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(These are excerpts—click on the title to view the whole piece!)
Fiction Workhouse Collage Flashes
Three flashes inspired by Beverly Jackson's photo-art collage.
Various Authors
Our beautiful island had become a frozen gulag of dark skies and bellowing pelagic storms. A decision was made. We would go to Boston and find jobs. We would make friends among the college students there, and live the good life of the urban hippie.
Larry Gaffney
As he drove, Jerry would analyze me. When he put on the monocle, he'd sideswipe trees because he was really only seeing out of one eye then. "Tell me about that day, young man. The day your parents went to Buffalo and you shot up the house."
Gary Moshimer
I knew they were waiting outside for the chance to look at me, to shout curses at me, to throw filth at me—Look then! A sinful woman. But am I not beautiful? Who among you, jeering, whistling, staring, shouting, does not desire me in his heart?
Grace Andreacchi
Angelina and her mother moved to Watts six months before the riots of August 11, 1965. After the riots, the press reported that the neighborhood was 99% African-American and that the only non-blacks in the neighborhood were a few people of Hispanic origin and several Jewish store owners. Angelina and her mother weren't Jewish or Hispanic. Nor was the old woman with blue hair who shopped daily at the local liquor store.
Leesteffy Jenkins
You might look for me under the bed and find a dent where I sat uncomfortably for a while. You might notice a pile of bit-off nails and hair.
Carla Lopez de Azua and Brandi Wells
Michalowski spoke in koans, like after I was denied my scheduled raise, I'll never forget it, he closed his eyes and said, "The money tree bears many fruits, but fruit alone cannot slake an appetite. Too much fruit makes the tongue go sour. What fruit is money?"
Ravi Mangla
Camp Sycamore: at Home in Nature (a novella)
The building approval committee, a group of mentally enfeebled fellow homeowners charged with "enforcing" Camp Sycamore's building restrictions, had simply been overrun by Ken Carrington, who'd submitted a first set of plans—drawn by an expensive architect—even more elaborate than those actually built.
Natalie McKelvy
