I never intend to write a flash. I never sit down and think: short-short. I just sit down to write. With short fiction as with poetry, the piece is usually there in my head. It's all of one piece. It gushes. I don't think about it. I'm kind of like a private dick. I follow, lurking behind corners trying to catch a glimpse of where we might be going. My favorite pieces are those that lose me at a turn or in the crowd, but then I catch up with the piece later.
Some pieces are just for fun. I work with a group that writes pieces utilizing random words. I always try to use those words in an unusual way. I also have a group of characters and themes that I go back to again and again. My mother (who always wanted me to write about her) is a recurring character as are the buzzards that perch in a tree one hundred yards past my back fence. In other words, my work is all over the place, and I think it's best that way. I get awfully bored when I see a writer's name and know the story or poem will have the same tone or subject as most of the writer's other work. My latest favorite piece? I wrote a flash about mummifying my brother's body. Of course, my brother is still alive, and my mother wasn't too crazy about the flash...
Bio: Tiff Holland writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in dozens of litmags, ezines and anthologies and her poetry chapbook Bone In a Tin Funnel is available directly from Tiff or through Pudding House Press. Her work has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and she has work forthcoming in Night Train (the mummy piece!) and Smokelong Quarterly.
Read "Scrapple" at Smokelong Quarterly
Read "Officer Friendly" at Juked
Read "Betty Superman" at The Denver syntax
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Tiff, you make it sound easy :-) I've long admired your work, but only had the pleasure of reading "Officer Friendly" and "Betty Superman" just now. I don't know how many times "Officer Friendly" caught my breath. You hit every note just right. What a performance! Thanks.
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