February 2024

Ten stories picked by Melissa Llanes Brownlee

This month’s Mondettes are from the magnificent Melissa Llanes Brownlee.

Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan, has work published and forthcoming in The Rumpus, Fractured Lit, Flash Frog, Gigantic Sequins, Cream City Review, Cincinnati Review miCRo, Indiana Review, The ASP Bulletin, Craft, swamp pink, Pinch, Moon City Review and The Threepenny Review, and has been honored in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and the Wigleaf Top 50. Read Hard Skin from Juventud Press and Kahi and Lua from Alien Buddha. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at melissallanesbrownlee.com.

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She’s currently raising money to attend the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Los Angeles next year. Please check out her fundraising page at https://www.melissallanesbrownlee.com/help-me-get-to-awp-25, if you would like to help!

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If you aren’t familiar with her work, here’s one of her pieces to start things off:

Fire and Sea (Melissa Llanes Brownlee | Fractured Lit)

Why I like it: the rich build-up of specific and sensory detail, the clever way the second half of the micro perfectly mirrors the first, the deep sense of emotion, character and relationship that is captured in such a tiny space.

Gratitude Party (Pat Foran | JAKE)

Why I like it: the use of surrealism and the epistolary form allows us to participate in the event. As I read, I wanted to sing and thank and be grateful for the stars, the ocean, my loves, my friends, my existence. This piece brings out joy but also release.

Trolley Rocket (Sumitra Singam | Centaur)

Why I like it: the way the narrator deals with how things should be done (but aren’t); the way each wrong thing becomes a reminder of their father’s death (and their decision to have some fun); and the surrealist twist of rocketing off to Appa in the sky.

Fire (Sarah Freligh | Ghost Parachute)

Why I like it: the themes of sex and death, but truly it’s the finesse with how this moment is woven onto the page, slow and fast and slow, Billy’s hot want and the narrator’s almost cool and detached compliance, compressing and expanding in its slow inevitable burn.

PROMPT: write a micro under 300 words, or under 100 words as Sarah does. Start us in the action, weave in the setting as its own character, each brushstroke a parallel or counterpoint to the unfolding action. Leave us in epiphany.

The girl goes (Cathy Ulrich | Centaur)

Why I like it: it’s a powerful list of what “girl” goes with, and across, and to, and into…finally, leaving all those damn things behind. So much can be done with lists and this is an amazing example of that.

Nicknames for Sad Boys Echo the Longest (Tommy Dean | Trampset)

Why I like it: the extended metaphor of reality TV/docudramas works well with lost boys, lost innocence, lost self. We are the boys. We are the consumers of this carefully crafted and curated world. Most importantly, we are what’s left in the aftermath.

Stay Down, Baby, It’s Christmas (Patricia Q. Bidar | Ghost Parachute)

Why I like it: The setting – it’s Christmas Day at a fast food joint – captures so much but at the same time we have the narrator unspooling the story of her job, her love, the appearance of things – and I love that last line!

PROMPT: Write about love in an unusual location on a celebrated holiday. Find the tension in the moment and let it explode or leave the reader wondering what’s going to happen next.

Save the Last Dress from Me (Amy Marques | Emerge Literary Journal)

Why I like it: so much unfolds as the narrator observes her mother trying to pick out a dress. We are told, almost matter-of-factly, about this moment, allowing us to feel the emotional impact of the only dialogue in the piece.

In Two Fingers (Busayo Akinmoju | Epistemic Literary)

Why I like it: another wonderful use of the epistolary form, this letter from a daughter studying abroad to her mother back home is tightly packed with emotion and familial and cultural expectations, and most importantly love, admiration and gratitude.

Postcards (Timothy Boudreau | Gone Lawn)

Why I like it: in this triptych of a vacation, we start out cramped and overwhelmed, expand outwards with possibilities and are brought back down to a sobering reality. In these disparate sections, we see the whole truth of this family.

PROMPT: write a triptych of one event. Play with POV, close in and expand out. Give each section its own voice. See how each section plays off the other, giving us more of the story than the sum of its parts.

The heart of a blue whale weighs 400 pounds (Sylvia Santiago & Helena Pantsis | Heavy Feather Review)

Why I like it: it’s flash but in a comic! The art works perfectly with the words, and that last line is heart-breaking. I know it goes against expectations of what flash is, but I like to think it’s another way for flash to be.

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What did you think of these choices? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments - have you found a new favourite piece? Did you try out one of the prompts?

Next month’s selection will be chosen by Sharon Telfer and will be appearing (fingers crossed) on the 19th March.

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Opportunities to work with Matt

Write Beyond the Lightbulb

Lyrical Writing (3rd-16th June 2024): BOOK NOW! (SIX PLACES LEFT!)

Colourful Characters (5th-18th August 2024): FIND OUT MORE (GET YOUR NAME ON THE PRIORITY LIST!)

Go With The Flow (9th-22nd September 2024): FIND OUT MORE (GET YOUR NAME ON THE PRIORITY LIST!)

Glorious Words (7th-20th October 2024): FIND OUT MORE (GET YOUR NAME ON THE PRIORITY LIST!)

Editing

NOVEL / NOVELLA EDITING: First steps review, structural review, line edit, proof edit, submission review

EDITING FOR COLLECTIONS: structural overview report, line edit, proof edit

SHORT FICTION EDITING: Structural review, line edit, detailed edit, proof edit