I'm very excited to have a story published in the recent Hint Fiction anthology. The books contains stories of 25 words or fewer and I am thrilled to be published alongside people like Jonathan Carroll, Joe Lansdale and Peter Straub.
I'm fascinated by how small a story can be. Much very short fiction is disappointing, little more than summaries. But when someone gets it right, the effect is stunning, like the Baby Shoes story that is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway. So simple, yet so surprising. The anthology's editor, Robert Swartwood, says that Hint Fiction "should be complete by standing by itself as its own little world", and the book contains some great examples.
There's an interesting discussion at The Millions here and a New Yorker review here. The latter includes some examples, including Bob Thurber's Shipwrecked and LR Bonehill's Cull, two of my favourites from the book.
People who follow the weblog or twitter will know how much I fret about writing author biographies. Hint fiction has 25 word biographies for each of the writer, and Michael Martone's entry is the best example I have seen yet.
Thanks to Robert Swartwood for organising the anthology.
I’ve been reading up on haiku recently, and one major aspect is that a haiku should be complete in itself, in a way – nothing should feel like it’s missing, and nothing should feel extraneous.
I suspect there’d be a lot less words in the world if we applied this to everything.