In 2024 SmokeLong hosted our second SmokeLong Workshop Prize competition. Our workshop participants reported almost 300 publications to us before November 1, 2024. In 2025, we’ll be featuring one writer each week from The SmokeLong Workshop Prize long list. It’s an excellent series of interviews, each grappling with questions about workshopping, giving and receiving feedback, and the publication process. If you are a previous or current SmokeLong workshop participant and you have ultimately published something you began in a SmokeLong workshop, remember to enter The SmokeLong Workshop Prize competition. This free-to-enter competition is on our Submittable page.
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An Interview with Ani King — “Kitchen Dancing” published in Exposition Review
What do you remember about the workshop where you wrote this story? What was the prompt or writing task that led to the story?
I wrote this during The March Micro Marathon for the day twenty child’s POV prompt, and I was loving the marathon, but was a bit resistant to this exercise at first. I don’t often write from a child’s perspective, I really struggle to hold the voice steady when I do, so my first sense was oh no, I’m going to be bad at this one! But the prompt dovetailed with a conversation with another writer about wanting to create queer narratives about family that weren’t traumatic or weren’t coming-out stories.
Peer-review feedback is always full of surprises. In general, what kind of feedback do you find helpful? What kind of feedback do you find less helpful?
I really appreciate big picture feedback in general or knowing what someone took away or interpreted. Feedback in the form of questions is probably one of my favorite forms because it feels like you get a layer of reader reaction depending on those questions that isn’t outright stated, and it helps me find intent when I try to answer those questions for myself. Line by line feedback on early drafts is usually overwhelming for me and can make it hard for me to see what works enough to want to keep drafting, through all the suggestions.
To how many places did you send this story? Can you tell us a little about its journey to publication?
I sent this out only once. Flash 405’s theme (Home) was posted in Fitness while I was working on this one, and I mistakenly read the instructions as submissions needing to be exactly 405 words, not 405 words or less, so I had a lot of fun trading words in and out while working through feedback suggestions.
What is your advice to someone considering taking part in a peer-review workshop?
Do it! In all seriousness, workshopping has been amazing for me. I think there are a couple things that help me get the most out of peer-review opportunities, the first being explicit about what type of feedback I am looking for and if there are areas I’m struggling with in the piece. Writing has become an act of community for me, so the second thing is to talk to people! Interaction beyond exchanging critiques, taking the chance to be in conversation with other writers about craft, about their approaches, about what they’re reading, all of that is so valuable. And third, you have something to offer, too. People will absolutely benefit from your presence.
Read “Kitchen Dancing” in Exposition Review.
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Ani King (they/them) is a queer, gender non-compliant writer, artist, and activist from Michigan. Ani is the first-place winner of the 2024 Blue Frog Annual Flash Fiction Contest, a SmokeLong Grand Micro Competition 2023 finalist, and has had work featured in Split Lip Magazine. They can be found at aniking.net or trying to find somewhere to quietly finish a book without any more interruptions.
