Wednesday, November 21, 2007

You Have Time For This

You Have Time for This

Contemporary American Short Stories

Edited by Mark Budman & Tom Hazuka

These contenders for the title of “world’s best short-short stories” are by among the best micro and flash writers I know of, such as Katherine Weber, Bruce Holland Rogers, Sherrie Flick, Deb Olin Unferth, Bruce Boston, and Aimee Bender. How can they do it in less than 500 words—suspense, revelation, a twist of metaphor, or plot, or character, and sometimes all, before you can turn the page? It’s like levitation—I’m skeptical, but seeing is believing. A good book by two editors who are excellent flash fiction writers themselves, Tom Hazuka and Mark Budman; Budman also edits the Vestal Review, which is one of the best of the flash journals, and where many of these stories come from.

- Robert Shapard, editor of “Sudden Fiction International”, co-editor of “Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories” and “Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very Short Stories”

Love, death, fantasy, and foreign lands, told with brevity and style by the best writers in the short-short fiction genre. You Have Time for This satiates your craving for fine literature without making a dent in your schedule.

This collection takes the modern reader on fifty-three literary rides, each one only five hundred words or less. Mark Budman and Tom Hazuka, two of the top names in the genre, have compiled an anthology of mini-worlds are as diverse as the authors who created them. Contributing writers include Steve Almond, author of My Life in Heavy Metal and Candy-freak; Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt; Robert Boswell, author of five novels including Century’s Son; Alex Irvine, author of A Scattering of Jades; L. E. Leone who writes a weekly humorous column about food and life for the San Francisco Bay Guardian; Justine Musk, author of dark-fantasy novels including Blood Angel; Susan O’Neill, writer of nonfiction and fiction with a book of short stories Don’t Mean Nothing; Short Stories of Vietnam; Katharine Weber author of several novels, her most recent is Triangle.

From Buddha to beer, sex to headless angels, there’s a story here for everyone. In You Have Time for This you will find:

* Flash fiction from forty-four authors
* Works from across the globe
* Highly regarded authors from all types of genres
* Fresh work from emerging writers
* Fifty-three stand alone pieces that tie the world together

Enjoy. You have time for this.
To order go here or here.