New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction by Robert Scotellaro

New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction Reviews

• 
  Tara

  I love compression, and this anthology of superb microfictions does not disappoint. Thomas and Scotellaro have assembled a lasting anthology that honors its 1996 predecessor, Jerome Stern's MICRO FICTION, and continues to advance the impact of micros on contemporary literature.
  
  Each story is an accomplished example of the form, but the following resonated most with me: Nancy Stohlman's "Death Row Hugger"; Claudia Smith's "Mermaid"; Grant Faulkner's "Way Station"; Michelle Elvy's "Antarctica"; Michael Martone's "Miners"; Tiff Holland's "Hot Work"; Josh Russells' "Black Cat"; Tara Laskowski's "Dendrochronology"; and Curtis Smith's "The Storm."
  
  And the one that blew me away, literally and figuratively: Bernard Cooper's "The Hurricane Ride," about a boy and his aunt on a carnival ride. I read it about 10 times.
  
  With so many stories to choose from, readers will find many favorites. (Note this includes two of my own micros.)
• 
  Claire Polders

  Microfiction, more than other forms, requires constant reflection, making it not only a challenge for the author, but also for the reader. Each story in this thrilling anthology uses its own source of magic to engage me, so that the tale grows far beyond the limits of the page.
  As a collection of the best of the best—a treasury of authors—this anthology is ideal for teachers of creative writing who want to explore the art of narrative in a short time span. It’s perfect for authors who are looking to inform their own audacious writing and want to learn how to try something new. And above all, New Micro is an addictive anthology for all fiction lovers, to read and reread simply for pleasure.
• 
  StarMan

  89 authors. 135 stories of 300 or fewer words each.
  
  Pretty good collection. Lots of themes here (mostly serious), including love, loss, tragedy, memory, infidelity, and some mild humor or less serious stuff (ex: a man with odd tastes frequents a diner).
  
  I'd give most of the stories 3-ish stars; they were average/good, if mostly forgettable. I'd give 4+ to a handful of these micro tales. I only disliked (below 2 stars) a few stories.
  
  VERDICT: My average rating of the stories would be a low 3+ stars. But I'll bump up to 4 for GR because:  quantity, variety, and the plain-out novelty factor. Would be a good book for a writers' group or class to read together.
• 
  Hillary

  I read this because a friend has a story included, and because I’m interested in the form. Many of the stories seem too similar - not just because of the length, of course, but because of the subject matter. Perhaps there are only certain topics that lend themselves well to brevity - coming of age, the burdens of marriage, parents aging and dying, tragedies both prosaic and shattering. There are a few really noteworthy stories that I’ll be thinking of for a while, but many of the rest blend together in my head. It’s an exceedingly American, and white, anthology, although neither of these limitations is acknowledged by the editors.
• 
  Mikael Colville-Andersen

  Brevity is the soul of fiction. So many brilliant tales in this book.
• 
  Caleb

  Amazing and unforgettable. Every story in this anthology is something to be savored.
• 
  Alison McBain

  Flash fiction is one of my favorite forms, both to read and to write. So I was very excited that New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction crossed my review desk. It contains a powerhouse collection of 135 stories by 90 authors. A number of the highly-lauded writers have multiple stories in the collection, and all of the stories are 300 words or less.
  
  I know some readers wonder how a great story can be told in 300 words. It takes a certain kind of vision by the author, and each word therefore becomes important – there can be no wasted space. And what is said is as important as what’s not said.
  
  Flash fiction is like Zen art. Simplicity is the key, and an entire story can be suggested with just an image, just a scene, just a capturing of an emotion. As mentioned in the foreword by Robert Shapard, “It’s been said that micros can do in a page what a novel does in two hundred.”
  
  Most of the stories in the collection are told in first or third person, with a few forays into second person. They are divided equally between vignettes and stories with a complete arc. Many focus on literary styles and ethos, such as stream-of-consciousness narratives, slow-paced capturing of a single, life-like image, and the darker, more serious themes such as love and loss, death and grief, addiction and adultery. But there’s an equally important smattering of humor pieces throughout the anthology, including dark humor and literary escapades into the absurd.
  
  Some of the writers experiment with form, such as Gay Degani’s “Abbreviated Glossary.” Her piece has a truly clever format that sets up a list of definitions like a dictionary, but tells a complete story about a woman who persuades her reluctant lover that a pregnancy will be good for them. Their relationship goes well until there’s a problem with the baby in utero.
  
  Then there’s Damian Dressick’s “Four Hard Facts About Water,” which has events in a numbered list. The list is somewhat backwards in terms of chronological order, but the reader learns by number four why the first fact about the price of whiskey is so important. It has a powerful and truly sad twist ending.
  
  Although all the stories have something to offer the reader, the ones that often captured and held my interest had me thinking about them long after I finished reading them. These were the ones that put preconceived notions on their head. For example, Kathy Fish’s “The Possibility of Bears,” which has you booing one character all the way until the end, when you realize that the author has cleverly shown why your knee-jerk reaction was wrong. Or Sarah Freligh’s “Another Thing,” which talks about the end of the world as a joke, but in a way, the joke turns out to be true.
  
  Then there are the stories that do a great job of painting a stylistic picture, such as Tania Hershman’s “My Mother Was an Upright Piano.” The conceit is held throughout the story, and the imagery is captivating. Or Ron Koertge’s “War,” which talks about a soldier’s post-traumatic stress disorder as “the poetry of war.”
  
  I’m also a sucker for humor, so the stories that made me laugh (often in surprise) were among my favorites. There was Amelia Gray’s “AM:103” that shows how sometimes a person can negotiate her way through a breakup. Or David Shumate’s “The Polka-Dot Shirt,” which explores the idea of a person’s identity and how much it’s related to image. I also enjoyed Paul Beckman’s “Brother Speak,” which shows how brothers sometimes have their own language. And the final story of the collection, Ron Carlson’s “Grief,” where reported facts aren’t always what they seem.
  
  Last but not least, a few more of the truly stand-out stories of the collections crossed boundaries in new and unexpected ways. There was Bernard Cooper’s “The Hurricane Ride,” which examines how reality can be altered with the notion of speed. Also Lynn Mundell’s “The Old Days,” which tackles a man’s choices in life that have become a slippery slope down the wrong path. I enjoyed Tiff Holland’s “Hot Work,” which explores the secrets some men keep. And I particularly felt the resonance of Melissa McCracken’s “Implosion,” which is both funny and sad, one of the hardest combinations to pull off effectively (and amazing to do in under 300 words). There’s also a great, but unexpected, perspective in Richard Brautigan’s “Women When They Put Their Clothes On in the Morning,” with a killer last line that lingers.
  
  I’d like to quote from the afterword written by Christopher Merrill, which I think does a great job of summing up why writers and readers alike are making flash fiction so popular.
  
  “Less is more: this is the currency of prose poetry and micro fiction alike. … It [the story] will not last long, but it will haunt you forever.”
  
  I agree with Mr. Merrill. This is a wonderful collection of micro fiction and a great way to discover (or continue with) your love of the form. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.
  
  This review was originally published in the magazine Bewildering Stories, Issue # 774.
• 
  Grace

  This was a book I had started and stepped away from only to return to it tonight. I picked it up mostly as inspiration for writing and ideas on how to use and become familiar with a new format, micro fiction, under 300 word short stories. I definitely found much inspiration in this collection. It's slow burning despite the size of its pieces. Some fly through your vision and you only process them after, capturing a moment without any real meaning, others are clever and make you laugh with their wit. There is so much to be said for the variety of authors, style, subject, character. It can seem a bit meaningless and fleeting but redeems itself in the details.
• 
  Rabbitinthehole

  Although the level of the stories is different in this anthology, I found many of them are very fresh, interesting, deep, and sometimes philosophical. The structures and choice of POV are evocative in many stories. It's a great place to get to know micro fiction and how writers play with this genre (I'm not sure if "genre" is suitable here)/ type of writing. It's hard to give an anthology an overall rating, but for those great stories in this book (they are actually quite a lot, more than a half, in my opinion), I give it five stars.
• 
  Kristal

  This was a really good book. I liked a lot of the stories. There were a few duds that felt very similar to other stories here. I'll be sure to recommend it to people that don't really read for entertainment.
• 
  Katy

  pretty interesting type of writing! wide variability in how much i liked the stories though. my faves were:
  
  amy hempel - the man in bogotá
  erin dionne - new rollerskates
  michelle elvy - antarctica
  jeff landon - flying
  mary miller - los angeles
• 
  Sarah

  Perfect vignettes to start and/or end the day. A wondrous inspiration to write my own, too.
• 
  Houlcroft

  There are over 130 pieces of micro fiction in this remarkable collection. None are longer than two pages, some barely scrape a paragraph, but each is an example of the power of words and what can be done with them. Some stories, such a ‘Furnace’ by Kevin Griffith, give us a bizarre moment of time, a flash of light, that lingers long after the next story begins, others like ‘Letting Go’ by Pamela Painter contain a poignant seemingly self contained narrative, while ‘Four Hard Facts About Water’ by Damian Dressick manages to stab deep into the reader with a devastating story in four beautifully planned and executed paragraphs.
  Sure, there are some stories that fall short of the mark, but by the time you realise you didn’t like it, you’re done and reading the next one.
  Definitely worth the read.