"the arithmetic of memory" published in little fiction/big truths

My cnf flash "The Arithmetic of Memory" came out today. So excited to be included in the first ever Flash Nonfiction issue of LITTLE FICTION/BIG TRUTHS with some truly amazing writers. Maddie Anthes, Aaron Burch, Kristine Langley Mahler, Dina L. Relles, Robert James Russell, Jennifer Todhunter, too many to list. Take some time to read this issue! And then check out their star-studded Summer 2018 Flash Fiction issue.

Big thanks to Kathy Fish and Hillary Leftwich and fellow Fast Flashers for inspiration and feedback on the first draft of this piece. Hillary's prompt called for something cinematic, and I'm not sure I did that, but I loved alternating between facts and deeply embedded sensory memories.

I wrote about this long-ago breakup during a motorcycle trip in Spain in LOST BALLOON a while ago ("By a Mountain Stream in Northern Spain"). It's interesting to me that it takes so many years to process and write about heartbreak.  I heard Lacy Johnson and Carmen Maria Machado talk about memoir last April and something Lacy Johnson said stayed with me: "I can write an ending in which I walk out of the story." I think this ending does that.

Also today. I woke up to an acceptance of a flash that has been excruciatingly hard to place. I couldn't figure out why, and I've been sending it out and sending it out. Like some others of my flash, it's big on atmosphere rather than plot, but I still like my evocation of the free floating anxiety we feel under Trump. I'm glad I found someone else who does too.