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| Furball with this week’s short stories |
“Tiny, Smiling Daddy”
Publication: Because They Wanted To
Publication type: Short story collection, single author
Writing this good feels like magic.
Favorite lines:
“He felt helplessness move through his body the way a swimmer feels a large sea creature pass beneath him” (Gaitskill 13).
“The Sound of a Room”
Publication: Inherited
Publication type: Short story collection, single author
I’ve been immensely enjoying this collection, but this is the story that cemented my love for Curtin’s writing.
Favorite lines:
“He had succeeded in capturing the sound of the ordinary” (Curtin 59).
“Omitted Excerpt”
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman
At first glance the conceit seemed too heavy to support any emotional weight, but midway through it started to sing to me.
Favorite lines:
“Regardless of my narrative status, I still believe I have potential to exist outside parenthesis” (Weinstein 9-11).
“The Broken House of Nan-Jing”
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman
A whole novel in a flash story – excellent.
Favorite lines:
“When he was finished with his fourth draft and sitting on a growing pile of rejection letters, he asked the administration if he could read a chapter in the central quad, and they set up a podium twenty yards from a group of sorority girls selling raffle tickets for an all-expense paid trip to Cabo” (Siegel 12-13).
“Standard Loneliness Package”
Publication: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011
Publication type: Anthology, multiple authors, ed. Rich Horton
Beautifully written. Brilliant. Heartbreaking.
Favorite lines:
“In the end, we’re all brains for hire” (Yu 146).
I’m challenging myself to read five short stories each week. The stories can be from collections or magazines, online or print, novella or flash.
I’ll post my short story reads for each week here on Friday, with a few notes about each story.
Have you read any short stories this week you’d like to recommend?
Have you read “Balancing Racks” yet by Jason Sinclair Long? It's in Fast Forward: the Mix Tape. It's one of my favorite extremely short stories. Ever.
Just read it – loved it! I'm surprised by how many of these flash pieces are amazing, and in many ways better than the couple thousand word short stories out there.