BackStory: Four Questions with Jac Harmon Author of 1916 What inspired you to write ‘1916’? The piece was inspired by some research I did for a presentation. I’d volunteered to be an archaeological guide on a dig and part of…
1916
1916 by Jac Harmon You lie on your back, staring up at the sky, an arcing, heart-aching infinity of blue, stretching beyond the limits of your sight, beyond the limits of the mud that sucks and clings, feels its way…
BackStory: Five Questions with Frankie McMillan
BackStory: Five Questions with Frankie McMillan Author of We, the School Dental Nurses, 1960 What inspired you to write ‘We, the School Dental Nurses, 1960’? A friend posted me a photo as a writing prompt. The photo, a woman with…
We, the School Dental Nurses, 1960
We, the School Dental Nurses, 1960 by Frankie McMillan We are the dental nurses, our cardigans tulip red, our feet rubber soled, we are the foot soldiers, we wave to the bomber jets as they unleash their arsenal of bright…
BackStory: Four Questions with Kristen Loesch
BackStory: Four Questions with Kristen Loesch Author of Tapeworm What inspired you to write ‘Tapeworm’? I’ve been writing and thinking a lot about Hong Kong recently, a city to which I have travelled often and where I lived for about…
Tapeworm
Tapeworm by Kristen Loesch Listen in English: Listen in Mandarin: Mei knows she has tapeworms because she’s felt them squirming, slithering, shimmying in her belly since she swam here from Shenzhen, or maybe it’s just one long tapeworm longer than…
Timeline: FlashBack’s Ninth Season
Timeline: FlashBack’s Ninth Season We’ll be back in the new year with more fantastic historical flash, prose poetry and hybrid work, but in the meantime, here is a review of all the pieces we’ve published this season, in chronological order. …
BackStory: Five Questions with Veronica Montes
BackStory: Five Questions with Veronica Montes Author of Artifacts What inspired you to write ‘Artifacts’? Ticia Verveer, an archaeologist I follow on Twitter, once posted a photograph of the comb I describe in this piece. I saw it first thing…
Artifacts
Artifacts by Veronica Montes The archaeologist, I’ve noticed, cycles through the same two hundred or so photographs and stories. Tonight she will post a beaded dress from the reign of King Khufu, but this afternoon she has shared the ivory…
BackStory: Five Questions with Audra Kerr Brown
BackStory: Five Questions with Audra Kerr Brown Author of cottonmouth What inspired you to write ‘cottonmouth’? I took one of Meg Pokrass’s wonderfully fun photo-prompt workshops, and she presented a photo of a Depression era girl holding a baby. I…