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

I write flash because I enjoy the challenge of capturing a pivotal moment for a character in just a few pages. In those pages, I need to show readers why this moment matters. However, when writing short stories, I tend to have more than two characters present, expressing themselves through dialogue. Flash allows me to lock two characters in a room, forcing them into conflict that depends less on dialogue and more on their nonverbal cues. Silence, what is left unsaid, has always intrigued me. A lot can happen between two people with two different perspectives, in a locked room. That’s when my characters’ body language (eye contact, uncomfortable tics, and the way they interact with the objects around them) becomes their new form of dialogue.

What’s your writerly lifejacket: character or plot?

I’m all about characters! I always want to know a reader’s favorite character, but when I ask about their favorite part of a flash piece, the scene almost always involves the despicable character. I love writing why or how a despicable character becomes despicable. Exploring how they talk or how their movements change based upon their surroundings or their company. Writing the antagonist doesn’t make me feel safe but hearing readers’ reactions to a racist woman carrying her mixed newborn grandchild into the night while her daughter screams behind her, knowing I could evoke such a strong reaction from that moment, keeps me returning to the page.

Writing style: Quick and messy or slow and precise?

My writing style is a bit of both. The thought process is always slow and precise. If I don’t have the first line, I don’t have the story. I could have several ideas bouncing around in my head but without a precise starting point, the story is just an idea locked away in my mind.

But when that first sentence comes, I’m transported into the world of the story, where my characters know what needs to be done to get from beginning, middle, and end. All I have to do is cross my fingers and hope my pencil doesn’t run out of lead.

I should say another part of the process that slows me down is the fact that I have to write EVERYTHING by hand first, including the answers to this interview. Once the story has made its way into my journal, I start editing as I type. Between the page and the computer is where the mess happens. Those moments when I ask myself, “Why would they do that?” Or I can’t read my handwriting due to a moment I refused to acknowledge my pencil lead did in fact break or an idea transcribed into scribbles. Once the words do find their way onto my computer (and I fight the word count) I’m back to the slow and precise process of searching for the first line of the next story.

What element or part of your “real life” do you think most influences your writing?

 Family.

Family is very important to me, especially since there’s still a lot I don’t know about my ancestors. I have the stories my parents tell me, but they only go back so far. It’s also why the Ancestry DNA commercials irritate me because, as an African American, my ancestors were erased from history. I come from an older family. My maternal grandfather was born in 1910 and only a few years separate him from my other grandparents. I didn’t get the stories I wanted from my grandparents, their history too painful to talk about or forgotten. Also, by the time I could talk to them, both of my grandfathers were already deceased. I was too young to crave the histories of my grandmothers and they were too tired to relive them. So, I cling to the precious memories I do have of them, of what history has taught me, what my parents remember of the shadows of their grandparents, and try to portray those struggles in my stories. This is my way of sharing that they, my ancestors, can never be erased.

If you could recommend a few flash stories or writers, who/what would it be?

 Amina Harper—Five Wives—Paper Darts

Amy Slack—The Bathtub—FlashBack Fiction

Monet Thomas—A Certain Woman—Third Point Press

Annie Frazier—All of Us Animals—Longleaf Review

Cathy Ulrich—Ghost Among Ghosts—Jellyfish Review

Anita Goveas—Let’s Sing All the Swear Words We Know—Lost Balloon

Tara Isabel Zambrano—A Thousand Eyes—PANK Magazine

Jennifer Todhunter—This is all We Need—Atticus Review

Noa Sivan—Seven Words for Sand—Monkeybicycle

Dina L. Relles—Where We Land—matchbook

Megan Giddings—The Eleventh Floor Ghost—Smokelong Quarterly

Meghan Phillips—Abstinence Only—Passages North

What story of yours do you wish got more recognition?

 The story I wish received more recognition would have to be, “The Widow’s Crow,” in Meow Meow Pow Pow. The artwork paired with the piece is incredible and I had so much fun writing a story about a woman who’s best friends is a crow. I love the dark fairytale elements of this story and all the little details I managed to squeeze into such a short piece.

Bio: K.B. Carle lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and earned her MFA from Spalding University’s Low-Residency program in Kentucky. When she is not exploring the realms of speculative, jazz, and historical fiction, K.B. avidly pursues misspelled words, botched plot lines, and rudimentary characters. Her flash has appeared in FlashBack Fiction, The Molotov Cocktail, Pidgeonholes, Lost Balloon, and elsewhere. She can be found online at http://kbcarle.wordpress.com/ or on Twitter @kbcarle.