Compression: Kelly Miller
“Like a flash upon the retina compressed images linger and return.” — Kelly Miller
Compression: Dameion Wagner
“I was a butcher for a time. As part of my duties, I made stock from beef, chicken, or other game bones and parts. It’s in the stock, the amber flavor of the marrow of bones and fat and the dirty earthiness released from the vegetables that I find compression’s finest edge. To me, that’s compression: to seek the the barest, most naked parts of a ‘thing’ and lay it flat on its back.” — Dameion Wagner
Compression: Erin Fitzgerald
“On compression: For over ten years, I couldn’t fly without medication. Then one afternoon I read an article that explained the physics of flight. The air that surrounds a plane, it claimed, pushes it equally on all sides. The air isn’t actually gelatinous, but it behaves like it is. Now when I sit in a metal tube, I think of the air inside and out, but I behave like I’m not afraid. ” — Erin Fitzgerald
Compression: Duncan Whitmire
“Compression is gravity: not pen-rolling-off-the-desk-onto-the-carpet gravity, but a force pulling inward for billions of years until the material of an entire universe exists in a single point, awaiting explosion.” — Duncan Whitmire
Compression: J.I. Kleinberg
“In cooking, the term is reduction. The cook adds heat to the liquids left in the pan and allows it to simmer until the sauce thickens and deepens in color and the flavors intensify. It is reduced to its essence, the alchemy of ingredients and accident and time adding up to something that is more than the sum of its parts—and also less. That’s compression.” — J.I. Kleinberg
Compression: Heather Startup
“To me, compression is that which leaves the reader wanting more, more that the author will not give. So the readers must look inside themselves for that fulfillment. They must let the story simmer inside them, adding whatever spice and verve their own lives have to offer, until the compressed story is truly ‘done.'” — Heather Startup
Compression: Kat Meads
“I’m endlessly fascinated by the relationship of the said and un-said in narratives. The shorter the piece, the more striking that relationship (along with its capacity for revelation) becomes.” — Kat Meads
Compression: Andrew J. Stone
“Compression is filling the page with as much information possible, using the least amount of words needed.” — Andrew J. Stone
Compression: Ariana Nadia Nash
“In this poem, compression is not understood as contraction, but rather as simplicity, not in subject or aim, but in the presentation of a single moment of apprehension. Compression is the desire not for density, but for the words to be spare enough that meaning can occur in emptiness. The poem is compressed, yet ironically its meaning sprawls and expands past its form.” — Ariana Nadia Nash
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
Upcoming:
03/23 • Kenneth Pobo
03/30 • Roberta Allen
04/06 • Avril Shakira Villar
04/13 • TBD
04/20 • TBD
04/27 • TBD
05/04 • TBD
05/11 • TBD
05/18 • TBD
05/25 • TBD
06/01 • TBD
06/08 • TBD
06/15 • TBD
06/22 • TBD
06/29 • TBD
07/06 • TBD
07/13 • TBD
07/20 • TBD
07/27 • TBD
08/03 • TBD
08/10 • TBD
08/17 • TBD
08/24 • TBD
08/31 • TBD
09/07 • TBD
09/14 • TBD
09/21 • TBD