Compression: Jeff Fearnside
“Determining how much space to give any story(and I see all writing, even lyric poetry, as fundamentally reflective of some kind of underlying narrative, even if this narrative is never referred to) is the same as choosing which genre to house it in: the story itself dictates what it needs. Certain stories naturally lend themselves to certain forms, some of them expansive, some of them compressed. This may be obvious right from the beginning, while sometimes it may take living with a piece for a while, but eventually, to the writer who listens carefully enough, it will become clear. That’s a good writer’s primary job: listening. This involves following feelings, not formulas, and that’s what makes writing an art, not a science.” — Jeff Fearnside
Compression: Sara Puls
“In moments of monumental change, intense sadness, and deep regret, a few words are all that a person needs to express what has happened. Moreover, sometimes just a few words is all one can manage to get out. Compression, then, is bittersweet, just like the experiences one has survived.” — Sara Puls
Compression: David Esposito
“A poet is a surgeon who makes constant, precise, incisions into his work until nothing remains but the art. The poet must either take the objective moment and remove his subjective ego from it, or he must bare his own soul against the very heavens themselves.” — David Esposito
Compression: Michael Hurley
“Compression is a lamp made from a mason jar.” — Michael Hurley
Compression: Eleanor Roth Shnier
“The word ‘compression’ reminded me of the time I had to return to work and stop nursing my first born son. The process was a painful one—both literally and figuratively. ‘A swollen and fiery mess.'” — Eleanor Roth Shnier
Compression: David Salner
“In Boyle’s law, the pressure on gas in inversely related to its volume. In literature, pressure is supplied by the author’s humility in relation to the story he or she must tell; quite often, it’s inversely related to the volume of words.” — David Salner
Compression: Lyla Abi-Saab
“Compression is the feeling before it goes on paper, I guess. A gravity fusing us together. Without words to temper, I would burst and swallow the world whole.” — Lyla Abi-Saab
Compression: Amy Rossi
“For me, distilling a relationship or a problem down to a single moment in time is a way to learn where the real story lives. It’s an art form in its own right, and the exercise in concision and leanness in prose translates well to longer work.” — Amy Rossi
Compression: Matthew Fowler
“Compression is like the end of a road trip. All you have at the end of the drive is a few sentences to represent all those hours in the car. Yet, somehow, there’s always something from every trip that we learn about ourselves, which is what is so cool about compressed literature. That something we find of ourselves in any piece of literature is gained faster, becomes more tangible, and yet we can still lose ourselves in it just as much as reading or driving hours on end.” — Matthew Fowler
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