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SmokeLong Webinars

SmokeLong now offers a 90-minute webinar each month focused on the craft of flash narrative. For the writers of SmokeLong Fitness who have participated at least a month, these webinars are included in the price of the workshop. If you’re not participating in SmokeLong Fitness–The Community Workshop of SmokeLong Quarterly, you can still attend the monthly webinars for $29 each. Dates and Topics to be announced! Check out the SmokeLong Shop for the current month’s webinar.

Who’s Teaching When* — September 2022 – June 2023

September. Christopher Allen
Topic: “Expansion in Flash–Sometimes More is More”
Date/Time: October 1, 2pm ET/7pm UK (Yes we do see that this is actually on Oct 1. We’re not the best with dates.)
“In this 90-minute webinar we’ll look at specific ways to expand flash narratives, focusing on enriching story and character.” — Christopher Allen

Christopher Allen is the author of the flash fiction collection Other Household Toxins (Matter Press, 2018). His work has appeared widely and is forthcoming in The Best Small Fictions 2022 and Flash Fiction America (Norton) in February 2023. He has a BA in music business from Belmont University and an MA in English from Middle Tennessee State University. Allen is a nomad.

October. Sherrie Flick
Topic: “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: How to Manipulate Time in Flash Fiction”

Date: October 29
Time: 10am ET / 3pm London

“In this session we’ll look closely at linear, continuous, long, and meticulous time in flash fiction. There will be examples and exercises to help you get lost and found on the page.” — Sherrie Flick 

Sherrie Flick is the author of the novel Reconsidering Happiness (University of Nebraska Press) and two short story collections Thank Your Lucky Stars and Whiskey, Etc., both with Autumn House Press. Recent work appears in PloughsharesNew England ReviewPithead Chapel, and Booth. She is a senior editor at SmokeLong Quarterly, served as series editor for The Best Small Fictions 2018 with guest editor Aimee Bender (Braddock Avenue Books), and is co-editor for Flash Fiction America (W. W. Norton, 2023). She lives in Pittsburgh.

November.  Jennifer Wortman
Topic: “The Power of the Unsaid: Working with Negative Space in Flash”
Date: November 13
Time: 3pm ET/8pm UK
“In this class, we’ll learn how to harness the power between and beyond our words by exploring the imaginative, implicative force of what we leave off the page. Brief readings and exercises will guide us through shaping negative spaces that invite contemplation instead of confusion.” — Jennifer Wortman

Jennifer Wortman is the author of the story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love. Her work appears in TriQuarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Electric Literature, Brevity, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and elsewhere, and has been cited as distinguished in Best American Short Stories. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and MacDowell, she lives with her family in Colorado, where she teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop and serves as associate fiction editor for Colorado Review.

December. Steve Almond
Topic: “Obsession — How to Turn Your Obsessions into Sparkling Prose.”
Date: December 3
Time: 10am ET / 3pm UK / 10pm Singapore

Steve Almond is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. You can check those out here. His new book is a novel called All the Secrets of the World. His short stories have been anthologized widely, in the Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Erotica, and Best American Mysteries series. He also publishes crazy, DIY books.

January. Shasta Grant
Topic: “Creating the Linked Collection”
Date: January 15
Time: 7pm Indianapolis / 11am Sydney

Do you have multiple stories or essays that connect to each other (perhaps you’ve been writing short stories about the same family, or characters from the same town, or you’ve been writing essays about various periods of your life)? Have you wondered how these pieces might add up to something greater than the sum of its parts? In this webinar, we’ll examine what linked collections are (and how they differ from novels and memoirs), how they work, and how you can form connections between your own stories or essays.

Shasta Grant  is the author of the chapbook Gather Us Up and Bring Us Home (Split Lip Press, 2017). She won the 2015 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest and the 2016 SmokeLong Quarterly Kathy Fish Fellowship. She has received residencies from Hedgebrook and The Kerouac Project and was selected as a 2020 Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow. Her work has appeared in cream city review, Epiphany, Hobart, wigleaf, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and divides her time between Singapore and Indianapolis.

February. Amber Sparks
Topic: “Epic Flash: Making Big Stories in Small Spaces”
Date: February 18

Time: Noon ET

Amber Sparks is the author of The Unfinished World and Other Stories, and I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges, both from Liveright. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Tin House, Granta, The Cut, The Paris Review, and others.

March. Sara Lippmann
Topic: “The Heart of the Matter: Excavating the imperative in flash”
Date: March 15
Time: 2pm ET / 7pm UK

Sara Lippmann received a BA from Brown and an MFA from The New School. She has written for national magazines, co-hosted the Sunday Salon, a monthly NYC reading series, and taught creative writing at Rutgers University, St. Joseph’s College and with Ditmas Writing Workshops. Her stories have been published widely in print and online, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and included in Wigleaf‘s Top 50. A former mentor for Girls Write Now, she received a 2012 Fellowship in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Raised outside of Philadelphia, she lives with her husband and children in Brooklyn. Her story collection, Doll Palace (originally published by Dock Street Press, and long-listed for the 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award) has been reissued by 713 Books. Her new collection, JERKS, is available from Mason Jar Press. Her debut novel, LECH, is available from Tortoise Books. She currently teaches with Jericho Writers.

April. María Alejandra Barrios
Topic: “Magical Realism in Flash”
Date: April 15
Time: 10am ET

“Wings, magical cool boxes, a town that smells like roses….
In this webinar we’ll analyze how setting, history and even political background influence a story, and the magic we can find in the ordinary.” — María Alejandra Barrios

María Alejandra Barrios is a pushcart nominated writer born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She has lived in Bogotá and Manchester where in 2016 she completed a Masters degree in Creative Writing from The University of Manchester. Her stories have been published in Hobart Pulp, Reservoir Journal, Bandit Fiction, Cosmonauts Avenue, Jellyfish Review,  Lost Balloon, Shenadoah Literary, Vol.1 Brooklyn and El Malpensante. Her poetry has been published in The Acentos Review. Her work has been supported by organizations like Vermont Studio Center, Caldera Arts Center and the New Orleans Writing Residency.

May. Vanessa Gebbie.
Topic: “Dispelling the Mist — Understanding and accessing the bottomless well of your creativity”
Date: May 25
Time: 6:30pm UK
Purchase this Webinar

Vanessa Gebbie has won multiple awards for both prose and poetry, including a Bridport Prize and the Troubadour. Her flash publications include Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures (Liquorice Fish Books) and the weird/irreal collection Nothing to Worry About (Flash: The International Short Short Story Press at Chester University) 2018 as well as many individual publications online and in print. She is author of three short story collections (with Salt and Cultured Llama), a novel (Bloomsbury), and two poetry publications (Pighog and Cultured Llama). She is also commissioning and contributing editor of Short Circuit, Guide to the Art of the Short Story (Salt). She teaches widely.

June. Christopher Allen
Topic: The Elements of Flash
Date: June 18
Time: 8am ET / 10pm Sydney
“In a 90-minute webinar we’ll explore what makes flash sound like flash.” — Christopher Allen

Christopher Allen is the author of the flash fiction collection Other Household Toxins (Matter Press, 2018). His work has appeared widely and is forthcoming in The Best Small Fictions 2022 and Flash Fiction America (Norton) in February 2023. He has a BA in music business from Belmont University and an MA in English from Middle Tennessee State University. Allen is a nomad.

August. Art Taylor
Topic: “Writing the Flash Mystery”
Date: August 20
Time: 1pm ET / 6pm London

From the traditional “Five Minute Mystery” to short, sharp suspense stories to tales that put a meta twist on genre traditions—this session will sample a range of potential approaches to writing flash fiction in the mystery genre. We’ll look at published stories (including two from SmokeLong itself) as potential models and inspirations for participants to pursue their own stories. — Art Taylor

Art Taylor is the author of the story collection The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense and of the novel in stories On the Road with Del & Louise, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First NovelHe won the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Short Story for “English 398: Fiction Workshop,” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and he has won three additional Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, four Macavity Awards, and four Derringer Awards for his short fiction. His work has also appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, and he edited Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection, and California Schemin’: Bouchercon Anthology 2020. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University, and he has contributed frequently to the Washington Post, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and Mystery Scene Magazine.

*SmokeLong reserves the right to change webinar leaders in the event a workshop leader cannot make the date.

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SmokeLong Fitness -- The SmokeLong Community Workshop

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Included in the price of SmokeLong Fitness:

One live Zoom webinar each month with killer workshop leaders (recorded for participants unable to attend).

One open-mic party each month (or other live Zoom events)

Discounts on intensive workshops

Discounts on senior editor feedback

Surprises (good ones)