images and actions, the kind that powerfully suggest invisible (but, again, deeply felt) universes. You may not know exactly what's suggested, but you feel it. Maybe such images and actions operate in the same way myth does—they build a bridge that links the universal to the individual. It's a two-way bridge. And the bridge is so awesome that once you're on it, you don't know which side you came from first. You're not even sure they're separate places. Which writers inspire you? Generous writers. To me, there are two kinds. The first is the generous writer who produces pieces that feel like they're made of everything the writer's got, pieces you can't help sinking into. Total immersion. You put the story down—where did the time go? The second is the generous writer who is generous to the craft, who gives to readers and other writers by writing about writing. Mentors, directly or indirectly. These are the writers who create community. And community is so important to writers, who write alone. Without generous writers, I couldn't continue writing. And probably wouldn't have started. What is new in your writing world? What are you working on? I'm pushing through to a new draft of my novel and I'm hoping that what I'm doing is making the book better, but I don't think I'll know until August. And I'm trying to put together two collections of short stories. One of them is about cowboys, mostly. What are the best aspects of writing flash? What do you love about reading/writing flash specifically? Flash is small. So it's possible to pick the whole piece up (the beginning, middle, and end, if that's what they are—sometimes these categories feel less useful, because flash can seem so tightly fused together) and hold it in your head. The whole piece, all at once, right there in your mind. I'm not saying that flash is simple, light, or without mystery; I'm only arguing that because of its smaller size, a reader (or writer) can more manageably contemplate its complete shape. And during drafting, this means that you can sometimes immediately see the impact one change has on the work as a whole. There's a kind of puzzle-cracking pleasure in this, a pleasure that comes more slowly (and sometimes, more powerfully) with longer works. Read Avalanche. Issue Twenty-Eight (July 25, 2010): Young Waitresses by Steve Almond «» Frank by Matt Baker «» The Life and Times of Dmitri Kulikov by Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf «» Scapegoat by Thomas Cooper «» What You Could Catch Me Bumping by Craig Davis «» Complicit by Gay Degani «» What You See When You Think of Home by John Mark DeMoss «» In the Attic by Murray Dunlap «» A Flower Thing by Jen Gann «» Seahorse Sex by Molly Giles «» Gertie by Kyle Hemmings «» Vertigo by Ann Hillesland «» Rock by Stephanie Johnson «» A Shot of Whatever by David LaBounty «» Palo Alto by Paul Lisicky «» The Lake House by Michelle McMahon «» Hell Is a Headline by Emily McPhillips «» How I Liked the Avocados by Wendy Oleson «» Regrets by Bridget Pelkie «» What Passes for Normal by Michelle Reale «» Avalanche by Joseph Scapellato «» Last Seen Leaving by Laura Ellen Scott «» Explicable by Sabrina Stoessinger «» A Fistful of Buttercups by Nancy Stebbins «» My Maggie by Eugenia F. Tsutsumi «» The Ghost by Russell Whitaker «» The Strain of Collusion by xTx «» Interviews: Steve Almond «» Matt Baker «» Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf «» Thomas Cooper «» Craig Davis «» Gay Degani «» John Mark DeMoss «» Murray Dunlap «» Jen Gann «» Molly Giles «» Kyle Hemmings «» Ann Hillesland «» Stephanie Johnson «» David LaBounty «» Michelle McMahon «» Emily McPhillips «» Wendy Oleson «» Bridget Pelkie «» Michelle Reale «» Joseph Scapellato «» Laura Ellen Scott «» Nancy Stebbins «» Sabrina Stoessinger «» Eugenia F. Tsutsumi «» xTx «» Cover Art "Wall Street Must Be Tripping" by Marty D. Ison «» Letter From the Editor Interested in subscribing to SmokeLong's weekly newsletter? Click here. An email should be created. Send it as is, and you'll be subscribed. If the link does not work for you, send an email to imailsrv@smokelong.com with Subscribe slq-info in the body of the email (no subject is necessary). 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