Why do you write flash? What makes it different for you?

I love flash for its immediacy. I can write directly from an emotion or impression. I feel it’s like poetry that way. Flash can go deep into a moment or feeling or image, but can also give a sense of story, of an existence or resonance beyond the page.
What’s your writerly lifejacket: character or plot?

Character, character, character. And from character and setting, story emerges. I don’t think I’ve ever once begun a flash with a plot in mind.
Writing style: Quick and messy or slow and precise?

I’d say 75% of the time I am a slow, plodding, precise writer. The other 25% I write very quickly, but it’s not messy. It’s often very close its published form. I think the “messiness” is all happening in my subconscious over weeks, months, years. So when something finally clicks, it all comes out in a rush, but very deliberately if that makes any sense.
What element or part of your “real life” do you think most influences your writing?

Art, music, meditation, yoga, nature. Love. Painful memories and good ones. Poetry. All the things that bring me deeper into myself are what influence what goes on the page.
If you could recommend a few flash stories or writers, who/what would it be?

I can’t possibly go there. Every time I try, I realize I’ve left out someone extraordinary and I feel terrible. I’ll just say there is a band of ridiculously talented writers working in the flash world right now, who seem to publish works of genius on a weekly basis. Scan the lit journals, you know who I’m talking about. I’m in awe. Okay, I’ll mention one person specifically and that’s Melissa Goode. Her stories clobber me in the best way. One of the most elegant, fierce, compassionate writers working today.

What story of yours do you wish got more recognition?

Oh, my stories get plenty of recognition, Tommy. Almost embarrassingly so. I don’t hunger for more. But if I’m honest, I’ll say I really wish my collection, Together We Can Bury It had made more of an impact than it did. There were numerous hiccups and delays getting it out into the world which made it nearly impossible to promote. That collection means a lot to me. It represents my best early work and I’m proud of it. I’m absolutely overjoyed whenever someone says they actually got a hold of a copy and read it.

BIO: 

Kathy Fish teaches fiction for the Mile High MFA program at Regis University. She also teaches her own intensive Fast Flash workshops online. She has published four collections of short fiction: a chapbook in the Rose Metal Press collective, A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women (2008); Wild Life (Matter Press, 2011); Together We Can Bury It (The Lit Pub, 2012); and Rift, co-authored with Robert Vaughan (Unknown Press, 2015). Her story, “Strong Tongue,” was recently chosen by Amy Hempel for Best Small Fictions 2017 (Braddock Avenue Books).