Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook

In Brevity, David Galef provides a guide to writing flash fiction, from tips on technique to samples by canonical and contemporary authors to provocative prompts that inspire powerful stories in a little space. Galef traces the genre back to its varied origins, from the short-short to nanofiction, with examples that include vignettes, prose poems, character sketches, fables, lists, twist stories, surrealism, and metafiction. The authors range from the famous, such as Colette and Borges, to today's voices, like Roxane Gay and Bruce Holland Rogers. A writer and longtime creative writing teacher, Galef also shows how flash fiction skills translate to other types of writing. Brevity is an indispensable resource for anyone working in this increasingly popular form. For more information, see davidgalef.com/brevity.

Literature & Fiction

Galef, David

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

For every Hamlet, there is a supporting cast; for every Mrs. Dalloway, an entire realm of subordinate portraits. Yet if literary criticism cares at all about significant detail, emergent patterns, and the subtleties in narrative, flat and minor characters are crucial to an understanding of the fictional process itself.Beginning with E. M. Forster's landmark study of flat and round characters, this book is both a critical and writerly examination of the species: Why are certain minor characters so salient in readers' minds, and why are flat characters often so comic? Is a name enough to create a character, and if so, what is the vanishing point of characterization? The walking allegory, the narrator, the disrupter, the doppelgänger—how are they used, and to what effect? The Supporting Cast first explores the theoretical limits of character, from structuralist taxonomies to reader-response concerns, with examples culled from a wide range of literature. The author then applies these concepts, in chapters of sustained analysis, to works of Conrad, Forster, and Woolf. The work also provides comments on flat and minor characters in other media and a full-scale character index of Woolf's Jacob's Room.

The Supporting Cast: A Study of Flat and Minor Characters

Penn State University Press

For every Hamlet, there is a supporting cast; for every Mrs. Dalloway, an entire realm of subordinate portraits. Yet if literary criticism cares at all about significant detail, emergent patterns, and the subtleties in narrative, flat and minor characters are crucial to an understanding of the fictional process itself.Beginning with E. M. Forster's landmark study of flat and round characters, this book is both a critical and writerly examination of the species: Why are certain minor characters so salient in readers' minds, and why are flat characters often so comic? Is a name enough to create a character, and if so, what is the vanishing point of characterization? The walking allegory, the narrator, the disrupter, the doppelg¿nger-how are they used, and to what effect? The Supporting Cast first explores the theoretical limits of character, from structuralist taxonomies to reader-response concerns, with examples culled from a wide range of literature. He then applies these concepts, in chapters of sustained analysis, to works of Conrad, Forster, and Woolf. The work also provides comments on flat and minor characters in other media and a full-scale character index of Woolf's Jacob's Room.

Tracks

scholastic

When Albert breaks his glasses while supervising the laying of the railroad tracks between two towns, he becomes responsible for one of the most exciting rides that the townspeople have ever had.

Children's Books

William Morrow & Co.

The new train line is in place, the passengers are on the train, and the train is on its way, Albert, the nearsighted track layer, cannot see the train coming, prompting a wild ride for the conductor and his passengers, in a funny and colorful tale.

Even Monkeys Fall from Trees and Other Japanese Proverbs

Tuttle Pub

Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs

HashiPoto, Jun

Tuttle+publishing

Though David Galef may be best known for his novels Flesh and Turning Japanese, he has also published over sixty short stories in magazines ranging from the British Punch to the Czech Prague Revue, the Canadian Prism International, and the American Shenandoah. The fifteen stories selected for Laugh Track are an eclectic mix, ranging from a haunting vignette called "You," to "Triptych," the tale of an elementary school teacher whose men in her life include a precocious third-grader.  In the title story, a failed comedian brings a recorded laugh track to his regular Wednesday psychoanalytic session. During the sometimes tortuous, often hilarious course of treatment, he finally succeeds in displacing his blocked impulsesi--to the extreme discomfort of his therapist. In "All Cretans," a lovelorn tourist in Greece gets ensnared in a set of ancient philosophical paradoxes. In "The Web of Möbius," what's left of a once-murderous psychotic's life revolves in a bizarrely twisted circle.  Laugh Track offers fifteen different worlds--from a blocked expatriate writer in Mexico, to a drug heist gone wrong in downtown Manhattan, to a love affair pursued at the last leper colony in the United States.  These are stories that flirt with the veil of fantasy and yet in the end reveal the all-too-vulnerable side of humanity. Like so many people, Galef's characters are searching for something in life that will solve everything--but the results are unpredictable, to say the least.  David Galef is an associate professor of English at the University of Mississippi. In addition to his two novels and many short stories, his essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Twentieth Century Literature, and other publications. His eight previous books include Japanese translations, literary criticism, and children's stories.  Praise for Flesh:  "Galef's candid reflections on Southern culture, his entertaining lampoon of academic manners, and his supporting characters are as uproarious and engaging as his ribald plot." --Library Journal  "Flesh is a constantly pleasurable experience to read; it possesses in abundance style and intelligence, and above all a huge zest for life." --D. M. Thomas

Laugh Track

United States

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Galef, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Galef, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Galef, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook

Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook

The Supporting Cast: A Study of Flat and Minor Characters

The Supporting Cast: A Study of Flat and Minor Characters

Tracks

Tracks

Tracks

Even Monkeys Fall from Trees and Other Japanese Proverbs

Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs

Laugh Track