num_pages: 328
description: MY VERY END OF THE UNIVERSE is a celebration and study of an increasingly popular genre: the novella-in-flash a novella built of standalone flash stories. The novellas in this collectionBETTY SUPERMAN by Tiff Holland HERE WHERE WE LIVE by Meg Pokrass SHAMPOO HORNS by Aaron Teel BELL AND BARGAIN by Margaret Patton Chapman and THE FAMILY DOGS by Chris Bowerare compact and specific yet whole and universal using the flexibility of the genre to offer a polyphony of setting and emotion. Accompanying each novella-in-flash is a craft essay by the author exploring the forms power uses and unique characteristics. The book opens with a genre-defining introduction to the novella-in-flash by editors Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney which also offers historical and contemporary context.Although the family struggles presented in these five novellas-in-flash are as old as time the authors use the form to make them new and vital each one presenting a self-contained galaxy of characters while expandinglike the universe itselfinto vaster realms of experience.The five novellas-in-flash in MY VERY END OF THE UNIVERSE are excellent type specimens of the genre and the accompanying craft essays help give this chimeric form a theory and a practice. Writers interested in story structure owe it to themselves to add this book to their office bookshelves but it's adventurous readers who will surely benefit the most finding themselves thrilled by the surprising tales within.Matt Bell author of In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods
language: English
title: My Very End of the Universe: Five Novellas-in-Flash and a Study of the Form
publisher: Rose Metal Press