It has been more than thirty years since the term "flash fiction" was first coined, perfectly describing the power in the brevity of these stories, each under 1,000 words. Since then, the form has taken hold in the American imagination. For this latest installment in the popular Flash Fiction series, James Thomas, Sherrie Flick, and John Dufresne have searched far and wide for the most distinctive American voices in short-short fiction. The 73 stories collected here speak to the diversity of the American experience and range from the experimental to the narrative, from the whimsical to the gritty. Featuring fiction from writers both established and new, including Aimee Bender, K-Ming Chang, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Brian Washington, Robert Scotellaro, and Luis Alberto Urrea, Flash Fiction America is a brilliant collection, radiating creativity and bringing together some of the most compelling and exciting contemporary writers in the United States.

The history of fiction has been dominated by the novel and the short story. But now a brave new genre has emerged: very brief fiction. FLASH! identifies the qualities that make for excellent flash fiction, demystifies the writing process and guides writers by exercise and example through the world of the very short story. John Dufresne's characteristic warmth, wit and humour remind writers of the joy in the creative process, making this a perfect guide for any writer interested in trying a new form.

The subjects are as splendid as they are varied: a talented young swimmer longs for a family and for love as he swims against his arch-rival; a young grocery worker/rock guitarist finds himself lured into a fundamentalist church by a-what else?-beautiful woman; two lonely souls drift through the city streets hoping for intimacy and settling for diversion; a group of old friends, retired firefighters, honor a dead colleague, a suicide, and face the extermination of their own dreams; the quirky wife of a rising political star suffers a breakdown on the eve of the gubernatorial election; an athletically gifted high school student escapes her wealthy adoptive parents in search of the life, the culture, and the family she was taken from.

Welcome to Shiver-de-Freeze, a boot-shaped precinct deep in the Louisiana swamp, famous for its healing waters and curious fauna. Grisham Loudermilk is marrying Ariane Thevenot at Paradise, the family s ancestral home, and we're here for the wedding. But reason and love, it would seem, keep little company in Paradise these days: Grisham s cousin Adlai Birdsong has fallen desperately in love with the bride-to-be. Adlai s ill-advised courtship proceeds even as his daddy, Royce, struggles to recall his past in the face of Alzheimer s; as Father Pat McDermott realizes his passion for the mother of the bride; as the conjoined twins, Tous-les-Deux, train their eyes on Boudou Fontana, the last of the star-crossed Fontana clan. And just when it seems that Adlai must resign himself to a prolonged season of bachelorhood, Miranda Ferry, Grisham s recent lover, wanders into town unawares. With his signature tragic-comic voice and cast of unforgettable and lively characters, Dufresne explores love, death, imagination, and memory. Reading group guide available."

Ever since Lafayette Proulx quit his day job, left his wife, hauled his dog and his Royal portable across town to Judi Dubey's house, and set out at last to be a fiction writer, his life has been a sordid mess. Judi's exotically dysfunctional family isn't all to blame. Sure, the murders are disconcerting. And, yes, Judi's father's gone off the deep end. Worse are the vicious rejection letters Laf gets from editors. To top it off, Laf's falling for Judi at the same time he's nettled with guilt, is in marriage counseling with his wife, and is writing his long-hoped-for novel. When Judi is diagnosed with stage IV cancer, they both struggle to find the memory that will comfort, the truth that will redeem in a world where everyone suffers some kind of love disorder. John Dufresne, called "a highly readable Faulkner," will once again take the literary world by storm with this new tragicomic tale.

John Dufresne takes us to Requiem, Massachusetts, where Johnny s mom is driving in the breakdown lane once again. Dad is down South somewhere living his secret life. And little sister Audrey, when she s not walking her cat Deluxe in a baby stroller, spends her time locked in a closet. Johnny, meanwhile, is hell-bent on saving the family from itself."

A Louisiana farmer sees the images of Christ appear on the freezer door and questions the meaning of faith. In a Maine resort town, Miss Langevin, a spinster who could write a book on disappointment, now gets a chance to help another woman escape it. And in the title story, a science teacher's modest dreams and painful memories erode his existence like water entering stone. As an observer of secrets in these and other offbeat lives, John Dufresne crisscrosses the eastern United States like a contemporary Dos Passos, hearing familiar voices, letting them meander through his unique imagination, then spinning them out in stories rich with irony, braced by melancholy, and based on truth.

In John Dufresne's stories people are caught unawares by trouble and opportunity in the act of going about their daily lives. A romantic woman, involved with her married boss, is proposed to by a Bulgarian on a tourist visa in search of a green card and must choose between a wedding and a love affair. A doctor who has killed two women escorts a flamboyant woman home to tell her about his rage and her foolishness. Four young brothers wander into a man's backyard claiming to be foster children. They share lunch and search for the foster home that doesn't exist. After a man tells his wife that he's leaving her and his children for his new lover, he's found dead in the morning. It's up to our literary hero to solve the mystery murder, he wrote. A cross between William Faulkner ("Times-Picayune") and John Irving ("Detroit Free Press"), Dufresne once again masterfully charts the power of truth and lies and the magic hidden in the mundane."