SmokeLong Quarterly

You recently published “Future Filum” in New South. One of the things I really admired about the story is that it feels like you’ve condensed at least a novel’s worth of world and time into less than 500 words. Was this story always a micro? 

This one was always a tiny story. I think I started it with the opening line more or less as it appears in New South. Once I had that line (it was one of those that popped into my head out of the blue), I riffed on it for a while and followed whatever progression came to me. When I’m writing really short things like this I try to make each sentence somehow surprising in relation to the ones before it and after it. During the initial draft I don’t focus much on concerns of “Should this be longer?” or “Does this plot make sense?”; I prefer to let the sentences argue for whatever comes out of that condensed “world.” That’s part of the reason I left the story in one block of text: the removal of paragraph breaks forces the sentences and ideas together, which can lead to interesting juxtapositions and unexpected turns. Or that’s the intention, at least.

Another thing that’s interesting about “Future Filum” is that it mashes together a biblical retelling and science fiction and isn’t shy about putting it out there. What ideas or genres do you wish you could see more authors exploring? Personally, I would love to read a really good domestic fiction style story where all the main characters just happen to be wizards.

 I’m fascinated by how we (re)place and (re)purpose myths, whether they be of religion, or celebrity, or politics, or media, or anything else. There’s a neat confluence of storytelling happening nowadays because we have access to so much information about the entities we mythologize. I’m always wondering where we go from here—“Future Filum,” for example, came from wondering how Judeo-Christian myths or figures might be repurposed and changed in a faraway future. The myths we’re surrounded by, or that we might have grown up with, can make for fascinating new narratives. I’m invested in questions of how stories change over time, how we interpret those changes, whether we are aware of the changing, etc.

So all that being said, I love seeing new interpretations of old stories. I love seeing genres blended and warped. I’m less interested as a reader and a writer in the plot-based reasons why a story might be; I just want to see it acted out. If someone were to write Wizards of Domestic Realism (please do, by the way), I wouldn’t want or need a complicated backstory about why the titular wizards are living domestically “real” lives. I’m ready to accept that as a premise because I’m familiar with genre conventions and because I know how certain formulas play out—I think we all do!—and because I’m ready to see those forms changed. There’s something so satisfying to me about seeing generic formulas altered so that our own knowledge and experiences and expectations can be used (or subverted) in compelling ways. And we’re seeing more and more stories in that vein, which is great—look at the work of Kelly Link, Diane Cook, Porochista Khakpour, Lincoln Michel, Matt Bell, and many others.

What were some of your favorite flash fiction stories published in 2015?

 Here are three tiny stories that stuck with me this year:

Ravi Mangla’s “Lever”, published in October in The Collagist, moves so well, and its form fits its function—we’re reading through the stacked, overly detailed thoughts of a lost person focusing far too much energy on something incredibly mundane. The opening up of the story near the end is poignant, sad, and affecting.

Erica Mosely’s “The Serial Killer’s Ghost” (also October; must have been a good month) at CHEAP POP has the kind of strange premise I’m drawn to. I love the first-person plural as a narrative voice, and I love stories that aren’t afraid to dig into a dark or difficult topic, so long as they handle said topic with nuance and wit, which this absolutely does.

Padgett Powell is one of my favorite writers, period. His story “Not Much Is Known” (from his new collection Cries For Help, Various) published in Okey-Panky over the summer is a devastating portrait of a person at the end of his rope, as it were. The story begins broadly before focusing in on a singular disruptive event to heartbreaking effect.

If someone is reading this and frantically trying to revise for your week of guest editing, what should their story’s opening paragraph do to catch your interest?

 I know it’s old advice, but I want to be grabbed from the very beginning. Of course, I want any story I read to hook me immediately, but a strong opening is especially important in flash/micro/tiny fiction. If those first couple sentences makes me think, “Oh, that’s cool,” or “Oh, that’s strange,” or “Oh, here is what this story is about,” and the rest of the paragraph continues to surprise me (whether it be via language, premise, structure, whatever), I’ll be on board. In other words, give me a setup for something really compelling, and then follow through with it.