1 Saturday, April 22, 10am-4pm
$130 members/$145 non-members
Testimonials for Andy
You’ve set foot in the kingdom of flash fiction (the smokelong, the short-short, the sudden or micro fable) and now you’re ready to write more. A tale told quickly offers an almost addictive pleasure beyond its telling, perhaps because brevity and urgency invite return and close study, perhaps because in this compressed length we find the soul of storytelling itself.
“In this one-day workshop,” says Andy Touhy, “participants will deepen their understanding of just how we fit a full and pleasing narrative into such a tiny space. To reach this end, we’ll be looking at a fresh selection of published flash, from the sharply distilled moment of truth to the extended joke, from the philosophic inquiry in miniature to the irascible dramatic monologue—all with an eye toward decoding the craft and art of their design.
We’ll then engage in targeted writing prompts to elicit our own hot material worth honing and marshaling into the world. We’ll discuss the results of these, exchange light feedback, and press forth in our discussion of the form.”
Writers of any genre are welcomed in the class, and they need not have taken Tiny Kingdoms I in order to sign up. All participants can expect to depart with a clutch of rich new material, if not several works-in-progress. At class end, Andy will revisit an updated list of flash-friendly venues, in print and online, and discuss strategies for submitting work for publication.
Andy Touhy, a recipient of the San Francisco Browning Society’s Dramatic Monologue Award and Fourteen Hills’ Bambi Holmes Fiction Prize, is also a nominee for inclusion in Best New American Voices. In 2016 his story manuscript, “The Secret of Mayo,” was named the finalist for BOA Editions’ Short Fiction Prize. Work from the collection has appeared in journals such as Conjunctions, New England Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, New American Writing, New Orleans Review, Colorado Review, Eleven Eleven, and The Collagist. He holds graduate degrees in literature and creative writing and has taught at SFSU, Academy of Art, and Ohio University. He lives in Oakland with his wife and child.