"after dinner" and "girls in the woods" published in craft

CRAFT Literary Magazine uses “craft as a focal point and a lens through which to present fiction,” including “an author’s note which discusses the craft in the story” with each of the works they feature. They pay their authors. They’ve published more well-known writers than I can begin to count. I’m so thrilled that my flash fictions “Girls in the Woods” and “After Dinner” will launch a month devoted to flash. Here’s my Author’s Note on the flash.

CRAFT introduces the two flash with beautifully perceptive comments that create a great context for the two flash:

“We’re excited to kickoff our all-flash November with this pair of flash pieces by Jacqueline Doyle, “After Dinner” and “Girls in the Woods.” There is strong interplay between these two stories—both emphasize plot with the possibility of multiple plots; both feature a third-person narrator with omniscient distance that works to hold mystery; both implicate an institutionalized violence against women so inherent that the result challenges our expectations by subverting the collective familiar.

In “After Dinner,” Doyle unspools tension with a belligerent husband “fumbling with his keys” at the front door, and a woman inside who has, perhaps, had enough: “Her name might be Nancy, Carla, Joy. She could be young, old, middle-aged. So many women sit at their kitchen tables every night, drinking tea.” Be sure to read Doyle’s author’s note for more about constructing this character.

​“Girls in the Woods” is a breathless flash that feels like allegory or fairy tale come to life. Fairy tale logic reminds us that these girls are a part of a history of violence. Like the everywoman in “After Dinner,” the girls here serve as our stand-ins or surrogates for this violence. On this All Hallows’ Day, Doyle opens our month of terrific flash by defamiliarizing and defying resolution. “ --CRAFT

Big thanks to Editor in Chief Katelyn Keating and Flash Editor Tommy Dean.

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