Vestal Review

Yes! It’s finally here.

At least I can express my muddled thinking clearly.

Susan O’Neill and I nominated the following stories published by Vestal Review in 2014 for the Pushcart Prize:

Print Issue 44: “A Lover,” by A. W. Marshall

Print Issue 42: “Bed Bugs,” by Abbie Copeland

Congratulations, Andrew and Abbie.

In a quote often misattributed to Mark Twain, the 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal said, “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.” As applied to flash fiction writers, the masters of compressed work, that probably means we have too much time on our hands. Our letters/stories are short (but not necessarily sweet) and to the point. We don’t mince words. We are looking for redundancies, imperfections and dead waste that get in the way, and cut them off like a surgeon or a sculptor.

Read more.

Dear fellow editor,

We would like to announce the Vestal Review Flash Fiction 2014 Award.

Please feel free to nominate one story under 500 words published by your magazine in print or online in 2014. The winning selection receives a prize of $100 and a publication in Vestal Review, and the runner-up entry gets publication in Vestal Review at our usual terms. There is no nomination fee. Only an editor is eligible to submit a nomination. One story per magazine, please.

This is the nomination link.

 

The Fox tells the Little Prince: “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eye.”

–Saint-Exupery

In editing, flash fiction cares less about what was lost, and more about what remains. Sometimes, more is more, but well-crafted less is never less.

-Mark Budman

I love Twitter. It teaches you verbal discipline. Your can send grammatically correct twits (but only if you are good at grammar to begin with).

It’s not enough to a put a few sentences together and declare it creative writing. You will not stay by the reader’s side to explain what you mean. The explanation should be built into your writing.