by Tara Campbell
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Tara Campbell (www.taracampbell.com) is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse. Prior publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Jellyfish Review, Booth, and Strange Horizons. She’s the author of a novel, TreeVolution, a hybrid fiction/poetry collection, Circe’s Bicycle, and a short story collection, Midnight at the Organporium. She received her MFA from American University in 2019.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Sweet and Sour Christmas: A Recipe”? This piece came from a prompt in one of the phenomenal Kathy Fish’s Fast Flash classes. I was at my sister’s house for the holidays during part of the course, for only the second time since my mother’s death, so that whole experience was still very raw and present in my mind. Going home for Christmas always meant going home to Mom, even after she moved in with my sister, who had converted to Orthodox Judaism decades before (a whole other story). Even without the dynamic of navigating different cultural/religious practices, as parents age and pass on, the locus of “home” shifts, which is a disorienting experience for everyone involved. Still, family bonds are strong, no matter how you label them, and now our mostly secular family continues to come together to celebrate non-specific holidays in my sister’s Jewish household.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now open. The reading period for standard submissions closes again December 15, 2023. Submit here.
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