Smoking With Katy Resch by Tara Laskowski Smoking With by Ashley Iguanta Where did the idea for this story come from? And did the original idea change as you wrote it, or was this what you had planned from the get-go? The story started with its final meditation on hand-holding. Months before I wrote "Exposure" I was out somewhere without my husband and thought how if he were with me we'd be holding hands. I noticed the couples around me who were doing this and the moment got me thinking. I sensed the germ of an idea to later explore in a story. I filed it away. Then, I began experimenting with short forms and wanted to write what I think of structurally as a baton-pass story. I didn't know when I sat down to write "Exposure" that this would be the piece to contain the hand-holding idea. My goals at the start were mainly structural, and in that regard the story ended up being what I had intended. I really didn't know what themes I wanted to explore until the writing began. I really like your referral to a "baton-pass" story. Can you talk a little about the different shades of meaning the title "Exposure" gets as we move from person to person in this story? I love this question. My hope is that readers of the story will enjoy considering or feeling this on their own, so I hesitate to say anything. In your story, someone dies of exposure to the cold. What do you think would be a worse fate—freezing to death, or dying of heat in the middle of the desert? I imagine exposure to heat would be especially painful. What I wonder, taking up this question, is which landscape would a person rather see right before she dies? If death is certain, and certain to be horrible, maybe the tragedy is softened if the last thing you see is something you find beautiful? (I know how hokey that sounds, by the way.) Are you drawn to flash fiction as a form, or do you normally write longer? I'm drawn to flash fiction but I often writer longer. Last year I started to write a novel and it made sense to me to write flash fiction alongside this larger project. Doing so has allowed me to play with ideas that excite me but don't belong in the novel. The short-short demands a particular precision with images and language—I delight in this challenge and think trying to meet it is good conditioning for the writer's brain. I'd say my novel draft has benefited from this. What do you think has been your most impressive literary accomplishment to date? I think my first workshop submission contained seventeen semi-colons, so maybe I should say recovering from semi-colon abuse is my biggest literary accomplishment. I felt accomplished when I completed my story "The Fawn Skull" last year. An early draft of this story was the first piece of fiction I ever seriously attempted to write (I used to write poems). That first draft was so bad! And I knew it, but I wanted to tell this story. At that time, the story's ideas exceeded my ability to express them. But I stuck with it, and over a few years revised and revised until I produced a draft that said what I needed it to. So, the accomplishment is personal and literary, I suppose. PANK published the story in January 2011 and I was so, so pleased. Read Exposure. Issue Thirty-Three (October 2, 2011): Egg Toss, August 1989 by Meagan Cass «» Dinner Parties Where Place Cards Leave No Choice in Seating by Chella Courington «» Sovetskoye Shampanskoye by Berit Ellingsen «» They Live in Black and White by Danica Green «» Watermelon Seeds by Micah Dean Hicks «» Gwendolyn by Robert Hinderliter «» Sleepless #7 by Joe Kapitan «» Mutual by Henry S. Kivett «» Wolf Cry by Sara Lippmann «» Jamila by Carmel Reid Mawle «» When I Lose Track of the Children, 5 & 7, Near the Magazine Section at Costco by Christopher Merkner «» Finally by John Minichillo «» I'm a Woman For Sure by Kate Nesheim «» Exposure by Katy Resch «» The Road to the Casino Del Sol by Mather Schneider «» Never Never by Amber Sparks «» The Language of Hairzilla by Chris L. Terry «» Interviews: Meagan Cass «» Chella Courington «» Berit Ellingsen «» Danica Green «» Micah Dean Hicks «» Robert Hinderliter «» Joe Kapitan «» Henry S. Kivett «» Sara Lippmann «» Carmel Reid Mawle «» Christopher Merkner «» John Minichillo «» Kate Nesheim «» Katy Resch «» Mather Schneider «» Amber Sparks «» Chris L. Terry «» Cover Art "Sparta, NJ" by David Ohlerking «» Letter From the Editor Interested in subscribing to SmokeLong's weekly newsletter? Click here. An email should be created. Send it as is, and you'll be subscribed. If the link does not work for you, send an email to imailsrv@smokelong.com with Subscribe slq-info in the body of the email (no subject is necessary). You'll receive updates detailing the release of new issues, new reading periods, contests, etc. We do not make our mail list available to anyone else.