Author: Kathy Fish

Kathy Fish has been writing, teaching, and editing flash fiction for over 20 years. She has published five collections of short fiction, most recently Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Washington Square Review, and numerous other journals, textbooks, and anthologies. Fish’s widely anthologized “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild,” was selected for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 and the current edition of The Norton Reader. She is the recipient of a Ragdale Foundation Fellowship and a Copper Nickel Editors’ Prize. Her free monthly newsletter, The Art of Flash Fiction, includes a craft article and writing prompt. Subscribe at artofflashfiction.com .
Interviews

Where You’ve Been, What You’ve Seen: A Conversation with Gay Degani

Kathy Fish

The lovely Gay Degani is joining Nancy and me for Create in Costa Rica in January. We’re so excited to work with her and everyone! (Note: Though it’s filling up, some spaces in the Costa Rica retreat are still available.)

Hi,Gay. You’re joining us in Costa Rica in January to write, commune, rest, explore in an exotic space. We can’t wait! Can you talk a little about how you honor your writing time and your creative life in other ways? (it’s okay to talk about how you struggle with this too if that’s the case!)

2017 was a difficult year for me and I don’t think I’m alone in my reaction to the political situation, the number of shootings (my daughter was at the Las Vegas concert), and the sexual harassment revelations. Also for me, my desire to write another novel has made me come up against my own brand of angst.

However, being part of the online writing community has been a writing “life-saver” for me. It saved me in 2007 and it’s saved me in 2017. What I’ve tried to do to counter my lack of productivity last year is to make certain the same thing doesn’t happen in 2018 by signing up for classes on-line and retreats like the one you and Nancy Stohlman are putting together. With a Barrelhouse class and one with One Story completed, I’m already hard at work in 2018. It’s important, I think, to surround myself with as many like-minded people as I can, and writers make up my tribe.

Respond to this quote from Natalie Goldberg:

“Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them.Writing is still the wildest thing I know.”

I love Natalie Goldberg. Her books and tapes (yes, back then it was audio-tapes) gave me permission to be a writer. For so long I believed being an writer was a god-given gift and if you had that gift, you couldn’t help but write, no matter the odds.

Spending time to write always felt selfish to me. Something I would, of course, make myself do if I had that “GOD-GIVEN GIFT.”

But I always had other things on my agenda and they seemed so much more vital to my everyday life–kids, a husband, lists of errands–and I did them. The result was very little time to write, and since I didn’t feel irresistibly compelled to put words down, I thought I must not have that “GOD-GIVEN GIFT.”

But this concept is so so wrong. Yes, a person does need some amount of natural talent, but so much of developing that talent is believing you have a right to spend time honoring it, letting it breathe, and accepting that what you write doesn’t need to be perfect the first time around, and that it’s okay to let the act of writing take up chunks of your life.

Natalie Goldberg helped me see how to negotiate around my two great lacks–of confidence and of craft–by doing “morning pages.” Performing this early communion with myself allowed me to wrestle with questions on paper rather than in my mind where I could so easily push them into a dark corner. I owe as much to her as I do to the on-line writing community.

What is your favorite flash you’ve written (not “best” or “most successful” necessarily, but the one you love the most) and why?

I don’t know if I can really answer this. Each one that finds itself written is a little piece of my heart and my life. They are like children, some easily delivered and others full of pain.

And I never know what will resonate with others. Some of my pieces I feel are struggling so hard to grow up and I worry and nurture and almost give up, but then they do something to make me proud–like getting published. The ones I sense will go out there and slay dragons come back defeated. Like many mothers, I can’t pick favorites. Each feel special to me in their own way.

Is there something we probably don’t know about you that you’d like to share?

I feel as if my life is an open book. If you read my stories, you will glimpse many different aspects of “me,” though none of those are all of me. You are what you believe in, where you’ve been, what you’ve seen, what’s hurt you, what’s made you stronger.

peace-retreat-costa-rica1
A jungle walk ends at the ocean in Costa Rica
Oh, I love that. It’s so true and wise. What are you most looking forward to in Costa Rica?

You, Kathy, and Nancy, and being with other writers on the trip. This is what I need and crave. What most writers need and crave: To be with their tribe, if only for a short period of time.

Gay Degani is the author of a full-length collection of short stories, Rattle of Want (Pure Slush Press, 2015) and a suspense novel, What Came Before (Truth Serum Press, 2016). She’s had four flash pieces nominated for Pushcart consideration and won the 11th Glass Woman Prize. She blogs at Words in Place.

Interviews

Holly Lyn Walrath on Tuning Out the World & Staying True to Your Artist Self

Kathy Fish

Holly Lyn Walrath will be joining us this summer for Rendezvous in the Rockies in Breckenridge. She graciously allowed me to ask her a few questions to find out a bit more about her life and writing and her forthcoming poetry chapbook, Glimmerglass Girl, from Finishing Line Press (available for pre-order April 9th!).

We’re so thrilled you’ll be joining us for a writers’ retreat in Breckenridge this summer! What are your thoughts on honoring creativity and/or creative play? How important are these to you?

I think a lot about Ursula K. Le Guin’s speech at the National Book Awards (http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Index-NBFMedal.html) where she says “Resistance and change often begin in art.” Honoring creativity to me means staying true to who you are as an artist and not chasing the market. This is so hard to do, because as writers we need to self-promote. But to me, the moment when we break free of the external world and instead let the internal world guide our process is the moment when we are capable of true art that will enact change.

When I feel a piece is enacting change in myself, that’s when I know it’s working. That’s what I strive for in creativity—break through, surprise, unsettling, resettling, a quiet dawning of realization.

You described your recent (amazing) flash in Fireside Magazine, entitled “knick knack, knick, knack” as one of your own favorites. Can you talk about the process of writing it and why it’s one of your favorites? I love that first line by the way…

I think the title of this piece is one of the best I’ve written so far, a nod to the old children’s rhyme, This Old man. Conceptually, I was inspired by the work of Hayao Miyazaki and his use of the Japanese tree spirits called Kodama, which appear in his film Princess Mononoke. But the piece is mostly drawn from the personal experience of struggling to put aside the demands of a parent. I’m interested in stories that put a new twist on the Mother-Daughter story. My own Mom has pretty much never known how to handle my creative side. I wanted to acknowledge that we don’t all have great relationships with our mothers, we don’t all want to follow in our parent’s footsteps.

Respond to this quote by Dani Shapiro: “If I dismiss the ordinary — waiting for the special, the extreme, the extraordinary to happen — I may just miss my life… To allow ourselves to spend afternoons watching dancers rehearse, or sit on a stone wall and watch the sunset, or spend the whole weekend rereading Chekhov stories—to know that we are doing what we’re supposed to be doing — is the deepest form of permission in our creative lives.”

Oh man, how do I struggle with this! Lately my schedule has been cram-jam full of lovely writing-related things that make me happy and give me a deep sense of purpose. But I’ve found it really hard to turn off lately, to explore the small, quotidian pieces of life that make it worthwhile on a deeper level.

The only way I’ve found to recapture this lately is going out canoeing with my husband. We paddle out on Armand Bayou and there’s always a moment when the water quiets, we slip away from the shore where people are picnicking and playing with their dogs, and everything we left behind sinks into the stillness. Cranes and vultures circle the sky, gators lurk in the shallows, and that’s how I turn off the rest of the world.

Anything else you’d like to share? Something we probably didn’t know about you?

Pre-orders for my first chapbook, Glimmerglass Girl (Finishing Line Press), start April 9th. This chapbook is a series of illustrated poems about femininity. Information on my website: Holly Lyn Walrath

If you’re a writer, check out The Weird Circular, my free e-newsletter full of curated submission calls and writing prompts.

I have subscriber-only content on Curious Fictions if you want to leave me a tip! 

A lot of people don’t know that I worked in finance for three years. My mother is still disappointed that I quit that job, ha. Now I’m a freelance editor, but I still get random phone calls from my family asking for advice on money matters.

Well, we’re glad you pursued writing (and editing) instead! Thanks so much, Holly, and best of luck with your upcoming poetry chapbook!

Holly Lyn Walrath is a writer of poetry and short fiction. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Magazine, Liminality, Crab Fat Magazine, and other places. She is a freelance editor and volunteer with Writespace, a nonprofit literary center in Houston, Texas. She currently resides in Seabrook, Texas. Find her on Twitter @hollylynwalrath or at hlwalrath.com.

Interviews

Getting Back to Creative Play: A Chat with Annie Q. Syed

Kathy Fish

Nancy and I are thrilled that the lovely Annie Q. Syed will be joining us in Breckenridge this summer for our debut retreat offering, Rendezvous in the Rockies. Annie and I spoke a little about creative play, Annie’s favorite story of her own, and an early quiz show experience: 

Hi Annie. Can you talk a little about what it means to make time for your creativity aside from going on retreat? In what ways do you make your writing a priority?

In the Fall of 2017 through AWP’s Writer to Writer mentoring program, writer Gail Hosking choose to work with me for my non-fiction essays. Thanks to her suggestion, I now carry one of those expanding file folders in which I have several pieces that need revising. Ten minutes for looking at verbs, another thirty for tinkering with a paragraph or a sentence, one minute to review the sheet with notes from a writing pal. I have tried my best to make writing a priority by attending to it every day, for however long, instead of imagining there should be a set time during the day when it is a priority. I don’t have the writing schedule that I once did when I could write through midnight and sleep in or write in the mornings and then take a nap.

It’s taken me some time to get used to the idea that even ten minutes is plenty on those exhausting days. I try to spend at least ten minutes on my writing a day. Once I am in that space, the ten minutes turns into thirty and sometimes, if I am really lucky, into several hours. But by creating those ten minutes, I know I have honored what it means, at this stage, to write every day.

Respond to this quote: “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” (sometimes this quote is attributed to Albert Einstein) i.e., how much does “play” impact your creative work?

I love words: definitions, etymologies, how they can be used to express analogies, how they create meaning and how we assign meaning, not to mention words lost and gained through translation. I believe engaging with language and sound is play. However, in the last few years, when I decided to become “serious” about the craft of writing, I lost sight of playing. I suppose it happens to all of us at some point. I am happy to report that I feel comfortable to play again; it is essential to creative work.

Annie, what is your favorite story that you’ve written and why? (if it’s a published story, could you provide a link?)

One of my favorite stories is “Watch Yourself Burn”. I created it in one of your Fast Flash workshops. I love the authentic details and movement in it; the whole piece moves back and forth through time in few words. It is currently longlisted for the Reflex Fiction Winter 2017 Prize and regardless of the outcome, I am pleased it will be in the anthology in great company.

What’s something about you that we probably didn’t know?

That when I was kid in New York, my junior high had us take some quiz. It so happened that I was exceptionally good at geography. Apparently, it was a test to qualify to be on that show—if you know this show, it will show your age! —called Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Once on the show, I was so nervous about lights, cameras, audience, that I didn’t bet enough in the last round and didn’t win first place although I had the right answer! It was pretty cool when it aired on T.V.

Anything else you’d like to talk about briefly? 

I am so thrilled to be attending this writing retreat in Breckenridge, Kathy!

It’s taken me some time to navigate what works for me as a writer. Community is important, no doubt, but what that means varies for each individual. Although a happy extrovert, I am pretty much a helpful lone wolf. I love my solitude and enjoy exploring on my own. A retreat like this is a dream come true for someone like me who enjoys people and their stories but prefers to work alone.

Thanks so much, Annie!

Interviews

Three Questions for Anne Weisgerber

Kathy Fish

Nancy and I are excited that Anne Weisgerber will be joining us at our upcoming flash fiction retreat in Breckenridge in August and for Create in Costa Rica in 2019. I invited Anne to share a little bit about herself and her writing…

Kathy: Welcome, Anne! Can you talk a little about how do you make time for your writing when not on retreat? I know you’re a busy person. In what ways do you “retreat” in your day to day life in order to honor your creativity?

Anne: My office is an ongoing battle. If I have company, I use the “laundry basket method” and put everything that’s out in the open that shouldn’t be in laundry baskets and dump those in my office and close the door. Then I wonder 3 days later where the electric bill is and why I can’t get to my desk. But I’m getting better at it. I like my office. It’s dim and peaceful and has nice artwork and all the books I want at my fingertips right within reach and a window that looks over the goat pen. Like most writers who have full-time day jobs, writing happens either early in the morning (sometimes I’ll pick a week and get up at 4:30 am to put time in before my 7am workday begins) or in the evenings. I consider reading and participating in workshops with other writers to be important writing time, too. I’m currently in a workshop that Skypes for 2 hours every Wednesday night, and I have to say I love that. That’s with Richard Thomas, and he’s such a positive force.

Kathy: What is your all-time favorite flash fiction of your own and why is it your favorite?

Anne: Oh gosh. I feel writing is like most artistic endeavors: one’s next story should be the best story. A writer should never rest. The old leaves, the old pages, keep maturing and falling and new buds have to keep flowering. A popular story, which has been reprinted a few times, is “Upfurler.” I’d like to be remembered for it, my 9/11 story. It began in a class with Lisa Reardon, who provided a good prompt: Reverse a law of physics. I knew right away what law I wanted to reverse and why. After Lisa provided feedback, I workshopped it with my regular weekly crew, then went on to really hammer at it with a super-fave editor, Randall Brown. He helped me compress the science section. Randall’s such a gift. He’s amazing. “Upfurler” was originally published in Australia by Matt Potter, in a print anthology called “Pure Slush Five.” It was reprinted in the UK at the 2016 National Flash Fiction Day Flash Flood, and then here in the US at the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. It is a finalist for Best Small Fictions 2016. It’s also one of three stories I have memorized for public readings. My mind never gets tired of climbing through it, like those perimeter steel box columns in what was once an architectural marvel.

Click HERE to read “Upfurler” at the Flash Flood blog.

Kathy: Something we probably don’t know about you…?

Anne: Well, I like to keep it private, but here’s a good one: I had a friend Ray, and he and I hosted a Friday night radio show called “Fashion Blitz.” That was like 1983 or 4. He went by the name Paul Monroe, and I was Wendy Trendy. Hah hah I can Lene Lovich “New Toy” hurtling back from the past!

Kathy: All of this is fascinating, Anne! Thank you. Looking forward to “retreating” with you in August!

Note: Our Breckenridge retreat is sold out, but if you’d like more information about Create in Costa Rica, click HERE!

A.E. Weisgerber is Poetry Out Loud’s 2017 Frost Place Scholar, and a 2014 Kent State University Reynolds Fellow. Her writing appears in SmokeLong Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Heavy Feather Review, Structo UK, and the Zoetrope Cafe Story Machine. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and sons. [anneweisgerber.com] [@aeweisgerber]