How The 'Group of Seven Flash Fiction' Project
Was First Conceived
My Story - Karen Schauber - Editor
Flash fiction is a new adventure for me. I have always been drawn to the short story first and foremost as my favourite literary form to read. In my younger years I delighted in reading Italo Calvino, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Roald Dahl, Charles Bukowski, and so many others. More recently Ha Jin’s clean, minimalist writing, Anthony Doerr’s compelling character studies, and Ryu Murakami’s dark noir, are amongst the many contemporary short story writers who have captured my imagination.
I came across Flash Fiction as a distinct form of the short story for the first time in the summer of 2017 when I unintentionally stumbled upon one or two Flash Fiction stories and engrossed, quickly searched for more, finding a number of online literary magazines (Jellyfish, Vestal, Flash Fiction, AdHoc), dedicated to publishing Flash Fiction exclusively. What I found captured my attention, imagination, and heart, and I was immediately hooked.
I couldn’t believe the treasure I had found. Initially I believed I had stumbled upon a unique and limited pool of stories written by disparate groups of people. But the more I read, the more I discovered an enormous community of writers and readers dedicated to Flash Fiction as a literary art form, engaged and connected with one another, globally. To date I’ve come across Flash Fiction in online sites, international print anthologies, literary magazines, novellas, and chapbooks, originating in Canada, the U.S., the UK, Australia, South America, Norway, Germany, Israel, China, Korea, and more. Flash Fiction written at a level of excellence has caught on, and a dynamic following of both writers and readers serious about this literary art form is growing like wildfire. Quite exciting. |