HOT SHORTS

211 submissions.

9 readers

One Valentine Richmond History Center Garden

A fruit salad tree

3 talented 20 something-men

a few crazy people

horseradish, meat

and me


And so concludes my fourth season with the style weekly fiction contest.
We did shorts this year- short shorts, flash fiction- daisy duke style.
They were the most fun submissions to read.

To me, they are the most fun stories to write.

Perhaps most interesting however, is how strongly people reacted to the whole event.

Some people have simply never heard of flash fiction. And it made them angry. I guess it's like if we had a contest for the most efficient, modern vehicle and the guy who showed up on his horse had never heard of a car.

One fearless emailer compared this year's fiction issue to an episode of How I Met My Mother. I'm flattered because I am a fan of the surreal, and that is definitely one big fat jump off the deep end.

Other people were deeply hurt by the superlatives or perplexed by the instructions.

Welll, I guess we shook things up a bit, rocked the boat, deviated from the norm, defied expectations and created a new normal.



We can only hope for so much excitement next year.





READ (AND LISTEN TO) THE STORIES HERE

Hello Anybody and Nobody;

I haven't written on my blog in one and a half eons because I'm actually trying to write my book. And check me out, I didn't even put quotes around book this time! Between writing about Richmond's social scene for the Style display-ad department (maybe we'll dissect that irony later), taking bizarre spiritual movement classes for my Belle column, interviewing people who paint ceilings for homestyle, trying to keep track of the plots (or lack thereof) of 14 1/2 books at a time for book reviews, author interviews, vcu first novelist judging events, etc and et al, I just don't have the time I used to. Actually, I didn't used to have the time either. I just fell into time backwards and it carried me for a while.

But! Thanks to my dear friend who is 1/3 agent, 1/3 professor, 1/3 scooter riding hellion, 100% writer and all woman, I now have a plan!!

Last Sunday we sat down on her couch and broke it down.

9 manilla folders.

5 color-coded sticky note pads.

Italy,

New York,

Colorado,

1205 Hillside Avenue,

Arkansas,

road trip,

Alaska,

train ride,

1202 Hillside Avenue.

At last it is beginning to coalesce.

Maybe it is becoming what it already was.

In any case, I am looking for 2 days and a free hotel to carry it there just a little bit faster.

Work History, 16-21

installement 1

Sixteen

I think in a past life I was an Amazon warrior, but now I waitress at Waffle House. I have to wear an apron with my name embroidered on the lapel and an ugly brown bonnet, that's really a visor. I try to slip it off when Bubba, my manager, is in the back, but usually he's watching me through the one way mirror. When the phone rings I have to say “This is Valley. Thank you for calling your friendly Waffle House.” It makes me gag. Mostly I wait on dead beat dads and the widowed old people of the city who want to look at another human face after they've finished their meal.
This place never stops, but there are some dead zones, like between the lunch and dinner rush. That's when everyone gets stoned in the back. Doris smokes through her tracheotomy and yells at the rest of us to shut the hell up for staring. The job I hate most, next to mopping the bathroom, is refilling the monster sized salad dressing containers and mixing together the chunks of ketchup, relish and mayo. Thirty-five pounds of Thousand Island dressing is so wrong. To me it looks like puke, but I got in big trouble for saying that.
Sometimes Carter rides his bike over to visit me, and then I take the visor off whether Bubba is looking or not. Usually when he comes, he tells me stories about his band or the death games he's been playing in the woods with his friends. Sometimes he brings me a cup full of butterscotch chips, my favorite. Carter says to find anything worthwhile in this world, you have to go out there and get it and that he's planning on going to get his in May.
Bubba gets mad at me for talking to Carter and taking my visor off but I tell him, you don't want me to mention the back room to anyone do you? And then he shuts up. Besides, my hair will not fall in the food. It is just my best weapon against growing old and ugly in this diner that never quits.

i didn't blog because of the plagues, i swear

The 10 Plagues of the bad Blogger

1-- 194 style fiction contest entries descended on my head.

2--The rain has decomposed the literary nature of my (soil) (sole) (soul)

3--I've been trying to find the right amount of postage necessary to mail my letter to G-D

4--Instead of giving up yeast, I've given up words

5--The cat ate my keyboard (well, he did throw up near it)

6--MIT professor Dan Ariely's new book "Predictably Irrational" has forced me to write an

article about it.

7--The plague inbetween death of the first born son and boils is writer's block

8--When I took the Continuum class called "The Body as Sacred Ground" I accidentally tilled, aerated and hydrated my brain.

9--It's more fun to sit in the backyard eating Hebrew Nationals and chocolate cake.

10--My dominant hand was hidden in the couch cushions with the afikomen, but nobody found it.

Truth
Heralds

Endings

Bitchin'

Literary

Aeronautical

Critques

Kickbutt

Sink

Wrong

Answers

Never

Stories

I have been in a writer's group for nigh on four years. It is better than a baker's dozen chocolate eclairs AND a teenage boys idea of sex. It keeps me afloat when my thoughts have turned against me and are ready to attack. It is like going on a treasure hunt in a foreign land with exotic travellers every single Tuesday night (except for those long, dry spells when you thirst and ache for that clue and that map, that finally, from heaven, appear.) It is a way to restore faith after hearing on the radio about all those boys being blown to bits across the sea. It's an idea, a story, a prayer, a blessing, a window into the other worlds I didn't own 2 hours before.

vall

Exhibit A: Michael Parker

Exhibit B: Michael Parker wearing my hat!

Yes, VALL is the first 3 of the 33 letters in my name, but no, for once, it's not all about me. VALL happened at the Empire Theatre last Saturday night despite divas, demons and divorce (not really, i just had to come up with a third d). now that i am on the board of the jrw, i know more than a journalist should and despite all training of the last 4 years i shall remain mum as to the behind the scenes goings on as decency requires.

however, i will talk about the first story read, which as it so happens, was also the last story chosen. chosen at the 11th hour, as it were. under duress as it were. "Hidden Meanings, Treatment of Time, Supreme Irony and Life Experiences in the Song 'Ain't Going to Bump No More No Big Fat Woman'" about a song by Joe Tex by the author Michael Parker is a story i had read twice before hearing it performed at VALL and I was just as happy to experience it a third time. particularly as this reading/performance/night drove home for me the fact that I am quite sure I know Michael Parker. If he did in fact attend UVA and is currently a creative writing teacher with dark hair and eyes as his bio suggests, i am led to conclude that he must be the michael parker that taught me FICTION at the UVA Young Writer's Workshop in 1991 when I was 15. It must have been him! It was!

OK. thank god for my scrapbooking days but damn those circle cutters. i found a picture of michael parker wearing my hat!!! See Exhibit B! (That's me with the wild bangs in the hippie shirt, bottom left). this was a helluva rambler, but see, I had a point! I just forgot what it was! Check out his collections of short stories and novels..... "Virginia Lovers," "If You Want Me to Stay" and "Don't Make Me Stop Now." Also do yourself a favor, and read "Ain't Gonna Bump No More..." in ... well i don't what the hell it's in... i swear it was in a best of the south but go find it yourself... you'll thank me later.