Category: Nonfiction
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When Writing Is Going Well…
To learn how today’s funniest flash nonfiction writers answer a few simple questions, check the news feed over at Woodhall Press. Fiction or Nonfiction? Is it harder to write funny or sad? Long form or short form? Poetry or prose? Boxers or kickboxers? Piece that you read and said Wish I’d thought of that? Cloned…
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The Impact of Public Diplomacy
Reflecting on U.S. Diplomacy. An excerpt: The next-to-last time I saw Mohamed—11:15 a.m., December 6, 2004—a blast-resistant window separated us. The day’s final applicant, he was alone in the waiting room when the high-low alarm started wailing. An Afghan male taking refuge in Saudi Arabia from the time of the Soviet invasion of his country,…
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Here Come the Floods
After take your child to work day comes take your dad to school day. What I learned on the school’s field trip to Jamestown: Fourth Graders are too cool for the luxury coach toilet. Until they aren’t. A few snide remarks went around this morning at the back of the bus. Comments on odor. Nervous…
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Finite Jests
There’s nothing pithy in the title ‘Before We Break for Lunch, Let Me Repeat Everything Already Said at This Meeting At Least Twice.’ And that’s exactly the point. By sticking its finger in the eye of brevity, this piece at the tail end of Flash Nonfiction Funny captures everything that’s beautiful and funny and sad…
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Review–Memoir from Paraguay
Latest review posted at Peace Corps Worldwide, home for Peace Corps-affiliated writers who publish stories from around the world. Mark Salvatore writes simple, declarative sentences. His Peace Corps memoir, Shade of the Paraiso, is stripped to fact and detail, observation and truth. Even its replication of time — passing slowly at first, building inexorably over months,…
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Levity with Brevity
My copy of Flash Nonfiction Funny cometh! I hope the wait’s as brief as the material—rib-tickling bites of 750 words or less compiled by editors Tom Hazuka and Dinty W. Moore (yes). As the book makes its way to my doorstep, I’m looking at the anthology’s 71 contributors (including myself) and the first name to…
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Uncle Sam, Matchmaker
I pictured myself in a Peace Corps-issue hammock on an island somewhere, or crossing high glaciers in the glaring Himalayan sun. Then the recruiter called and offered Malawi. Pointless to remind her what I’d written where the application asked my preference: ‘Anywhere but Africa.’ Before that call, a recruiter—maybe the same recruiter—offered another would-be…
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Adventures in Punctuation
Important for boys: Digging up the backyard to make a pond, building makeshift shelters out of branches, then hiding inside to spot the wildlife attracted to the pond. Not important for boys: Punctuation. Or did the publisher assume that some kid’s sister would get ahold of The Boy’s Book of Adventure and refuse to let…
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Foreign Service, Under Covers
DC-area writers, consider stopping by the American Foreign Service Association for this year’s book market featuring a talk on writing and publishing from 25-year veteran literary agent and editor Deborah Grosvenor. Two dozen Foreign Service-affiliated authors will also be there with their latest work. Find out what publishers are looking for when it comes to writing…
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The Run
My son’s offering his services as my campaign manager. More than the trappings of power, I think the third grader’s hooked on creating slogans. ‘Want the Best? Vote the Beast.’ Beast is a nickname I picked up in Jr. High. It was my sister’s fault. A clever P.E. teacher pegged her first initial against her…
Ben East Books 