What is Espresso
Fiction you ask? Well, I pondered this very same question myself when I
first encountered the book. The short answer (and also based on the subtitle of
the book) is that it is a collection of flash fiction for the average Joe from
Fiction Brigade. The longer answer (and the
one I came up with all on my very own) is that it is a collection of quality, literary micro
fiction that you can read on the go, which means you can squeeze in a story
between all sorts of activities and responsibilities. The title is apt because
you can get your literature fix in a short shot of words. In sum, it is
brilliant, and I use this to describe both the concept of the project and the
selections included in the collection, and you are bound to find something you like in the collection.
The book consists of a variety of contributions by authors with various writing experience. Some of the authors are award-winning writers, others are graduate students of English or creative writing, and still others seem to be dabblers in the craft; all are great. The stories themselves cover the gamut: enlightening and puzzling, profound and lighthearted, international and local, short and extremely short. Despite the breadth of author backgrounds and storylines, it really does cohere as a collection, especially because the selections all very modern. Because the stories are so diverse, it is rather like accelerating through a diverse list of novels. The stories are also, obviously, short, which is a the greatest boon to the project. People have been eating up 140 character microblogs on Twitter (in fact, Fiction Brigade has its own Twitter project), and it has been argued that the success of some recent books is largely based on chapter lengths that are easily digestible on, say, a lunch break or bus ride. Espresso Fiction straddles both of these trends. The chapters are longer and more developed than a tweet, but shorter than a chapter, and also a complete story unit instead of part of a longer plot. But that’s not all! To round out your artistic diet, the book also includes some art and haikus. How can you go wrong with a perfectly strange haiku titled “Wronged by the Circus, Again” by Ryan Moll?
What I’m trying to say is that this reading experience couldn’t have been more satisfying. There is everything to love about the concept behind this book project and nothing to hate. And, just like any coffee addict, I’d love a second serving. I can only hope that a volume 2 is in the works.
Ricci & Habinek (eds.). Espresso Fiction: A Collection of Flash Fiction for the Average Joe. FictionBrigade, 2012.
The book consists of a variety of contributions by authors with various writing experience. Some of the authors are award-winning writers, others are graduate students of English or creative writing, and still others seem to be dabblers in the craft; all are great. The stories themselves cover the gamut: enlightening and puzzling, profound and lighthearted, international and local, short and extremely short. Despite the breadth of author backgrounds and storylines, it really does cohere as a collection, especially because the selections all very modern. Because the stories are so diverse, it is rather like accelerating through a diverse list of novels. The stories are also, obviously, short, which is a the greatest boon to the project. People have been eating up 140 character microblogs on Twitter (in fact, Fiction Brigade has its own Twitter project), and it has been argued that the success of some recent books is largely based on chapter lengths that are easily digestible on, say, a lunch break or bus ride. Espresso Fiction straddles both of these trends. The chapters are longer and more developed than a tweet, but shorter than a chapter, and also a complete story unit instead of part of a longer plot. But that’s not all! To round out your artistic diet, the book also includes some art and haikus. How can you go wrong with a perfectly strange haiku titled “Wronged by the Circus, Again” by Ryan Moll?
What I’m trying to say is that this reading experience couldn’t have been more satisfying. There is everything to love about the concept behind this book project and nothing to hate. And, just like any coffee addict, I’d love a second serving. I can only hope that a volume 2 is in the works.
Ricci & Habinek (eds.). Espresso Fiction: A Collection of Flash Fiction for the Average Joe. FictionBrigade, 2012.
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