The other maids tuck and dream. While they pick up M&M wrappers and thongs. Dreaming when they leave what will never be enough towels, not even here, where the thread count is very high. The other maids, they hope. One day when it’s least expected one of these business men will be La One. Drina chews her cheek and stares at them or stares off. They will never she wants to say. Not even Gloria knows better than this. She went to bed with a guest and look what happened. Afterward he said, “Hey. I maid it. Geddit?” He said that. But Gloria simpers, He just wasn’t La One!

The thing Drina hates the most is all the toothpastes in the sinks. Why do people put on this much? It will only fall off. The thing she likes the most is the devastation. When she opens the door to the argument of sheets. The tiny bottles of liquor, emptied. Left-behind cufflinks and all different kinds of blow dryers on the vanities like oversized guns. The rooms are lives people walk out on every day.

Yes, we know it might seem easy to just whip up a piece of fiction that’s under 300 words, but trust us, to make a great piece of flash fiction, it takes time and dedication. Most times it also takes lots and lots of revision. So, this week, instead of starting something new, let’s work on something old. Take out that piece of flash fiction you wrote last week or last month or last year, dust off those cobwebs, and let’s get to work!

PROMPT:

Using a piece of flash fiction you’ve already started – or finished! – go back in and read it out loud. Read it again. And again. Consider this: is your story working on more than one level? Does every word that’s there need to be there? If you were reading this particular piece, would the title/first sentence make you want to keep reading? If not, what can you do to change it and make it grab you? Revise, revise, revise.

Revised something great? Send it to our editors!

PROMPT:

In 300 words (or under), write about a character with a tradition. This can be a ritual that involves superstitions, something surrounding religion, or any other kind of thing you can think of! Maybe this character sleeps in the kitchen, only uses blue candles, or reads the bible backwards before bed. Convince us of why this character holds onto this tradition, and be specific about the kinds of things that are (or are not!) a part of it.

Got something great? Send it to our editors!

Many thanks to writers Miah Arnold, Hank Hancock, and Andrew Kozma and Sketchy Neighbors Katherine Kearns, Devon Moore, Chris Thompson, and Jeff Whiteley for participating!

Learn more about the creative process of writer Andrew Kozma and artist Chris Thompson in this radio interview about A Night of Inky Improv on Houston Public Radio’s The Front Row.

Four of the final products:

Prompt: Untitled
by Hank Hancock
Dear God! What a calamity! We never knew we were so reviled, so desperate, and so targeted. I fear the neighbors. I fear the children. Without a culprit, or even some plausible conclusion from the arson investigators, all I have to conclude is that anyone might have it out for us. They took our marble-topped island. They took our three car garage, with the Hummer still in it. They took our own children’s play-tower. They took the home theater. What will we do without the home theater? They took the art collection we’d accumulated over the years from the Bed Bath and Beyond Gallery.What went wrong? Our lawn was mowed, and we lived well within our deed restrictions. The Wilsons down the road park an RV in infront of their split-level, and their home is still standing.

Our bricks are cinders. Our chandeliers have fallen. Our credenza are melted. Our travertine brick patio is no more.

Without a kitchen, we eat out. Usually dine finely. But today we are reduced to visiting McDonalds.

Drawing by Katherine Kearns

Prompt: My cat has better moves
by Andrew Kozma
Disco is king! (Long live the king!) And when the king says dance, you dance, or you die. (Or become a banker.) Off in the wings, Muzak loves Disco, but Disco, Disco has never loved Muzak. (When Muzak says dance, you look up, surprised. What about death? It was all so romantic, before.) What if we are just cats in heat? What if we could be cats in heat? (Love was so much simpler then.) When the insect-eyed sun glares at the particle-board night, stars burst into life. (They are smoking. They are smoking and accepting cancer as their savior, or they are on fire.) Oh, I can see through you as through a lead apron. (Our love radiates, and everything in our path starts to die. Not from despair, but from pride.)

Drawing by Katherine Kearns

Prompt:Snowmen make good lovers
by Kirby Johnson
She told him she liked it rough and that’s how he played. The kids were at their grandparents and the neighbors were out of town on a long vacation so George had at it. It started with a little heavy petting, some name-calling, and spanking. She was the first girl in a long time that had taken an interest to George so he aimed to please. She was so round and white and beautiful. He didn’t want to lose her. He took off his scarf and started whip her with it. He whipped her and she laughed and punched him. George didn’t know what to think but he didn’t want to let her down either. He was bleeding from his mouth. He could taste carrot but ignored it and let his scrawny arms fly, his whip soaring through the air, lashing and lashing.

Snowman by Chris Thompson

Prompt: Pumpkins Growing on my Back
by Miah Arnold
There was once a man who lived near a great ocean with water so potent that it killed all the vegetation around it for miles. On his twenty fifth birthday he caught six hundred and thirty three sand fleas inside a glass mason jar. Before sealing the lid he whispered his wish inside it: O please lord may I learn to grow pumpkins.

He dipped the jar in kerosene, lit it on fire, and then shattered it against the rocks in the requisite manner. He saw the fleas all burst into small firey souls and rejoiced, knowing soon they’d deliver his wish to the overlords.

Nothing happened for weeks and he was so ashamed he tried to throw himself into the sea. Instead of drowning though, he floated beachward time and time again until he remembered the shiny fire or his baby boy and decided that once he recovered his strength he would return to the job of his forefathers: fishing.

He dreamed his pimples were exploding. He dreamed it was Thanksgiving. He dreamed of Mace.

He never did wake up, but when his own son grew to maturity and went searching for sand fleas to end the misery of his life on the water he came across the patch of calabazes that had been his father and knew it was his dad all at once.

The horn above his father’s anus was wide open and he screamed into it “Father, father, it is I your son, come to chase sand fleas!”

He received no reply, and he sat atop the circular glob of his father’s body. He picked a small pumpkin before he left and he understood that once he ate of his father he would have no more excuses.

Drawing by Devon Moore

This event was made possible by Poets & Writers and held in conjunction with Spacetaker’s ARC Exhibition presenting the Sketchy Neighbors in The Saddest Love Story Almost Never Told: Based on a True Idea.

We’ve got a lot of news and events happening here with NANO Fiction, so as we enter the final year of planet earth (nobody’s sick of hearing that, right?) why not cozy up with some copies of our newest issue?

ISSUE 5.1

NANO Fiction is entering our fifth year of publication, and we’re doing it in style! Our newest issue features terrific work from the third annual NANO contest winner Sarah E. Harris, as well as work by these other great writers:

Miah Arnold,Carroll Beauvais, Sonya L. Bilocerkowycz, Christopher Citro, Shome Dasgupta, Jesse DeLong, Erik Doughty, Meredith K. Gray, Lauren Hall, Joshua R. Helms, Kyle Hemmings, Judy Huddleston, Paul Kavanagh, Lindsey Kempton, Meghan Lamb, Robert Lunday, Meggie Monahan, Kevin O’Cuinn, Erica Olsen, Adam Peterson, Jason Poland, Matthew Salesses, Chantel Tattoli, Elizabeth Wade, Joshua Ware, David Wirthlin, Nicholas Y.B. Wong, Brennen Wysong, Matthew Yeager, David Yost, & Jessica Young.

We’re very happy, obviously, to remind you that we ALWAYS SELL OUT, but you might not be so happy if you miss out on this great issue, so pick it up while you’ve got a chance!

WINTER SALE

Isn’t winter lousy? The short days, the low clouds, the cold – why not cure some of that seasonal affective disorder with a two year, $20 subscription to NANO Fiction? This sale ends January 20th, so quick! Do it! Mathematically you’d save $8 off the cover price, which is basically like getting one and one seventh of an issue for free!

AWP IN CHICAGO

NANO Fiction will be at AWP this year, so please stop by our joint table with matchbook, number P11. We’ll have great subscription deals as usual, maybe a few t-shirts, and all of the lovely editorial staff! We’ll be running a PHOTO SCAVENGER HUNT for a free subscription, so be sure to come by early and often. Oh, and more free buttons!

Additionally, editor Glenn Shaheen will be on a panel about the nature of flash submissions with Ed Mullany from matchbook, Roxane Gay from PANK, Adam Peterson from The Cupboard, and Nancy Stebbins from SmokeLong Quarterly. That will be in R119 on Thursday at 9 am, which is a ballroom according to programming so obviously (hopefully) a dance party will break out.

SUBMISSIONS

As always, we’re accepting submissions year round, so please submit, and tell your friends! We’re reading for our spectacular tenth issue, so get in your best work now! We’re using Submishmash by Submittable, which we cannot praise enough. Go here and send us a something!

Kirby Johnson and Glenn Shaheen
Editors, NANO Fiction

It would be easy to say that I don’t want to read more than a page but that would be a lie. If something is good, then I want to read more of it. I want to read many pages and think, my god why am I reading this? This is making me feel sad/horrible/happy/desperate/hungry. But reading good things makes me tired, or what I mean to say is, reading good work causes feelings I’d rather not have for an extended length of time. I used to say that NANO Fiction was for those with limited attention spans or that it was fiction for people on the go, but I don’t think anyone believes that. I don’t even believe that. I think I fell in love with the idea of 300 words because I didn’t want to feel anything longer than that.

What was the first thing you remember wanting to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a painter. I remember telling my dad that I wanted to paint and he would say something like, “I will buy you a van and then you can go paint houses.” He never said it in a cruel way, but looking back on it now, it does seem a little mean spirited.

Do y’all like all things Nano (ie Nano Ipods, Nanorobotics, Nano the Egyptian Footballer, Silver Nano, my penis, etc), or just NANO Fiction?

I don’t know how to answer this. I want to say no. No, I do not love all things nano. Also, what do you love, man who decided to talk about his penis in this question?

What is your favorite kind of submission?

I think some of the most memorable submissions have been the ones that other people hated that I had to turn away. I remember a story about a woman choking on a chicken bone at KFC that I loved and no one else liked, or this one about a couple and there was lots of Vaseline. These stories were gross and a little graphic but I liked them a lot. They also had very strong characters in them. I think characters are important in flash and in general I like submissions that are more narrative than lyric.

More importantly here is a list of things that I don’t like:
Stories that mention writing
Stories about relationships ending
Stories about fathers
Stories about being a mom
Divorce stories
Abortion stories
Musings

What question do you have for people who read NANO Fiction?

Have you checked out the new issue yet?

“Crimson and Clover” by Tommy James and the Shondells. Also I like Joan Jett and the Blackhearts version. Maybe even better? I dunno, are we talking the radio edit of the original or the one with two guitar solos? There’s a lot of great songs with a lot of great words in the title. Like, what about the word “orange?” I guess that’s “Orange Rolls, Angel Spit” by Sonic Youth. Or “America?” Probably “America” from West Side Story. I don’t think there’s a song with the word “Glenn” in the title though.

Have you ever discovered an entire plot line from those instructions on a tv dinner? I’ve found myself reading & re-reading microwave instructions and wondering, who writes this stuff?

Those things have crazy sodium, so at my age (31) I need to stay away from them. I met somebody once who does copy for cereal boxes as his main job, but he’s also a great poet. But cereal is kind of poet-y, you know? Like granola, hippie dippie shit, vitamins, etc. I’d have to assume tv dinner instructions are written by unemployed writers of mass market spy novels with names like The Game’s A-Dead or One, Two, Three O’Clock, Four O’Clock, Murder. I heard you get paid $10,000 a pop to write those factory books, which seems like a lot and also not a lot. I’m a poet, mainly, and a flash fiction writer secondly, so anything long seems impossible. Also $10,000 seems impossible. I should mention I’m a big fan of cereal although in college I ate $3 frozen lasagna once a week but I always threw out the boxes right away out of shame, etc.

Why is money valuable?

Define “valuable.” No, really – like I said I’m a poet so I really have no concept of what “valuable” means, or “money,” or come to think of it “is” or “why” either.

What is your favorite kind of submission?

My favorite kind of submission is the kind that follows our guidelines. We have a form rejection that we have to use way too much that says we don’t publish line breaks, stories of longer than 300 words, and on and on. But that’s an easy answer, sure!

I like to see single story submissions, where it’s a flash piece that stands entirely on its own. We publish a lot of great stuff that comes from sequences, yes, and I’m very happy to have done so but those pieces seem like cheating you know? You could just write a 2000 word fragmented voice story and then cut it up into 7 sections and submit it everywhere like that. A lot of flash editors see the continuity between the pieces as development that doesn’t necessarily exist in each piece on its own, even if they only accept one or two parts. That is, they see some strengths or connective tissues from having seen a larger part of the project that their readers won’t see from whatever fragment gets published. I think a lot of flash writers have latched onto this trend in publication, and as a result we see more and more sequence submissions in our box. Some strong, yes, and some we’ll proudly publish, but I’d love to see a greater percentage of standalone stories, just out of respect for the genre.

What question do you have for people who read NANO Fiction?

How does flash as a genre work for you as a reader in ways that fiction or poetry do not?

Please Don’t Be Upset
By Brandi Wells
$8.99 / Order it here
From the publisher: Please Don’t Be Upset is a collection of fifteen perfectly rendered stories–lists, instructions, yearnings, confessions, more–stories about imperfect mothers and daughters, women and men, strange stories about folded bodies and stalking deer, stories about the small, heartbreaking ways we fail each other, yet cling so tightly.

Brandi was featured in issue 4.2.

The Orange Suitcase
By Joseph Riippi
$14.95 / Order it here
From the publisher: In the thirty-four stories filling THE ORANGE SUITCASE, Joseph Riippi packs an intimate and powerful portrait of a young man’s life. From a childhood spent snipering neighbours with BB guns, to adulthood grasping at love and art in New York City, THE ORANGE SUITCASE shows us not only the way life is lived but, perhaps more importantly, how it is remembered.

Joseph was featured in issue 1.2 and 2.1.

Drinking
$1 – A lot of Money
A few of my holiday favorites include: Gin – you only have to add ice and it already tastes like Christmas (or pinecones, same thing), Becherovka – this can be a little difficult to find but it’s worth it because no one else will want to drink it with you (it’s very bitter), or if there is nothing else around:  mouth wash. But let’s face it, drinking helps, but it also hurts. If you are a really angry or sad person, this one probably isn’t for you.

Falcons on the Floor
by Justin Sirois
$12 / Order it here
Falcons on the Floor is the rare novel about war that re-humanizes everyone involved. Through excellent writing and a deep understanding of what occupation does, to civilians and soldiers alike, Sirois and Alshujairy take the reader on a deeply personal journey where we are shown how and why war should be avoided at all cost.
—Dahr Jamail, independent journalist and author of Beyond the Green Zone

Justin was featured in issue 4.1

Predatory
by Glenn Shaheen
$15.95 / Order it here
“Glenn Shaheen is claiming new ground for American poetry. His poems are about the nightmares of information overload, collapsing infrastructure, ubiquitous violence, and other ills of late empire. The subjects are not happy, but Shaheen’s clear vision and crisp—often witty—language offer the pleasures of surprise, discovery, and recognition.”
—Ed Ochester

Glenn has been an Editor of NANO Fiction since 2008.

Robbie and Bobby Comic Collection
by Jason Poland
$15 / Order it here
From Jason: This book contains Robbie and Bobby comics drawn between March and October of 2011, as well as previously unpublished bonus materials. Foreword by Ryan Hudson.

Jason was featured in issue 5.1.

Meditating / Yoga
$0 – Some amount of money that I would never pay
Meditation and Yoga can relieve a lot of stress. I am not one to sit in one spot for too long, but an hour or two of yoga with the heater on not only provides a good work out, but it usually makes you tired enough to not care what your parents or siblings are yapping about. On the other hand, if you are on good terms with your brother or sister, try out this pose then have some other family member take a picture.

If I Falter at the Gallows
by Edward Mullany
$12 / Order it here
The poems of Edward Mullany are both seeing things and “seeing things.” They are devices that help us help ourselves to all the mirages and illusions—and then some—that we know to be true.
-Graham Foust, author of A Mouth in California

Edward was featured in issue 3.1.

The Last Repatriate
by Matthew Salesses
$ Varies / Order it here
From the publisher: In 1953, after the end of the Korean War, 23 POWs refused to repatriate to America. The Last Repatriate tells the story of Theodore Dickerson, a prisoner who eventually returns to his home in Virginia in the midst of the McCarthy Era. He is welcomed back as a hero, though he has not returned unscathed. The lasting effects of the POW camp and troubles with his ex-fiancée complicate his new marriage as he struggles to readjust to the Virginia he holds dear.

Matthew was featured in issue 5.1.

Morocco
By Matthew Savoca and Kendra Grant Malone
$10 / Order it here
Here is a book, a low-slung bulb lighting a tall dark room, a book big enough to question and small enough to love. Written in treaty by Matthew Savoca and Kendra Grant Malone, here is a book of time and together and lonely and wanting. Knife-words edges out, lines bursting and splitting the table long, get to know Morocco. It already knows you. These poems are naked and bright, speaking from a tall dark room to all the spaces in between. A love poem, yes. A camera readied, yes. Pictures worth a thousand words ground down to dust, Morocco comes together now.

Matthew and Kendra were both featured in issue 2.2.

Prescription Medications
$5 – Whatever makes you happy
Make your Doctor’s appointments now and if you can’t get in to see someone legitimate, fake a car accident and run to the local emergency clinic, they give out 30 day scripts like candy.

If you are a contributor who would like to be listed here, shoot us an email at nanofictionmag@gmail.com.

As a designer, I pretty much live in a bubble and surround myself with news of beautiful things or passionate people. I haven’t really noticed a decline in woodworking because I know a very talented furniture design student whose focus is to use only the most beautiful wood and form. She keeps me updated on that small niche. Gentlemen’s formal hats should definitely make a comeback; I’ve been asking for this to happen for years. Decency? I think it’s probably at the same level as it has always been amongst any group of people. If everyone had the same standards there would be nothing to bitch about or spark some sort of desire for change.

What is your favorite color skittle?

I always pick out the red ones and eat them in a huge handful. I give away the rest.

In a zoo setting, what animal is the NANO editorial staff?

I don’t see how we could reduce a staff of many to only one species.

What is your favorite aspect of literary websites?

Content, of course.

What question do you have for people who read NANO Fiction?

What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m just kidding. I’d firstly like to thank you wholeheartedly for reading and supporting NANO Fiction. I’ve personally noticed how much we’ve grown and evolved over the past few years which makes me wonder: what would you like us to offer in the future that we don’t already provide? But, what I’d really, really love to know is, what inspires you?

Soon! Be on the lookout for an eblast or keep an eye on our website. (Pre-order the new issue here!)

In your opinion, which U.S. President can or should be considered most poetic?

This is such a hard question! I’m not very political, so I’m going to answer this to the best of my abilities. I think there’s a reason that we come back to certain presidents in history and it’s not because of their policies but because of their speeches and their persona. There was a NYT article floating around Facebook about Obama and how his administration was missing its narrative and that leadership required vision and the articulation of that vision. Then I heard Bill Clinton on NPR and I’ll admit that it was nice to hear someone frank and not “poetic.” So, as you can see, I’ve given you non-real answers because I don’t have one. Sorry!

What made you want to work for NANO Fiction?

While getting my undergraduate degree, I had the amazing pleasure of working for Gulf Coast, and when I graduated, I wanted to learn more about journals and publishing. The amazing (and sometimes frustrating) part of working for a journal with no university affiliation is the freedom. We do it all in our free time (everyone is either in graduate school or works a full time job), and working for NANO Fiction has really taught me the ups and downs of publishing.

What is your favorite kind of submission?

For me, I look for the things that I enjoy in any type of reading–surprise and emotional resonance.

What question do you have for people who read NANO Fiction?

What have been some of your favorite pieces?