Index
2011
01/18 • Jennifer Pieroni • “The Definition of Magic” • fiction
01/11 • Peter Grandbois • “The Room” • fiction
2010
12/08 • Sean Lovelace • “Hammock” • Fiction
Your DNA Today
by Courtney Dunham
[Editor’s Note: This piece is part of the “Topical” series, with each piece solely submitted to and chosen by the Final Reader Pietra Dunmore.]
Tap, tap, tap.
Brandy Booker’s black heels beat against the cold granite floor.
Her boss, and president of Your DNA Today, Rodney Smith, was busy with some papers slowly flipping page by page. To stop her foot from tapping, Brandy pulls at her purple silk shirt, then she takes a deep breath.
“Sir, you said to let you know if any issues came up…” Brandy says.
“Right, what happened?” he asks.
Rodney firmly lays the papers on his desk and his eyes focus intensely on Brandy. She clears her throat and continues.
“We’ve received multiple complaints now. Some of the clients are calling saying our products had caused them some…complications,” she says.
“What complications?”
“They said our slogans were misleading. Particularly ‘Genetics to Ease your mind.’ Parents are complaining they requested physical features for their children like height or neurological changes like lessening addiction that both had some unexpected effects,” she says. “Short term we’re looking at a PR fiasco and fewer clients; long term, I’ve heard rumors of lawsuits and who knows what else.”
Smith tilts his head then pushes his chair back nearly doubling over from laughing. Once he stops chuckling, he looks back up at Brandy with a slight smile.
“That’s it?” he asks. “Well, the way you came in I thought you were going to say we’ve been seeing mutations.”
Brandy takes a step back and her face crinkles.
“Well, like I’ve said we’ve had multiple complaints. I know—”
“Right, right. Well, you know how to take care of this,” he says. Smith chuckles once more shooing Brandy out the door.
“Wait, you’re okay still being the face of the new campaign, right?” he asks.
“Yes, sir.”
Brandy slowly shuts the office door behind her. Shakily, she makes it to the bathroom and sits in the stall. She shakes her head in disbelief and her hands drop. Her purse falls to the floor next to her.
“If my daughter has purple hair, or a tail, I wonder if I’ll be fired.”
Brandy unzips her purse and pulls out the sonogram of her daughter. She clutches it close to her chest and closes her eyes. After a few seconds she takes a deep breath, picks up her purse, leaves the bathroom and walks normally back to her desk.
Flash Is a Machine of Compression
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at Ethel Rohan’s blog “Straight From the Hip,” December 2009
In “Notes on Novel Structure” from Words Overflown By Stars: Creative Writing Instruction and Insight from the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Program, Douglas Glover refers to the novel as “a machine of desire,” one in which “the writer generally tries to announce the desire, goal, or need of the primary character as quickly as possible.” The key, Glover believes, “is to make this desire concrete and simple.”
(more…)
4. a particular kind of substance
In this fourth look at the various definitions of matter, I encounter this one:
a particular kind of substance: coloring matter
I like the particular here. An editor of a journal nicely called my writing flash fiction “a particular talent.” It is a particular kind of writing, and figuring out the particulars is part of the fun of writing in any form, included compressed ones. (more…)
3. matter: occupies space
This is the third in a series. Previous posts looked at matter as the substance and matter as physical substance. This third definition of matter says, perhaps, that something matters because it has the ability to occupy space. (more…)
2. matter: physical substance
Part 2 of a series that looks at the various definitions of matter from Dictionary.com and how they might apply to compressed creative arts. (more…)
1. matter: the substance
Out of its singular mission to expand the world of compressed creative arts, Matter Press & Journal has burst into existence. Part of its ongoing mission is to explore how these (very) tiny forms can matter, not so much by defining them, but instead by putting them into action. (more…)
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