Tag: Flash

  • Short Story Review: “Slow Leak” by Lavina Blossom

    (The piece “Slow Leak” by Lavina Blossom was first published in Okay Donkey on March 7th, 2025.)

    I had an acting professor in college tell me that the easiest way to learn about a character was through their simplest actions. Such as, how does your character pick up a glass of water? How do they read the newspaper? How would they answer the phone? This was an idea toward character development that always stuck with me, because mundane ordinary actions can give valuable insight on the disposition of the character. This idea bounced around my head as I read Lavina Blossom’s piece “Slow Leak,” published by Okay Donkey.

    The ordinary action of this story is an older woman, possible elderly or at least getting near it, who is trying to leave and lock her car without forgetting anything. Though the prose is not stream of consciousness, it has an adjacent feel to that form, as the unnamed protagonist floats between obstacle and resolution, which allows her thoughts to drift to related topics in her life. What this creates is a feeling of fluidity of motion, both physical and mental, in the protagonist, which keeps the story moving forward. She looks for her phone, contemplates adding phone numbers to the device, wonders about a slow leak in her tire that her son told her about, and plays with the car key fob, locking and unlocking the doors.

    Then hovering just above the action, thematically, is the feeling of sadness and aging. She has a new phone that her grandson had to show her how to use, friends are passing away, her husband is in a nursing home and doesn’t full recognize her anymore. Her independence is being threatened, and dependence on others, even if it is family, is not an appealing solution for her. Though she doesn’t have to make a decision in this story about her future, she is aware that the day will come and things will have to change.

    Which takes me back to the locking and unlocking of the car doors, a narrative device that Blossom uses again at the end of the story. The protagonist pushes the fob in the darkness, registering the sound the car makes, but unsure which sound means locked or unlocked – reinforcing the idea of indecision. It’s a nice button to the piece, because with these small actions we have come to understand the essence of this character.

  • A Question for the People Who Read My Short Story Reviews

    For those of you who read my short story reviews, and I guess anybody else out there for that matter, are there any short stories that came out in the last six months from either big or small publications, that you would recommend?

    Please leave your suggestions in the comments so we can all enjoy your endorsements.

    Thanks for taking part…

  • Short Story Review – “Good Girls” by Martha Keller

    (The flash fiction story “Good Girls” by Martha Keller was first published in Milk Candy Review on September 19th, 2024.)

    One of the many things that I love about flash fiction, as a form of storytelling, is that it lends itself quite well to writers willing to play with the structure and the form that a narrative can take. Martha Keller accomplishes this deconstruction of a traditional narrative, rather well in her piece “Good Girls,” which appeared in Milk Candy Review back in September of 2024.

    After an opening paragraph, which describes the immortal clashes between girls on swings and boys who wish to remove them, the story takes on a narrative structure of examining consequential moments of life, every five years. What Keller uniquely creates is not a linear progression, but more like a retrograde motion, starting at the age of 30, and descending to a newborn. This format enables the reader to compare the desires and aspirations of each age, but highlighting specifically how what is important at a certain age, wasn’t even on the horizon just five years before. In considering this structure, it plays with a level of menace that seems just below the surface in each of these ages. How in each age, something is sought and even acquired, but the feeling of it being taken away is also present, which goes back to the opening paragraph of the girls on the swings and the boys wanting to take that from them.

    “Good Girls” is very efficient and succinct as a flash piece; only 400+ words. Keller doesn’t waste any time in this story. This directness coupled with the unique structure of its narrative creates an insightful work of flash fiction.

  • Short Story Review – “Séance at the Dinner Party” by Tori Palmore

    (The flash piece “Séance at the Dinner Party” by Tori Palmore first appeared at Rejection Letters on November 27th, 2024.)

    Families can suck, and in literature, this is fertile ground for inspiration which has been plowed many times over, and will forever produce material that will be harvested for our consumption. As I get older, family dramas have become more fascinating to me, and Tori Palmore’s “Séance at the Dinner Party” is a absorbing stream of consciousness entry into the field.

    The narrator takes us through their thoughts/experience/emotions at this family gathering, I believe it is Thanksgiving. There is the subtext of death and the loss of a sibling, perhaps the narrator’s safety at these gatherings, and the repetitive “Brother is Dead” adds a staccato rhythm to the prose, keeping the piece unsettled. I appreciated Palmore’s use of short sentences to build tension and keep the emotions and reactions moving forward. The piece never feels like it can stop, that it will perpetually play over and over again, not only in the narrator’s life, but also in the mind, even when they leave this dinner party of family. How the narrator is uncomfortable with their family, how they don’t feel accepted, to the point of micro aggressions signaling that they are not fully accepted. Yet the narrator keeps their rage, even grief, in check. Though the narrator does escape this evening with their family, the ironic knowledge is that this event will repeat itself again.

    Palmore’s “Séance at the Dinner Party” is the type of flash fiction I look forward to reading. It is direct, clear, and puts me in a moment or emotional state that I can relate to, or learn from. And in the piece, Palmore also creates a moment that also feels as if it exists outside of time, which adds to the resonance of the story.

  • Short Story Review: Two Micros by Jeffrey Hermann

    (The piece “Two Micros by Jeffrey Hermann” appeared at Okay Donkey on November 29th, 2024.)

    And these are two truly micro pieces that Jeffrey Hermann created, each under 250 words. The first is titled, “The Voice of God Gives Up the Act,” and the second is, “If it’s Not One Thing it’s a Million Things.” Both are efficient, idiosyncratic works that brought to me such an innocent and lovely feeling of joy in their simplicity. Yet each micro was inventive in its imagination and storytelling, and left me feeling better about life.

    “The Voice of God Gives Up the Act,” spoke to me about how at some point parents stop being authority figures, and become people, and in some cases small people. And also, how our children can become little deities in our lives, but they, like our parents, will inevitably transmogrify to their human form, too. I appreciated that these observations were not at the expense of the gods, but more like melancholic observations. Especially with the little drama of the small god spilling the smoothie, which provided this piece with a slight bit of drama, climax and a touching resolution.

    “If it’s Not One Thing it’s a Million Things,” struck me as more like poetry than prose, but it was prose. Maybe stream of consciousness prose? It was reminiscent of my mind wandering gently as I drift off the sleep. There is an ease to these words, and how the sentences flow together, and one point repeating a phrase, like your brain is stuck on a loop. It felt like this was the memory of a good day, not life altering, but a good day where the little things and are seen and acknowledged.

    Besides enjoying these two micros, I must admit that I was rather envious of Jeffrey Hermann’s talent and skill as a writer. In a very small package, he created two works that caused me to view my day differently, and change my mood. He made me wonder about the people I love, whom I give power over me, and how they will change over time. And all those moments we spend in our short little lives – those moments do mean something.