Meet Melanie Bell, Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest Runner Up

Melanie Bell launched her marketing technology firm in 2014 after working for a startup accelerator in Houston. This followed undergraduate studies in international development at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where she stayed to acquire several years’ marketing experience, and an MBA at Rice University.

Born in Long Beach, California and raised in Houston, Texas, Melanie has traveled to places as far and varied as Venezuela, Rwanda, Cambodia, China, and Sardinia. She prefers to stay away from tourist traps and takes to the backstreets to sample authentic cuisine and culture.

To hone her writing skills while continuing to run her business, Melanie recently began entering writing competitions and joining local writing workshops. She is a voracious reader, digesting a wide mix of fiction and nonfiction, often biographical and historical. Maybe one day she will write a novel. She balances work life with her husband, two step-kids, and a contentedly overweight tabby called Lenny.

Read Melanie's story, "Blueberry Bonds," and then return here to learn more about the author.

----------Interview by Renee Roberson

WOW: Hello, Melanie, and congratulations on placing again with this moving story! It seems workshops and writing competitions are helping you hone your craft. What are some of your favorite resources for finding classes and contests?

Melanie: There are a few local groups that offer a fantastic lineup of classes and workshops as well as other events with a literary focus. Inprint and Writespace immediately come to mind. I also have a tab set up on my Flipboard account for creative writing, and that feed pulls in various contests, which is how I found out about WOW!

WOW: What is your favorite line from “Blueberry Bonds?”

Melanie: I have two! "Uncooked blueberry pie sludged toward the floor" simply because I love the word sludged. I also spent a lot of time developing the characters, 99.9% of which didn't end up in the story, so I also loved including this tidbit about Emmie's grandma: "Every night, her grandmother took a small bourbon to the bedroom to read trashy magazines."

WOW: Yes, I agree that those are two great lines. Sludged is awesome. You mentioned you enjoy reading a wide variety of titles. We’d love to hear about what books are currently on your nightstand.

Melanie: Ha! Far too many if there is such a thing. My husband and I are slightly concerned my books are breeding. I have a few anthologies/compilations (Didion, Cheever, Chekhov), a book about linguistics, a biography of the fascinating Gertrude Bell (no relation as far as I know), and about five new historical fictions that just arrived like The Gown, The Forgotten Garden, and The Watermelon Boys.

WOW: As you travel extensively, have any of your travels inspired short stories or essays? We’d love to hear details!

Melanie: There's so much great material to pick up while traveling - from random people you encounter, different weather, scenery, food, and changes in dynamics with the people with whom you're traveling. I entered a short story contest run by a new group called Prolitfic earlier this year and focused my entry it around a family on a summer vacation in Los Angeles, which is where I spent lots of my summers as a kid. However, I wanted to highlight some of the stresses of family trips as I'm now experiencing them as a stepmom to a teen and a tween. I used it as an opportunity to explore the trip from both points of view (parent and child), though both are relatively dislikeable and misunderstood characters. There are more things in the works that are related to my travels, but I'm keeping them in stealth mode for the moment!

WOW: I agree! I think having marketing background helps you write and pitch stories in a special way, too. Speaking of you having a marketing background, including an MBA, when did you first discover your love of creative writing?

Melanie: This is a new love of mine, just within the past year or so. Though, as I've been writing more, I've recalled several childhood memories of writing short stories that I enjoyed. One was about someone who had no friends and whose family had rejected him. I think about 3 pages of it were about his very lonely existence and then 3 pages were about him dying. I'm shocked my creative writing teacher didn't send me to the school counselor, but all the girls in my class had written very dark, psychological pieces, so it must have been a phase we were all going through at the time. The other short story I remember writing with a friend was about how I was going to meet Prince Harry and how we'd fall in love and get married. Perhaps this counts as fan fiction?! I wish I'd held onto these pieces. It'd be so much fun to dig them out now and reread them.

WOW: The past year or so? That's incredible! I'm sure we'll see more of your work in the future. Sending you happy writing vibes!

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Interview with K. Alan Leitch, Runner Up in Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest

Author of YA, Mysteries and Satirical Adventures, K. Alan Leitch writes with lyricism for the fun-loving reader. His novel awards include Textnovel, Serena McDonald Kennedy, The Write Launch and Book Pipeline. Through sixteen short fiction awards, he’s loved soap operas with Writer Advice; lived loudly in Gathering Storm Magazine; written in seven different voices for WOW! Women On Writing; and protected other worlds in Stringybark Stories. His satirical adventure, Crimes of Convenience, has placed in the 2017 International 3-day Novel Contest, and his YA Mystery, Too Much Information, has placed in the top seven of the 2018 International Eyelands awards and in the top ten of the 2017 Book Pipeline Contest, surpassing 1,974 other published and unpublished novels. Visit K. Alan's Blog or tweet-a-gram him @KAlanAuthor

interview by Marcia Peterson

WOW: Congratulations on placing as a runner up in our Fall 2018 Flash Fiction competition. Can you tell us the source of your inspiration when you write in a teenage voice like the one in your story, "Weak as Tissue?"

Keith: I actually get asked about my teenage voices a lot, and not always so politely. Sometimes the question starts with, "What makes you think you can.." Because of my age and (maybe to some extent) my gender, many in the writing profession are surprised. But the answer is surprisingly simple: I'm a teacher.

Having been a teacher for twenty-four years—twenty of those full-time—teenage voices might be the ones that are most familiar to me. I've known literally thousands of teenagers, and I still talk to hundreds every week. The bigger challenge is to write something that's not in a narrative style that they've influenced.

Sometimes a student will voice a problem to me that's completely similar or radically different from a problem I heard ten years ago. When it comes to insecurity over body image, I'm afraid that's timeless. It also knows no racial or cultural barriers, and, let's face it, it lasts more into adulthood than we care to admit. Thus Brooke's conflict in "Weak as Tissue."

#ownvoices are incredibly important, and I completely support the trend. However, there's also something to be said for experience: finding the common ground within a culture to speak through protagonists, and the conflict around it to create narrative tension. I suspect it's the same for a lot of authors... an amalgam of the people who surround them every day are their most likely characters.

WOW: What do you enjoy about flash fiction writing versus the other kinds of writing that you do?

Keith: Well, outside of my blog, I mostly write only short stories (flash or otherwise) and novels. The shorter the story, the more I enjoy my ability to focus on the exact choice of the most lyrical words possible. Flash-writing is much more about exposing my themes than it is about worrying whether I've contradicted some plotting detail in Chapter 2. That creates a whole different writing 'mode.'

WOW: What is your ideal writing environment?

Keith: The inside of Scrooge McDuck's vault. I'm sorry, I really don't know. Sometimes I need some background music or noise, and knowing there's some humanity around me. It's a cliché, but my local Starbucks serves me well on those days. At other times, I need silence, familiarity and the view from my own window. I think the only consistency is that I always need to be confident that I won't be interrupted—not even by my own cripplingly short attention span.

WOW: I'm the same way about not being interrupted. So, what's new? What projects are you working on now?

Keith: That's a timely question. I haven't actually written a new novel for a long time, now, because I've been focusing on finding a home for some of the work that I've polished. I'm still seeking a home for for YA Psychological Mystery Too Much Information, which has placed strongly in two competitions but remains unsigned. Recently, I came close to a deal for my magical YA adventure, Olivia Tames Olympus, so I'm following up on some of those threads: you might see it around soon.

I'm also a big disappointment to the world's greatest editor, Matthew Bird, because I haven't acted on his outstanding feedback on my 3-day novel finalist, Crimes of Convenience. It's a semi-satirical mystery about a convenience store clerk in Provo, Utah, who becomes a suspect when boys from a nearby prep school are poisoned by sealed snacks sold in his store. His desperate investigation leads him to discover cover-ups of abuses by powerful men. A little too familiar these days, I know; it's more fun than it sounds. Editor Matt, who authored writing guide Secrets of Story, is trying to convince me to make it YA, too. Maybe.

Of course, there's also the whole list of short fiction on my blog, including the recently published In Deep by the amazing Clare MacQueen at KYSO Flash.

WOW: Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Keith. Before you go, can you share a favorite writing tip or piece of advice?

Keith: I'd actually like to share an improvement I need to make myself, and that's about treating subcultures with respect.Too often, I write surrounding characters who are cliché, because they're a gang member or from a poorer class than the protagonist. Naturally, that means they must be violent or grammatically challenged, right?

Well, no, actually. All it necessarily means is that they've had different experiences from the protag. I think if it's worth writing about a particular subculture at all, then it's worth locating that subculture's dignity: starting with a change in the labels. Throw out "Emo" and "Banger," and start again. I blog about this a bit more here.

In the meantime, write some Flash Fiction. Competitions like this one are just the inspiration you need.

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For more information about our quarterly Flash Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Essay contests, visit our contest page here.

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Interview with Carie Juettner: Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest Runner Up

Carie’s Bio:
Carie Juettner was born on Halloween and has been in love with ghosts, witches, and black cats ever since. Carie lives in Austin, Texas, where she teaches seventh grade English and writes strange stories about nature, the future, and things that go bump in the night.

Her poems and short stories have been published in Dreams & Nightmares, Tales to Terrify, Daily Science Fiction, and 21st Century Ghost Stories, among other places, and her novel-in-progress, The Unsettled Spirits of Willingkin Farm, won first place in the middle grade category of the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Competition in 2018.

When Carie isn’t writing or grading papers, she can be found walking her dog, doing yoga, or reading a book with a cat on her lap and a cup of coffee in her hand.

Twitter: @cariejuettner
Blog: cariejuettner.com

If you haven’t read her story yet, click through to Phoenix, a story that definitely reflects her love of Halloween. Then come back as she shares her insights into the writing process.

WOW: What was your inspiration for this story about a girl finding the power to change her world?

Carie: It was a combination of things. I wrote "Phoenix" in late July, which is a dry, hot, suffocating season here in Austin. The evening chorus of cicadas in the summer has been a staple all my life. I've loved playing with their shells since I was a little kid. It used to be a game to pluck them off of tree branches or fence posts and try to stick them to a friend or sibling's shirt without them knowing it. However, it wasn't until I was an adult that I saw one of the huge insects actually in the process of emerging from its shell. I took a photo of it (see right) and have been even more fascinated with them ever since. Cicadas find their way into a lot of my writing.

I'd also been wanting to write a "subtly witchy" story. That's how my brain named it. I like to write horror, and most of my short story characters don't get happy endings. This time I wanted to write something that still had a hint of magic and mischief, but with a positive spin. I conjured up the idea of Gwen, a well-meaning but naive teenager trying to make a difference in the world by dabbling in witchcraft. Then I wrote the first line about the cicada shell, pictured a terrible dry spell, and let the story take it from there.

WOW: A huge part of writing is rewriting. How did this story change during the rewrite process? And, given the depth of detail, how did you decide which details stayed in the story and which had to go?

Carie: I've written flash fiction pieces in the past that started out as longer stories and had to be whittled down to their essence. It's a daunting but interesting task, and one that I suggest every writer try at some point. Forcing yourself to revise a 2,000-word story down to 1,000 really makes you question every word.

However, "Phoenix" didn't have that problem. I envisioned it as a flash fiction piece when I began, and at its longest it was never more than 900 words. The revision process was mostly about word choice. I wanted the language to be rich.

I didn't care as much if the whole story was explained; instead I wanted it to evoke the senses. I went back over the piece, adding more sensory details where I could and then working on the wording of those details. I wanted a lot of fire imagery, but I was also worried about overdoing it.

WOW: For our readers who may find themselves taking a longer work that has to be whittled down to create flash fiction, can you describe your process when you do that?

Carie: There are three main things I look for when trying to cut a substantial amount words from a piece: repetition, back story, and places where I over-explain instead of trusting my reader. Repetition is something I struggle with as a writer. I'll use three words or phrases to describe something when one will do. Cutting those extra descriptors tightens up the story and gives me some words back.

And back story is always better when woven in or hinted at, especially in flash fiction, so I look for places where I went into detail about something that happened before the current event and find a way to reference it in a different way, like through dialogue.

I also look for places where I spell things out for the reader that don't need to be said. If my character's actions or body language reveal her anxiety, I don't need to also tell the reader she's anxious.

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. Cutting words from a story you love can be painful. So my last piece of advice is to get a good critique partner. I have a writer friend who is excellent at pointing out the places where I can tighten up my story. Having a second, less emotionally-involved, set of eyes on your writing is a good thing.

WOW: What advice do you have for our readers who are new to writing flash fiction?

Carie: Start in the middle. There isn't room in flash fiction for a lot of backstory and explanation, so dive right in and give the reader just enough to keep up. Also, try to make every word count. Use active voice and avoid repetition. These are all things I have to constantly remind myself when I write.

WOW: Poems and short stories. A novel in progress and also flash fiction. Your writing is so diverse. What are your writing goals for the next year? How do they differ from your long term goals?

Carie: Diverse is a nice word for it. Maybe "scattered" or "fickle" is more apt. My long term goal is to write novels. I have one completed middle grade manuscript and another in progress. I would love to get an agent and become a traditionally-published author who spends her time writing, revising, and visiting schools to talk about books and writing. Ah! The dream!

So my big goal this year is to finish my second novel and begin querying agents again. However, from August to May, I am a middle school teacher, and that takes up a lot of time and energy. I tend to devote my writing time to shorter pieces and poems that I can finish and send out into the world with more regularity. On that note, I just finished a science fiction story called "Dream On" that I hope finds a home somewhere this year.

WOW: Thank you for sharing your story and insights into your writing process. After reading Phoenix, our readers will be looking for more of your work so good luck finding an agent as well as a home for “Dream On.”

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Interview with Joy Givens: Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest Third Place Winner

Joy’s Bio:

Joy Givens mostly writes fiction for young adults and children. She is currently working on young adult fairy tale adaptations that explore classic stories through lenses of empowered female heroism. Her previously published works include the novel Ugly Stick, the short story collection April’s Roots, the nonfiction guide The New SAT Handbook (co-authored with Andrew Cole), and several pieces of award-winning short fiction, most recently published in WOW! Women on Writing and the anthologies Beach Life (2017) and Beach Fun (2018) from Cat & Mouse Press.

Joy resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her terrific husband, their two remarkable sons, and an impossibly lovable dog. In addition to her writing, Joy is the owner and lead tutor of GAP Tutoring, a company serving the greater Pittsburgh area. When not writing, tutoring, or freelance editing, she enjoys singing and listening to most genres of music, cooking for family and friends, volunteering in her church and neighborhood, and curling up with a good book and good coffee. Please catch up with Joy on social media!

Twitter: @JoyEilene
Instagram: @JoyEilene
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JoyGivensBooks
Website: www.joygivens.wordpress.com

If you haven't done so already, check out Joy's award-winning story "Smoke, Blood, Fog" and then return here for a chat with the author.

WOW: Congratulations on placing in the Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest! What excited you most about writing this story?

Joy: "Smoke, Blood, Fog" centers around Ro, a Red Riding Hood character who's actually a supporting character in the current novel I'm working on. I initially wrote it as an exercise to get to know Ro better. Her backstory is so dark and heavy that I needed to explore one of the most critical moments in her life. And it worked! I was able to take this created knowledge of her back to the main novel and feel like I had a much better grasp of who she is and how she's been shaped and jaded. That was really exciting for me to see the direct impact throughout my work. And then to be able to polish it up and submit it to WOW! was a wonderful opportunity!

WOW: Awesome! So useful on multiple levels. Did you learn anything about yourself or your writing while crafting this piece?

Joy: YES. One thing I struggle with is bringing tension and darkness into my stories. I want to take care of my characters, which would be great if they were real people... but in fiction, that makes for flat stories. My critique group encourages me to "rip the band-aid off" when I'm writing and really let the characters feel pain, both physical and emotional. This was one of the darkest things I've written, and it was probably good I wrote it as a flash. It gave me the opportunity to dive deeper without subjecting myself to writing something really depressing for weeks on end. I now keep a post-it note on the side of my computer screen that says, "Don't feel bad! They're fictional!" and that actually helps, too!

WOW: Got to love those post-it note reminders! How did you get interested in writing fairy tale adaptations?

Joy: I've always loved fairy tales (Disney-fied and otherwise), and in college I had the opportunity to take a class on the origins of fairy tales. I knew I wanted to write one, and one summer evening I got an idea: What if I told the story of the young woman who was dancing with Prince Charming *right before* Cinderella walked in? How awful would that be, right? And then I thought, what if Cinderella and her godmother were actually the villains? And then I was off to the races. So far I've "re-homed" a number of classic Western fairy tale characters in my stories: Beauty and the Beast (who are gender-reversed), Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, (evil) Snow White, and her (non-evil) Stepmother. I'm looking so forward to continuing with well-known tales and using them to create stories that celebrate all the ways girls and women can be strong... as well as all the ways men can be masculine without being toxic.

WOW: Fascinating ideas! I love those concepts. What are you reading right now, and why did you choose to read it?

Joy: I recently read The Poet X, the National Book Award-winning YA novel in verse by Elizabeth Acevedo, and it was jaw-dropping. Incredible. I walked around my house just hugging the book after I was done with it. I was fortunate to get to attend the Winter Conference of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) where Elizabeth delivered a keynote address, and I had never seen an audience *literally* jump to their feet to give an ovation, but when she finished her keynote, that was what happened! Everyone should read it! I also just read Stella Diaz Has Something to Say, an award-winning middle grade novel by Angela Dominguez, and it was the sweetest! Anyone looking for a book for an elementary reader should definitely pick it up. Next up (and long overdue on my list) is Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. My husband tore through it in about two days flat, and he's waiting for me to read it so we can discuss!

WOW: Great recommendations, and Acevedo’s keynote speech sounds amazing. I would have loved to have seen that. If you could give your younger self one piece of writing advice, what would it be and why?

Joy: Be patient. I would tell my younger self to be patient and keep writing. This is such an unpredictable industry, and looking back over the past seven years or so, I am so glad my writing career has begun the way it has: through building friendships and networks of talented professionals, through learning new elements of craft, through drafts and revisions, even through many rejections. I've learned a ton since I started, and I still feel like I'm just beginning. I still need to be patient, with the industry and with myself!

WOW: Thank you for sharing that advice. Anything else you'd like to add?

Joy: I am doing a new monthly series on my blog  this year called "Adventures in Grammar." It is... me at peak-nerd. Each month I explore a little-known or frequently-misunderstood point of grammar through storytelling. My first one was about three sisters called But, Although, and However, and it explained through the course of a folktale-type story how each of those words plays a different role in English grammar. It's different and fun for me, and I hope it is for my readers as well. Thank you so much for hosting me here! I'm honored to be included on The Muffin!

WOW: You are very welcome! Thank you again for sharing your stories and for your other thoughtful responses! Congratulations again, and happy writing!

Interviewed by Anne Greenawalt, who keeps a blog of journal entries, memoir snippets, interviews, training logs, and profiles of writers and competitive female athletes.

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Interview with Linda Petrucelli, 1st Place Winner in Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest

For most of her adult life, Linda Petrucelli has lived on islands—Taiwan, Manhattan and Hawaii. Her article, “Listening for the Tao in Eight Tones,” a personal essay about learning how to speak Taiwanese, appeared in the book, Language Crossings: Negotiating the Self in a Multicultural World. A feminist theologian and ordained minister, Linda holds theological degrees from Yale Divinity School and Chicago Theological Seminary; she believes the best fiction is revelatory. Her writer’s mantra is—Bad Choices Make The Best Stories. Linda writes from her home on the Kohala Coast in Hawi, Hawaii. She posts her flash fiction at jackrabbitfiction.com.

interview by Marcia Peterson

WOW: Congratulations on your first place win in our Fall 2018 Flash Fiction competition! What inspired you to enter the contest?

Linda: Thank you, Marcia. This is a thrilling moment in my life. When I started writing fiction, I needed feedback. I’d email my tiny stories to family and friends, wait to hear from them, and then wonder about their polite responses. As a minister, when I deliver a homily I’ve written, I know immediately whether it’s any good or not by the comments after the service at the door and whether I noticed anyone snoozing in the pews. I began entering the WOW! Contests for the critiques. I wanted to hear how an impartial reader experienced my words. The critiques I received often validated my own intuitive sense of what was wrong or right about a story (so helpful!) and provided a friendly voice encouraging me to keep writing. Entering WOW! Contests was one of the first steps I took to widen my circle of readers. I am so grateful there are quarterly contests…and critiques.

WOW: Can you tell us what encouraged the idea behind your story, “Figure Eight on the Waves?”

Linda: I was at a garage sale one Saturday. An elderly lady was clearing out her house so she could move in with her daughter. At one of the tables, I discovered a carefully folded swath of old Japanese cloth and fell in love with it. I’ve been to indigo-dye workshops in Japan before and recognized the artistry in the fabric. The woman sold it to me for a dollar. As I rode home that morning, I held the material in my hands and it seemed lightning struck. Soon afterwards, I began to craft a little tale of all the people who had benefited from its generous and utilitarian beauty. Also—I recently retired from serving a rural, Japanese-American congregation founded in the late 1800’s to serve migrant plantation workers. My octogenarian Japanese-American parishioners also inspired this story, especially the women, whose fierce frugality taught me to never waste a thing.

WOW:: We’d love to know more about your writing routines. Could you tell us when and where you usually write? Do you have favorite tools or habits that get you going?

Linda: Almost every day around 4 am, I go from my bed, to the coffeemaker and then to my desk where I automatic write on a computer for about 20 minutes. This loosens me up, and often I discover ideas for stories when I reread my entries. I do most of my writing on a laptop. If I feel myself losing steam, I’ll do 10-minute freewrites sitting in different places in my house. When I start a story though, I begin with pen and paper so I can be as messy and unfettered as possible. After I’ve written for a while, I’ll take a short break and then see what I wrote, circling the words and phrases that create a little zing inside me. Then I take those little gems I’ve mined, type them into a new doc and go from there—freewriting and looking for the little zings each time I get stuck, dissatisfied, or can’t see my way forward.

WOW: You mentioned that your writer’s mantra is, “Bad choices make the best stories.” Where did that idea come from? It seems like it would be a good guide for fiction writing!

Linda: Last year I happened to be in the Honolulu airport waiting for a return flight to the Big Island and a young man (very hip-looking) walked past me. He was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan, Bad choices make the best stories, and I laughed out loud. Then and there I claimed it as my mantra. And yes, it’s true about fiction that only “trouble” is interesting.

WOW: Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Linda! Before you go, do you have any tips for our readers who may be thinking about entering writing contests?

Linda: Contests are good things. With their deadlines and promise of reward, contests offer strong motivation to complete pieces, go public, and become part of a community of other aspiring writers. Enter as many as possible!

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For more information about our quarterly Flash Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Essay contests, visit our contest page here.

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