Though the prose poem and the flash story come from different traditions, those traditions have crossed boundaries and are now producing very interesting hybrid pieces. Prose poets appear in flash story journals and anthologies, and conversely, flash story writers are being published in prose poem anthologies and literary journals. The flash story and prose poem are both flourishing in our era, and the relationship between the two is complex and intertwining. This reading will create an interesting dialogue between the two forms. These writers have been on the leading edge of this hybridization so this event will be both fascinating and entertaining.

BRINDA CHARRY has published two novels (The Hottest Day of the Year and Naked in the Wind) and a collection of short fiction (First Love and other Stories).  She has won the Katha Award for Short Fiction, the Picador Short Story Competition, and prizes in the BBC and Commonwealth short story competitions and the Ewing award for the Literary Arts..  Recent work has appeared in Litro magazine and anthologies of short fiction.

KIM CHINQUEE is the author of six fiction collections, mostly recently, Wetsuit, published by Ravenna Press. Her work has been published in over a hundred journals and anthologies, including The Nation, NOON, Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, Ploughshares, StoryQuarterly, New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction and others. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, Senior Editor of New World Writing, Chief Editor of Elm Leaves Journal, and she co-directs the writing major at SUNY-Buffalo State.

JEFF FRIEDMAN’s newest book, The Marksman, will be published by Carnegie Mellon University Press in fall 2020. He is the author of seven previous poetry collections, including Floating Tales, Pretenders and Working in Flour. Friedman’s poems, mini stories and translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, New England Review, Poetry International, Hotel Amerika, Flash Fiction Funny, Flash Nonfiction Funny, Fiction International, New World Writing, The New Republic and numerous other literary magazines. 

Pushcart prize poet, translator, and a founding editor of Four Way Books, DZVINIA ORLOWSKY is the author of six poetry collections published by Carnegie Mellon University Press including A HANDFUL OF BEES reprinted in 2009 as part of the Carnegie Mellon University Classic Contemporary Series and her most recent, BAD HARVEST.    Dzvinia teaches at the Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing of Pine Manor College, Providence College, and is founding director of “Night Riffs:  A Solstice Magazine Reading and MusicSeries.”In 2016 she was awarded an NEA fellowship for her work in translation.