| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 143 pages) |
|
text file PDF |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Summary |
"Over the past ten years or so, "Short-shorts" or "Flash Fiction" has emerged as an increasingly popular and visible genre within fiction. David Galef's Brevity offers a guide to the genre for creative writing students by combining discussions of the various approaches and methods within the genre, examples of the form, and prompts for students to develop their own writing. Galef includes examples of the short-short genre from such writers as Collette, Donald Barthelme, and Borges. He examines the ways in which these authors drew on the form and how compression and other techniques are able to produce works of power, humor, or insight. Galef argues that developing one's skills in the short-short form can also carry over to other forms of writing. Galef, a writer and longtime creative-writing instructor, guides the reader through these stories and techniques and also provides exercises based on the content or technique employed in the stories"-- Provided by publishers. |
| Contents |
Short introduction -- Vignettes. Readings: Colette: Tthe other wife"; Isaac Babel: "An incident on the Nevsky Prospekt" -- Character sketches. Readings: L.E. Leone: "The argument for a shotgun"; Josefina Estrada: "The extravagant behavior of the naked woman" -- Letters. Readings: Yasunari Kawabata: "Canaries"; Phil Karasik: "Mickey the dog phones home" -- Diary entries. Readings: Will Stanton: "Barney"; Mark Budman: "The diary of a salaryman" -- Lists. Readings: Sei Shonagon: "Annoying things"; Steve Martin: "Disgruntled former lexicographer" -- Fables. Readings: Anonymous: Untitled; Raphael Dagold: "The two rats and the BB gun" -- Anecdotes. Reading: The peasant and the genie -- Prose poems. Readings: Yusef Komunyakaa: "Nude interrogation"; Len Kuntz: "Story problems" -- Soliloquies, rants, riffs, and themes. Readings: Christine Byl: "Hey, Jess McCafferty"; John Edgar Wideman: "Witness" -- Perfect miniatures. Readings: John Collier: "The chaser"; Jeffrey Whitmore: "A bedtime story" -- Intermission: cutting down. Bruce Taylor: "Exercise" -- Surrealism. Readings: Richard Brautigan: "A need for gardens"; Donald Barthelme: "The baby" -- What if? Readings: Wayland Hilton-Young: "The choice"; Dicky Murphy: "The magician's umbrella" -- Genre. Readings: Roxane Gay: "The mistress of baby breath"; Tara Orchard: "My love" -- Setting. Readings: Bharati Mukherjee: "Courtly vision"; Alice Walker: "The flowers" -- Twists. Readings: Luisa Valenzuela: "Vision out of the corner of one eye"; Saki: "The open window" -- Viewpoints. Readings: Robert Schipits: "Dialogue between two teenagers, one interested in cars and one not"; Ryan Ridge: "Shaky hands & all" -- Mass compression. Readings: Bruce Holland Rogers: "Dinosaur"; Susan O'Neill: "Memento mori" -- Metafiction. Readings: Ptim Callan: "Story"; Jorge Luis Borges: "Borges and I" -- Vanishing point. Readings: Merilee Faber: "We came around the corner"; Dean Clayton Edwards: "It was pretending"; Davian Aw: "She raised the glass"; Augusto Monterroso: "The dinosaur" -- The future -- Conclusion. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Language |
In English. |
| Subject |
Flash fiction -- Authorship.
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Flash fiction. |
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Authorship. |
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Flash fiction -- Technique.
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Technique. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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Handbooks and manuals.
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Handbooks and manuals.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Galef, David. Brevity. New York : Columbia University Press, 2016 9780231179683 (DLC) 2016019207 |
| ISBN |
9780231543132 (electronic book) |
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0231543131 (electronic book) |
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9780231179683 (hardcover) |
| Standard No. |
10.7312/gale17968 |
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