52/250: Choice 9 + author talk + the nature of poetry & flash

this week's flash
the new 52/250 theme issue is up: Lucky Number
the story i have in it is: Choice 9
the story comes with a touch of magic realism, in form of a Chinese dragon.
"It’s not a real dragon, of course. Just a promotion dragon. It stops in front of her..."

i really like the title image of the lucky issue: "Groups of three plus one" by Lyvonne Barber. for me, it's a visualization of the 52/250 concept: send out a theme, and then gather the different flash stories that grow from it, some in coincidental thematic groups, some as solo spurs. i also like the element of chance of the sorting: "by order received". which this time, accidentally placed my story Choice 9 between numerative neighbours: "Unlucky Number 911" by Susan Gibb and Tens by David Ackley.

author talk
in September, the 2 poets Daniela Elza and Arlene Ang met in the virtual daily café for an author talk - the talk is now up in Daily s-Press, poetry, skeletons, birds and PiratePad included. here's the direct link to the talk: author talk Daniela Elza + Arlene Ang

a thought from the talk struck me especially while putting the lines in layout, and that i keep returning to:

"Here, in North America materialism is so rampant. A plague, really. And the disposability that supports such a system also robs things of acquiring spiritual meaning. I see freedom in poetry because we all own the materials it is made of, and it provides a spiritual self sufficiency which materialism does not like, since it wants you to be dependent on it. I think when we are emotionally in tact we need less stuff." - Daniela Elza

it made me think, to some degrees this is also the nature of flash stories. there is no real money in poetry or flash: there are almost zero literary agents that would accept poetry manuscripts or flash story collections - not because they don't like those formats, but because there is no publisher market to them. yet both formats strive in the internet, and there is a wave of poetry and flash chapbooks from small and indie presses + also (and this goes with self sufficiency again), in the author-published world. virtually, there are fields of poetry and flash, coming in all colors and shapes. and they are out there, many of them free to be visited, read, printed.

another thought, connected to it: looking at my reading habits, i find myself reading more and more small press works, and texts published online, and less "established" books.
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