Flashback on flash from what I was thinking in 2016
Flash, depending on the definer, can set its upper word limit anywhere between 500 words and 1,750 words. Usually any ceiling below this is classified as microfiction. Regardless-- and given that I'm in position to debate genre with those who know better-- here are the flash fictions I've been looping lately.
"A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room" by George Saunders (Hunger Mountain)
"Break It Down" by Lydia Davis (The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, and Elevators)
"Cutting Edge" by James Purdy (The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy, Liverwright, 2013)
"On the Edge of the Sidewalk" by Dumitru Tsepeneag (Waiting, Dalkey Archive, 2013)
"The Mariner: A Static Drama in One Scene" by Fernando Pessoa (The Brooklyn Rail)
"The School" by Donald Barthelme (Sixty Stories)
"This Person" by Miranda July (No one belongs here more than you: Stories)
"Tweet" by Sabrina Orah Mark (The Collagist)
"X unequals Y" by Susan Daitch (Storytown, Dalkey)
Also enchanted with Deb Olin Unferth's Minor Robberies published by McSweeney's. This book is my Mobius strip at the moment.
Now for the super shorties, some of which might be classified as "micros", others which exist as just really excellent compressed fiction:
"Crazy" by Ron Hansen (She Loves Me Not, Simon & Schuster)
"Death and Life in the City of N." by Ron Gibson, Jr. (Noble Gas Quarterly)
"Exercises" by Bruce Taylor (Vestal Review)
"Marriage" by Anna Lea Jancewicz (Matchbook Lit)
"Wants" by Grace Paley (Electric Literature)
"When I Lose Track of the Children, 5 & 7, Near the Magazine Section at Costco" by Christopher Mercer (Smokelong Quarterly)
It's difficult to convey my gratitude to every daring, innovative, lyrical, difficult, and fascinating writer I discover on Twitter or in literary magazines which span the globe. Gratitude is abstract and heavy as Hallmark card stock paper.
On the other hand, it's not difficult to say this: You are my MFA. You are my teachers, my guides, my prods, and (sometimes) my provocations. I am so grateful for you. I am also beholden to my sweet wi-fi connection. Imagine all the writers that might exist given a laptop and a little wi-fi.