Playtime with Paul Beckman

Paul Beckman and I have been working together for many years on many projects. So Kathy Fish and I are jazzed that Paul is joining us this summer in Colorado–I’m always excited to get to see Paul in person!

Nancy Stohlman: Anyone who follows your work knows you are highly prolific. What is your secret?

Paul Beckman: I like to write and I like to read. I’ve always been a first thing in the morning writer and now that I’m retired I write for longer stretches of time.

How do you “retreat” from your day-to-day life in order to honor your creativity?

I grab my camera and go to one of our state parks and walk and take pictures of the bald eagles, herons and whatever else is around. I also do a lot of street shooting.

What piece of your own writing are you most proud of?  Where can we read it?

Ordinarily I would pass on this question but my story ‘Healing Time’ was one of the winners in the Best of the Small Fictions for 2016. Besides being in elite company I’ve been fortunate enough for quite a few reviewers to pick out this story and comment on it. Reviews tell me things about my writing that I don’t see for myself. It’s like holding your arms out to read the small print and then one day you get glasses and there’s a new clarity. “Healing Time” can be read in the 2016 issue of Best of Small Fictions or you can listen to me read it:

React to this saying: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Jack, a product of a dull mother and a dull father, was a dull baby who grew into a dull toddler and as the years passed he grew into a dull boy. One day on his lunch break from his dull job he bumped into a dull woman and they spent their lunchtime together speaking of nothing interesting. The rest is history.

Tell us something we don’t know about you?

I’m not fond of heights but I like to go ballooning.

Anything else you want to add?

It would be nice if John Oliver would ask me to read some of my flash stories on his show.

Paul Beckman is the author of the collections “Peek” & “Come! Meet My Family and other stories, a novella, “Lovers and Other Mean People”, and a flash chap book, “Maybe I Ought to go Sit Quietly in a Dark Room for a While”. His story, “Healing Time” was one of the winners in the 2016 Best of the Small Fictions. Paul’s stories are widely published in print and online in the following magazines amongst others: Connecticut Review, Literary Orphans, Blue Fifth,  Litro, Playboy, Jellyfish Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Molotov Cocktail, and Thrice Fiction His blog is www.pincusb.com Paul hosts the FBomb NY flash fiction reading series monthly at KGB’s Red Room in New York and had a story picked for the 2018 Norton Anthology of Micro Fiction. He has a new collection of Flash and Micro Fiction, KISS KISS due out in late March. 

*Want to be part of the fun? Colorado 2018 is SOLD OUT but join us in Costa Rica 2019!