Last night at the Writer’s Studio, I did my reading of two of my flash stories, “Disappearing Girl” and “The Fortunate Fall”. I chose them because each came in at about 5 minutes, and I also thought the first would be accessible to people who weren’t into science fiction or fantasy, though the transgender elements might be provocative too.
One thing that surprised me was how many people laughed during “Disappearing Girl”. While there are jokey moments in it, it’s a sad story at heart, about unrequited love and about how hard it is to live an authentic life.
Generally they were well received. One person said she was, at first, only intellectually engaged with “Girl” but later getting into it emotionally.
The rest of the readings were interesting, more literary than I usually get into.