critiquing

My flash fiction story “Blood Red” is live on Manawaker Podcast, and it sounds fantastic! CB Droege did an incredible job with the voice acting. I couldn’t be happier.

Listen to “Blood Red” for Free on Manawaker!

It really is a trip to hear your work read by a professional voice actor. I am grateful to be a part of the Manawaker podcast magic.

About “Blood Red” Flash Fiction

In May 2016, “Blood Red” won the Sierra College Flash Fiction Contest and was published in the college’s literary journal, which I wrote about in a previous blog.

For the contest, we were given photo prompts. I chose a picture of a girl sleeping with a book—only the book had a flower growing out of it. I liked the surreal image and let it percolate in my mind.

Writing and Critiquing

I wrote the story over the course of one weekend, though it took me two or three drafts to get it right. Since it’s original publishing, I’ve workshopped it in a few critique groups. Though the story ended up being less than 500 words, it took many hours of editing!

Special thanks to my friends on Scribophile for all their helpful suggestions!

Story Inspired by Death of a Classmate

During the 2016 Spring Semester, I was a student at Sierra College. One of my classmates died suddenly during that time from a drug overdose.

It was a shock to the whole class, but especially to me. I had sat next to the student for a few weeks. We had traded jokes back and forth. Suddenly, he was gone.

In a lot of ways, this story helped me to work through the sudden loss I felt.

Biblical References

I grew up steeped in Jewish culture, so biblical references crop up in my work a lot.

In this story, the narrator throws a book into the fire, but it does not burn. To me, this is a metaphor for speaking directly to the collective unconscious, just as in the story of the burning bush.