Fictionaut Blog

I’ll ask students to go someplace they love, or someplace that scares them or makes them angry or sad, and just sit and feel that for a while before writing. The trick is to hypnotize yourself back into yourself, back into your body and into the deepest part of you psyche or farthest reaches of your imagination so you can say something that surprises you, a thing you don’t yet know.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Ramon Collins
   Monday Chat with Doug Bond

I honestly believe Micro & Flash stories are online fiction’s future. It’s the way people read. The phenomenon has something to do with the TV-20-second attention span and the decline of reading comprehension.

Recently:
   Monday Chat with Doug Bond
   Fictionaut Five: Jonathan Evison
   Valentine’s Day Massacres

I wrote the first version of this story over a year ago, and put it through most of the substantive changes and revisions at that time. A bit later I had enough distance to see some of the issues that were not working and pared it down, simplified the emotional space.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Jonathan Evison
   Valentine’s Day Massacres

When I was drowning in research for West of Here, I asked my friend David Liss (who writes excellent historical fiction) how I would know when it was time to stop researching, and he said: when the research starts getting in the way of the story you want to tell. That was amazing advice.

Recently:
   Valentine’s Day Massacres
   Fictionaut Five: Erika Dreifus
   Monday Chat with Linda Simoni-Wastila
   Introducing Fictionaut Selects

The first Valentine Day Massacre is now available as a beautiful chapbook from Červená Barva Press. Even better, there’s a new massacre underway now in the Valentine Day group.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Erika Dreifus
   Monday Chat with Linda Simoni-Wastila
   Introducing Fictionaut Selects
   Checking In With Dark Chaos
   Line Breaks: “The Right Thing” by Robert Boswell

Now that I’m working full-time in a staff job instead of teaching, my personal mentoring takes place in the form of trying to advise and assist writers online, more or less en masse, via my website, blogs, and newsletter. I am also proud to say that I am the family go-to source when it comes to encouraging reading and writing proclivities among the little ones.

Recently:
   Monday Chat with Linda Simoni-Wastila
   Introducing Fictionaut Selects
   Checking In With Dark Chaos
   Line Breaks: “The Right Thing” by Robert Boswell

I love the rhythm of words, alone and in combination. Which is fine for short pieces, I guess, but deadly for novels (or so I’m told!)

Recently:
   Introducing Fictionaut Selects
   Checking In With Dark Chaos
   Line Breaks: “The Right Thing” by Robert Boswell
   Fictionaut Five: Tom Franklin

We’re happy to present Fictionaut Selects, a new series of collected stories and poetry from Fictionaut, edited by Marcelle Heath.

Each issue of Fictionaut Selects features a different theme and guest-editor. For our inaugural issue, “Up to No Good,” Jane Hammons selected and introduces stories and poems by Stephanie Bobo, Gita M. Smith, Neil Serven, Mark Reep, Stephanie Austin, and Cynthia Hawkins.

Recently:
   Checking In With Dark Chaos
   Line Breaks: “The Right Thing” by Robert Boswell
   Fictionaut Five: Tom Franklin