What a pleasure it has been to be flashquake's guest editor this quarter! Every Saturday morning for the last several months I drank coffee and read stories in my PJs, and thought about how these stories would go together to make an issue of this journal. I want to thank editor Sean McKlusky for his firm guidance. We were a team, sort of like a team of oxen, actually, yoked together and like teams of oxen everywhere, he pulled more than his share of the load. And like oxen everywhere, probably no one asked him if he wanted to be chained to an excitable, eager new ox who would pepper him with questions very early on Saturday mornings.
He offered important, succinct advice. When I asked how to go about the brutal business of winnowing down my favorite two hundred or so stories and poems, he told me to grow a pair. Or something like that — cajones were definitely involved, cajones and mud wrestling ... No, I remember, it was a backbone I had to grow, and something about girding loins. I have it written down somewhere here on my desk.
So I grew a backbone and a pair and girded my loins and drank a beer and thought about these stories. What was it about some of the stories and poems that made me fall in love? Surprise. I really loved it when a writer surprised me — with the narrative, with the language, with the characters — especially with surprising ideas.
I really loved the stories that were honest. The ones you knew had to hurt a bit to write. So the stories that felt real and strong to me, and that I voted to include in this issue, were both honest and surprising. Even the ones I didn't pick, I loved. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
I want to talk a bit about creative nonfiction. Does anyone even know what creative nonfiction is? Ask ten writers, and you'll get ten answers. CNF needs to be both truthful and factual. I think this is a problem for fiction writers, this need to stick to the facts. No question we love to pound and twist and mold our stories around like warm clay squishing through our fingers until they says what we want them to say. But those stories, of course, are fiction.
So what is flash CNF that makes it different from journalism and blogs and other non-fiction short writing? It's still a story. It's a story that is both factual and truthful. If you were telling your flash to a friend, you could start off by saying, "Let me tell you a story." You're not trying to make a point or sell something, a good behavior or right living, and all you ask for your readers is for them to read and share your story. Tell me a story. I love stories. I think it's really cool when they're true. Let me tell you a story. My son recently told me on a camping trip that he was married. I was surprised, since he is still in high school, and sixteen the last time I checked. "Don't worry, Mom," he said. "It's just RP. Role Playing. She's a werewolf," he confided. "We have three cubs."
CNF also lends itself to interesting and creative structures for telling true stories. I was recently thinking about the notes the nuns wrote on my report cards from St. Joseph's School: "Sarah appears very social and enjoys talking with others." Teachers don't say it that way anymore. Now they say, "James might do better in class if he would stop talking and pay attention." I would love to read a story told through report-card notes, medical records, Post-it Notes, what is written on the fridge, letters home from college or the combat zone.
Sister Maria Goretti also noted my single strength: "Sarah enjoys clay." I wonder if my virtual grand-cubs would like to play with some clay? I was really very pleased to discover that I was a role-playing grandmother, oddly enough. I offered to babysit the cubs while my son and his new virtual wife, Demon Lollipop, were on a date night. I thought, I could sit in the recliner, all three little grand-cubs curled up in my lap, and read them a story. Little Red Riding Hood might be good.