Here’s a short story by Hemingway: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Not just short fiction—Sudden fiction. Flash fiction. Microfiction.
Hint fiction. In this course, we will define these separate genres and read
masters of the very very short form—stories that you can, to paraphrase
one title, fit in the palm of your hand. Stories you can read in under ten
minutes, or even five. Stories that encapsulate the wonder of a moment, the
specificity of a feeling. Even better, we will write very short fiction.
Lots and lots of stories, varying from one paragraph (or even a sentence!) to
3-4 pages.
Required Texts:
Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, Yasunari Kawabata
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant: Stories, Lydia Davis
Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer,
Robert Swartwood (Editor), Natalie McNabb (Contributor)
The End of My Wits, Thomas Farber
Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very Short Stories Paperback
by Robert Shapard (Editor) , James Thomas (Editor)
Requirements:
In-class writing
Attendance and Participation
Stories
Revisions of Stories