Department of English

Keats called poetry “infinite riches in a small room,” and the same can be said of short-short-form fiction. We live in an age of condensed information. Where does the art of fiction fit into our soundbite-driven lives? Short-form fiction (also called flash fiction, sudden fiction, or microfiction—stories under 1,000 words) is more than just “really short stories.” Every word in a piece of microfiction is the proverbial ant, carrying fifty times its own weight. Students will be reading short-short works of fiction, as well as writing their own. We will learn about powerful verbs, lush nouns, what a story truly needs to be a story, and how to deliver the richest prose in the most succinct way possible. Students will read short-short narratives from a variety of traditions, submit weekly stories of their own for workshop, and explore how the resurgence of the short form has coincided with technology’s integration into every facet of our lives.