Short Shorts

Short-short fiction, microfiction, flash fiction, and sudden fiction all refer to stories that generally unfurl to under 1500 words, often under 500 words, and in some instance, take a mere sentence to convey action, emotion, character, conflict, and resolution. It's cosmic truth captured in a sound bite, human strength and frailty offered as an amuse-bouche, a satisfying literary quickie.

Mark Mills wrote, "Whereas the novel illustrates the triumph of the human spirit, the very short story concerns illumination and enlightenment." Short-shorts begin and end at the moment of revelation. They are lean, mean honesty machines.

Dragon is a misanthropic, anthropophagic, poikilothermic monster, prone to biting when provoked. Under her nom de guerre, Monica Friedman, she has successfully masqueraded as a human being for over three decades, earning degrees in psychology (BA, Antioch College, 1996), English (BA, NEIU, 2001), and creative writing (MFA, WMU, 2004), and working for such illustrious institutions as WW Norton, Third Coast, and Oxford University Press. Currently, she lives in the Sonoran Desert, where, for the last five years, she has undertaken a longitudinal experiment to determine the exact span one can exist as a starving artist without actually starving to death. For many years a fantasist, she is gradually transitioning to non-fiction because she is sick and tired of being told, "that could never happen," when she tries to pass off true stories about her life as fiction.

If you'd like to know more about Dragon or about Monica Friedman, send your questions, concerns, revelations, or offers of paid publication to littledragonblue@gmail.com.