Do you agree with Stohlman that work this brief can also be powerful?

1) What do you think of work of this extreme brevity? Do you agree with Stohlman that work this brief can also be powerful?2) Given all you now know about short fiction in the U.S., do you agree with the author that flash fiction is “an entirely new kind of writing”?3) If you are feeling creative, select one of the many writing prompts on Stohlman’s website (click the link for nano fiction in the right hand corner on the opening page of website) and write a micro fiction or flash fiction for us. Examples are: write a story as a sentence; write a story as a list; write a story with the number 17, etc. She has tons and they are fun.here is readings -Nancy Stohlman and Background on Flash FictionBorn in 1973, Nancy Stohlman is our youngest writer yet, and she works largely with the form of “flash fiction.” This fiction of extreme brevity is usually between 300 and 1000 words. It is also called micro fiction, micro flash, postcard fiction, short short fiction, and sudden fiction.As you can imagine, Hemingway is seen as having great influence on the flash fiction writers of today. In fact, as I think I have mentioned, there is a writerly legend (now disproved) that Hemingway won a bet that he could write a story that could make you cry in less than 10 words. His alleged winning answer was “For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” In fact, in Stohlman’s interview, she will incorrectly attribute this sentence to Hemingway. In any case, it is easy to understand flash fiction as the Iceberg Principle taken to the extreme. This very short and often intense fiction gained attention with an anthology called Flash Fiction that circulated in 1992. In it, the editors described flash fiction as short enough to fit on two facing pages of a digest style magazine. Since then, a new term, “Micro Flash” has also come into use, designating even shorter works, more appropriate for phone screens.I think it is important to be reminded at this point that the forms of short stories we’ve covered have largely been shaped by, or in correspondence to, the mechanisms through which they circulated. So Poe, for instance, wrote his “Theory of Single Effect” when literary print journals were on the rise—the perfect format for the length of his works, which could be read in one sitting. Similary, Cekhov and Hemingway’s theories of writing, or more specifically of cutting things out of writing, comply with space limits in print newspapers. And today, Nancy Stohlman’s flash fiction makes perfect sense with the internet, when print media is increasingly turning to fully online formats to save printing costs and mail costs. To be sure ipads and mobile phones have trained us to read flash fiction along with other things that are short and intense.There are two significant things to know about Stohlman’s biography (the real one, as opposed to the made up one she includes on her website). The first is that she is also a performer and musician. This performative aspect is clear in her writing as well, as you will see in her reading/performance of her flash fiction story “The Fox.” Because self promotion over the internet through things like websites, Youtube and facebook is increasingly important for a writer’s recognition, performative writers like Alexie, who also does stand up comedy and Stohlman, who plays in the band Kinky Mink, do well. The second significant thing is that Stohlman’s MFA (Master’s in Creative writing) is from Naropa University, which is a Buddhist leaning institution that really encourages self-expression and individuality. Stohlman accredits a teacher there for encouraging her to leave her work raw, unpolished, and brief at a time when flash fiction was still not accepted as viable short story. I see Naropa’s emphasis on meditation and silence as having an impact on Stohlman’s willingness to trust the gaps in her work.What to pay attention to in this week’s readingFor this week’s required reading I’m directing you to Nancy Stohlman’s website where you will find several of her flash fiction pieces and an interview in which she talks about the flash fiction form. The list below of 6 steps may look like gobs of reading, but trust me, it isn’t (especially because her work is short and compelling). I’ve included the links below, but you can also just go to her website and root around. In particular, if you click on the links for “Flash Fiction” and “Uncategorized” material (under categories), and then scroll down through it, you’ll happen upon some fun stuff.As I mentioned, get ready for weird (or surreal) and sexy. In Stohlman’s work: a woman turns into a piano, a fox becomes a lover, a six inch man becomes a boyfriend, and the Avon Lady is a stalker. Often inanimate objects or animals take on human characteristics. My favorite of all is “Death Row Hugger” which happens to be the most realistic of her stories.