SmokeLong Quarterly

This week students from Claudia Monpere’s flash fiction course read our submission queue! Here is our interview with the students:

Who are you?

 We’re a mix of creative writing minors and business and STEM majors, all students in Professor Monpere’s flash fiction course at Santa Clara University.

Where are you from?

 Some of us are from the sunny state of California, where dreams are chased under clear blue skies with the lingering scent of sunscreen. Others are from different parts of the U.S., including Colorado and Massachusetts.

Why did you decide to take this creative writing class?

Creativity is difficult for some of us, and we wanted to find avenues where we could improve our creativity. Also, often academic writing can feel restricting; we wanted to take a course that allowed us to explore writing within a less controlled and more creative context! And a few of us write poetry and short stories and were eager to try writing flash.

What interests you about flash narratives?

We’re interested in flash narratives because of how brief they are. It is so interesting that one can write such a deep and meaningful story in so few words.  We also wanted to improve our storytelling skills, specifically learning how to create impact quickly. And we love how flash often experiments with different writing structures.

What are you hoping to learn from reading the submission queue?

We are hoping to learn what differentiates a good flash piece from a great one. And we want to see what we’re up against as aspiring writers!

 What’s your favorite pizza topping?

 Strong feelings among us:

“We always have to have pineapple on our pizzas; it’s a must!”

“We love all forms of pork: prosciutto, pepperoni, bacon, and sausage.”

“We like Italian sausage, one bite of pineapple in a slice of pizza, pepperoni, and bacon. We like meat in our mouth, especially on pizza.”

But a few of us prefer cheese only!