True Flash

Is there a recipe for writing successful flash?

By Heather Sellers

I love reading flash essays—true stories that fit on a page or two, the shorter the better. I love how they often work as double-duty shapeshifters, serving as both stand-alone pieces and  parts of an arc in larger narratives. I’m thinking here of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, Beth Ann Fennelly’s Heating & Cooling, A. Van Jordan’s M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, and Abigail Thomas’s Safekeeping. It’s like having a pile of gorgeous photogr...