In Short

For the past month, I've been posting some of my shortest fiction to the handsome website Fictionaut.  Clean design, ease of navigation, robust interaction between reader and writer--what's not to love about Fictionaut?

The site was launched in 2008 by Carson Baker and Jürgen Fauth.   Its Board of Advisors includes an impressive lineup of writers and editors: Frederick Barthelme, Alex Glass, Marcy Dermansky, John Minichillo, Richard Nash, Lauren Cerand, Lizzie Skurnick and Gary Percesepe.  In a 2009 interview with Smokelong Quarterly, Fauth said, "I'm thrilled with the amount of great fiction and talented writers that have shown up thus far.  It's a little bit like hosting a party, so now it's all about making sure the music's right and we don't run out of booze.  For Fictionaut to work on a larger scale, I think we'll have to keep refining it so that it stays an inviting place for writers to publish and a place where readers can come and easily find interesting fiction."

Plenty of interesting writers have shown up to the party (present company excluded: I'm like the guy who hugs the wall, nervously nursing a drink while he looks around at all the other people who are all so much brighter and prettier).  Ann Beattie, Meg Pokrass, Kathy Fish, Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Kim Chinquee, Terese Svoboda, Mary Gaitskill, and Maud Casey are just a few of the top-name writers who have contributed to the site.  (And, yes, men do come to the party, too--Charles Baxter, Rick Moody, and Robert Olen Butler, for instance.)  Most of the stories are short-short, flash-fiction nuggets easily digested in a single, undistracted sitting.  With a growing population of users, both amateur and professional writers alike, there's always something new and interesting popping up on the homepage.

Here are the stories I've contributed thus far:

Arm

A Little Bit of Everything

Letting Go

Threads

Flop-Flip

and the shortest story I've ever written:  (after Hemingway)