Spoiler alert: The cover of my upcoming chapbook is a photograph I took a few years ago. I’m never one to take a single photo and feel satisfied, so I usually take dozens (okay, hundreds) each shoot. I culled this specific shoot down to about 12 images, then picked my eight favorites. One is the cover—as soon as I titled the book, the image came to mind and just clicked. I tried another image and it wasn’t right, so I listened to my gut. But I still wanted to share the other seven pictures, so I planned out a few cover teases—and this is the first.
Like many of the other pieces I’ve had published recently, this started in a Kathy Fish workshop. It’s a piece of microfiction, so we already had strict word constraints (150 words or less). To add to the challenge, Kathy gave us a list of words to use—either in the piece itself, or as a jumping-off point. I used five of the ten words for the fun of it, though they definitely gave me the root of the story as well.
Other pieces published from Kathy Fish’s workshop:
I wrote a craft essay for Flash Fiction Magazine about creating characters in flash fiction. With such constraints, it’s easy to think something’s gotta go – plot, characters, a turning point. How can you find room for it all? Read the article for my insight.
If you didn’t know I was a poet… well, you’ll soon find out why I keep that side of me under wraps.
In all seriousness, I’m proud of this acceptance because it came from THE ANGRY ROBOT running things at Versification Zine. It took me five tries of five line poems before I earned this acceptance. It was quite the rush that night, and now, seeing my poem in print… I’m really glad it’s paired with one of my favorite photographs of all time.
I love celebrating National Flash Fiction Day by reading flash pieces by my friends and new-to-me authors. I especially love the 25 writing prompts over 24 hours! This year a friend and I got together to write for some of those prompts on Saturday night. Sunday we polished our work and submitting pieces to The Write-In.
I’m pleased that four of my pieces were accepted for publication! You can read them here:
You can see the prompt and other writers’ responses by clicking the tag on each post. It’s so fun to see how people interpret the same prompt in such different ways!
November is commonly known as National Novel Writing Month for writers, whether you participate or not. I’ve tried it off and on over the years, winning some, giving up some throughout the month. I’ve written a young adult book, a middle grade book, and a few story collections. But overall it’s hit or miss for me because I’m still not really sure I have a good novel in me.
When Thirty West Publishing House suggested a different approach to NaNoWriMo, I was all in. They called it #antiwrimo. Instead of one author writing a novel in a month, 30 authors would write one together.
Yes. A collaborative novel.
We had a Google doc for the book and a separate one for notes. On November 1st, the first author started the story. On the 2nd, the next author wrote their chapter. And so on. Some days had two authors because everyone wanted a part of this project. I wrote the 24th chapter and it was… wild. I was trying to keep up with the chapters as they were written so I’d have an idea of what to write myself. But then my day arrived and the story was in a totally different place. It was wild. And fun.
After some meetings for edits and consistency and a cover art contest, the final product came out at the end of May. And it’s amazing.
See?
It was definitely a fun experience to work with other writers like this. As someone who has always seen writing as fairly solitary (with the exception of writing groups), it was nice to be a part of something so massive. You can get your own copy of the book here, along with other amazing titles—I especially recommend Little Feasts and Spells of the Apocalypse.
I’m thrilled my story “The Man Who Would” found a home at Livina Press!
This is the journal’s first issue and it’s a beauty. You can read my flash fiction on page 198 and see my photography on page 205. Check out the whole issue online here. A print issue will be available in the coming weeks.
Back in December of 2021 they had a call for “One Sentence Shit” and I knew I had something to submit! This story came from a prompt in the SmokeLong Quarterly workshop to write one breathless sentence. I was listening to the Saint Motel song “At Least I Have Nothing” and my imagination went into overdrive. This sentence came out and the wonderful Christopher Allen gave me feedback to polish it. And now it has a home, paired with a beautiful image by Andrea Damic!
Allison Renner Writes 