Reading List

A Short List of Short Books

As most of you probably know, I had a flash fiction collection published recently, and I have several others under submission and a flash novella in the works. I’m also gearing up for the second run of Bringing It All Back Home: the Flash Collection and Flash Novella, a workshop offered through Cleaver magazine. So it’s no surprise that my recent reading includes a lot of flash fiction collections, flash novellas, and flash memoirs.

Here’s my not-at-all complete list of flash collections and novellas I’ve been reading and a few that are on my TBR list. It’s also the recommended reading list for my class. Have I missed any? I’m sure I have, and I hope you’ll let me know. I’m always looking for more flash chapbooks and full-length collections to recommend.

Flash Collections and Flash Novellas: Recommended Reading

Child Craft – Amy Cipolla Barnes (collection)

*Maud Martha – Gwendolyn Brooks (novella)

Hard Skin – Melissa Llanes Brownlee (collection)

Severance - Robert Olen Butler (collection)

Girl Detectives – Emily Capettini  [PDF available here ] (collection--or flash novella?)

Not Something We Discuss Often – Sarah Cedeno (flash memoir/essays)

*The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros (flash novel)

*Mrs. Bridge / Mr. Bridge - Evan S. Connell (novels--or novellas in flash?)

Hollows - Tommy Dean  (collection)

*Play It as It Lays - Joan Didion (novel--or novella in flash?)

The Missing Girl - Jacqueline Doyle  (collection)

Loving Monsters - Laura Eppinger (collection)

A Brief Natural History of Women - Sarah Freligh (collection)

*In Our Time - Ernest Hemingway (collection--short stories/flash) 

Glass Bricks - Louella Lester (flash memoir)

Collateral Damage: 48 Stories - Nancy Ludmerer  (collection)

The Rope Artist - Lorette Luzajic (collection)

The Daddy Chronicles - Jayne Martin (flash memoir)

Let Our Bodies Be Returned to Us - Lynn Mundell  (collection)

The Loss Detector - Meg Pokrass (flash novella)

Wolfsong - Kathryn Silver-Hajo (collection)

Breaking Points  - Chelsea Stickle  (collection) 

After the Rapture - Nancy Stohlman  (flash novella)

We the Animals – Justin Torres (flash novella)

Ghosts of You - Cathy Ulrich (collection)

Just Outside the Tunnel of Love - Francine Witte  (collection)

*Titles with asterisk indicate a precursor, published before the term 'flash fiction' was used. Terms such as 'vignette' or 'very short stories' may have been used instead.

In some cases, I had a hard time limiting myself to just one title per author (because you flash folk are just so prolific)!

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I’d also like to thank the journals that reviewed or listed my chapbook and those that published interviews with me. Thank you to the Blue Mountain Review, Vestal Review, Does It Have Pockets, and Cleaver, and to their editors and writers!

New stories are coming soon in Cowboy Jamboree, Fractured Lit, Unbroken, and Vestal Review. I’ll post links when they are released. Until then, happy fall!