Sudden Stories: Five Weeks of Flash

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”  - Blaise Pascal

How short can a story be? Consider Ernest Hemingway’s six-word classic: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. A tale told quickly can offer untold riches, which swell inside a reader long after the telling. "The question then,” says instructor Andy Touhy, “isn’t how short a story can be. But how deep can we make our sudden stories. For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

In this course we’ll look at ways to craft full, pleasing narratives in tight spaces, completing generative exercises that will help us find our own voice within the form. For inspiration and guidance, we’ll also closely read a variety of published flash, with an eye on length (roughly 150 to 3,000 words), mode, and overall effect. In addition to the above, the final weeks will culminate in a workshop of one or more pieces by participants. These may be works-in-progress (begun in advance of our meetings but influenced by our findings) or ones generated during our weekly explorations.

Andy says: “Writers of any genre are welcome, and everyone can expect to depart with a store of new flash material, if not a sudden story or two worth honing and marshaling into the world.”