a talk with Matt Bell
by Randall Brown
 "The Treason of Images" by René Magritte |
First, the amazing amount of great submissions we got for this issue. Diving into the submissions was always a joy, and often the pleasure of discovering a story that I wanted to champion was the best part of my day. Thanks again to everyone who submitted to this issue.
Second, working with the staff at SmokeLong has been an enlightening and invigorating experience. As a writer, the inner workings of a first-rate publication are a great mystery, and it was encouraging to see the great integrity and excitement of the staff, and to be a part of that myself. Thanks for having me.
How would you describe the overall feel of this issue? What are its defining characteristics?
A lot of the stories have surrealism or magic realist elements, but I think an even more dominant connection is the uncertainty that permeates many of the narratives. The narrators in many of the stories are uncertain of their place, of whether their choices have been the right ones, but they're still trying to move forward and make the next best choice (or worst one, depending on the character). I think that mood fits well with my own and probably a lot of other readers right now. These are uncertain and uneasy times, and it seems to me that these stories are both questions and answers to the events we experience every day.
As a flash reader and editor, what rings your Matt Bell?
A name pun, huh? Now that you've got my hackles raised, let me just say that what impresses me first about a great flash is confidence with language and the establishment of an intriguing and immediate situation. Give me that, and I'm going to read till the end, no matter what.
Describe your approach to editing a flash piece.
My approach to editing anything is to first understand that just by showing me his story, the writer is placing an incredible amount of trust in me. Recognizing that, I try to approach each story with the understanding that my job is to try and see what the writer is trying to do and then to help him do it the best I can. Within the limits of my abilities, every suggestion I make is in the interest of helping the writer achieve that potential.
What expectations did you bring with you to the guest editing stint? What surprised you most about the experience?
I'm not sure what I expected exactly, but I can tell you what I found: a top-notch editorial team that really reads with care, edits graciously and in the best interest of the story in question, and finally makes every decision to accept or reject with an honesty and integrity that I really admire. You all value the writing that is submitted so much, and the respect and honor with which you treated every story with was a great example to me of how to proceed as guest editor.
Having to reject writers sucks. What should writers know about rejections that they may not know already?
Although I can't believe it helps writers to hear the old "This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you," I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway. I never managed to do more than three or four rejections in a row. I just felt too bad about it, even if it was a story I didn't really care for in the first place. Far worse was rejecting a story I loved that didn't make it for whatever reason.
What are some of your thoughts about web-based journals? What makes them work?—and what could make them work better?
The best web journals combine great work with strong editing and eye appeal. I guess I can't stress that last one enough. SmokeLong's a beautiful publication, and I can guarantee that's part of the reason we see so much good work and why people are proud to be in it. I think it's a disservice to writers for journals to accept their work, promise to publish it, and then make it look amateurish or mediocre because the web designer didn't do his job well enough.
As for what can make them better, my biggest pet peeve is web journals that publish long stories but don't provide a way to easily print them. Somewhere just under a thousand words is the most anyone wants to read on screen. At the very least, long stories should be broken into multiple pages. Ever find yourself opening up a story or article and then scrolling to the bottom to see how long it is? Breaking it up into pages and offering an option for printing would really help make some of the great stories published online find a wider audience.
Flash fiction is everywhere these days. What drew you to the form, what continues to excite you about flash, and where do you see flash going in the next few years?
I think I first became aware of flash five or six years ago, in the early days of web journals. It's definitely a form that's been pushed by the requirements of reading online, which favors shorter, tighter passages. No one wants to read a thirty page story online, at least not in a single setting. That said, I think flash has become a genre apart from the short story, just like the short story is really a completely different animal from the novel. It uses elements of those longer forms, of course, but due to its compressed form it also relies heavily on the characteristics of the joke, the anecdote, and the prose poem. It's also seemingly become more and more language-based rather than plot-based, but that just might be my tastes in the form. I think the last year or so of flash publishing has shown a true artistic leap, and I think the next few will show a similar amount of growth as experimentation continues.
Maybe that's the best part of flash fiction: Experimentation. Because the form is so much smaller than the short story, it's easier for writers to try on a new voice or a narrative structure without the investment and risk of failure that a twenty-page story might entail. Where the first flash pieces were really just short stories, the best of the new work out there is something completely different. I think that's exciting, and I expect to see it continue.
I know this is already a ridiculously long answer, but let me just say that two of the people whose flash fiction I first emulated are in this issue, and I think they're as important to the state of flash today as anyone else: Kathy Fish and Joseph Young. We wouldn't be where we are today without their constant excellence and innovation.
What's new with your own writing? And what's up in your "real life" these days?
I just finished a first draft of my first full-length play, and I've been doing some non-fiction writing that will probably all be sent out as fiction in the end. That journalistic type of truth doesn't seem to be my strong suit, because I find that I just don't care about it enough to sacrifice a story to its demands. I've been writing fiction for so long that story always comes first, and that turns out to be a real impediment in the non-fiction field.
As far as real life goes, it's an exciting time. I'm finally finishing my undergrad education this week and my wife and I are both applying to grad school for next fall. I'm looking forward to using the time in between to get some more of my own work done and to spend a little more time at home enjoying my marriage.
I'll end by asking you what I asked the fine writers whose work graces this issue. The 2005 Edge Annual World Question (www.edge.org) asked a question that the BBC called "fantastically stimulating." One year later, we ask you this same question: "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"
I believe that every one of the writers in this issues has written a better answer than anything I'm going to come up with. Also, I believe all of their answers are true, even if they're contradictory. Especially if they're contradictory. The best truths usually are.
Thanks for having me as guest editor. It's been an incredible experience, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
