By Martin Northway

Intermittently fiction tries to reinvigorate itself with new forms. Now we have “flash fiction,” like what we have long called short, short fiction but imbued somehow with greater urgency, nurtured in the hothouse of the Internet blogosphere. Its products are like watermelons stolen by their writers from odd moments in the workaday world or the humdrum of life.

Tobias Bengelsdorf, in his introduction to a compendium of short works that is the newest print project of Chicago’s Green Lantern Press, makes no apology for his own transgressions against employers, for “Every office I’ve worked in was a den of wasted time and preposterous directives.”

And as with stolen watermelons, flash fiction can be very sweet, including some of these selections gleaned from Fiction At Work’s blog (fictionatwork.com) since its inception in 2007. At their best, they yield unexpected glimpses into other lives. Read the rest of this entry »

Jacob Knabb as Harold Ray

The first Tuesday of every month, an eclectic ensemble of writers, actors, comedians, puppeteers and other performers gather at the Hungry Brain in Roscoe Village for an improvised evening. Under the umbrella of “So You Think You Have Nerves of Steel,” the artists whisk up an interactive show that promises nothing less than the least expected.

“I’m surprised at what they come up with,” admits Jacob Knabb, who coordinates the event on behalf of Chicago/Nashville-based literary magazine The 2nd Hand, as well as serving as editor-in-chief of Another Chicago Magazine. “I have an idea, but I don’t exactly know. [This month] all I know is we need a projector.” Read the rest of this entry »

By Rachel Sugar

Best known as the co-founder of the Chicago reading-circuit staple Quickies! (each writer gets four minutes to read a complete work, no poetry, no cheating), Lindsay Hunter’s got other tricks up her (short) sleeve. The flash-fiction aficionado has just released her first short-story collection, “Daddy’s,” a Southern Gothic-infused “bait box of temptation,” in collaboration with featherproof books. I e-caught up with Hunter to get her take on Kindles, Southern magic and the unexpected benefits of super-short prose.

What do you mean by “a bait box of temptation?” Is it…you know, actually a box? If so, what made you decide to go that route?

From the very beginning we wanted to make this book an object of some sort that related to the stories themselves in terms of theme/presentation. Making the book look like an old baitbox, with crud on the outside and trays and trays of things Daddy would keep in his bait box on the inside, just made sense. The book is Daddy’s tacklebox and you better be prepared for what he keeps inside—be it a glass eye or a clump of bullets or a story about a giant jealous baby. Read the rest of this entry »

“That was a great warm-up, now you can start on the novel.” That’s what Mary Hamilton and Lindsay Hunter heard most often during their critiques in the writing program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ranging between one and three pages of text, flash fiction is among the shortest forms of fiction writing. Famous Chicago natives like Ernest Hemingway pushed it even further with his six-word story, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” which now ranks as the shortest piece of short fiction ever penned.

But what makes flash fiction different from other forms of fiction is not just length, but how the story itself builds up. “Flash fiction eliminates all the window-staring and gets down to the moment,” Hunter explains. “It’s easy to go on for pages, but it’s not easy to inhabit the moment where something is really happening. Flash fiction is like writing in the moment and being thrifty with the word choice.” It’s a common misconception for people to think that flash fiction is a sketch for a longer piece. “If you gave me ten stories I’d cut the last sentence out of nine of them at least.” The trick with flash fiction is that it “starts at the crest and ends at the climb,” Hunter adds. “Its not like getting on the roller coaster up to that never-ending climb where you’ve crested, you’ve looked how far the drop is and taken the plunge then unbuckled yourself from your seat. Flash fiction denies the drop.”

Hunter and Hamilton met in the writing program in what they describe as “love at first sight.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

A worthy night of readings before the madness and mayhem of this weekend’s Printers Row Lit Fest, this event features author Jean Thompson, whose thrilling work with 2007 collection “Throw Like a Girl” and novel “City Boy” makes the upcoming release of “Do Not Deny Me” all the more exciting. (Her 1999 book of short stories, “Who Do You Love,” was a National Book Award finalist.) It’s difficult not to compare Thompson’s work to that of Alice Munro, to give you a better idea of what to expect, if you’re unfamiliar. Also reading tonight is local scribe Lindsay Hunter, co-founder of the charming Quickies! reading series and author of the forthcoming novel “My Brother,” plus author J. Adams Oaks, whose first novel, “Why I Fight,” was released last month via Simon and Schuster. (Tom Lynch)

June 5 at Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln, (773)293-2665, at 7:30pm. Free.