Kik Lodge is a short fiction writer from Devon, England, but she lives in Lyon, France, with a menagerie of kids, cats and a rabbit. When she is not writing, she is not exercising either. Her work has featured in Janus Literary, The Moth, Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, trampset, Maudlin House, Milk Candy Review, Splonk, Bending Genres, The Woolf, Smokelong Quarterly and other very fine journals.
Erratic tweets @KikLodge
Her flash collection Scream If You Want To is out with Alien Buddha Press.
If you aren’t familiar with her work, here’s one of her pieces to start things off:
Mother Tongue (Kik Lodge | The Citron Review)
Why I like it (MK): the wonderfully emotional build of the story through its breathless structure and its insistent use of repetition, how the overall structure swirls towards a revelation of something terrifying, and how the piece reads very differently second time through because of that partial reveal.
Kangaroo (Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey | Gone Lawn)
Why I like it (KL): I love the odd and complex mother-child relationship in this coming-of-age flash. The theme is a relatable one; how a parent might want the very best for their child but ultimately wants to keep them small. I love how the teenage-narrator slowly and lovingly calls into question this love and watches the world and its endless possibilities unfold before them.
Cloudberries (Brian Sneedon | Gulf Coast Mag)
Why I like it: What I like about this Bildungsflash is how it waits for the surreal to seep inside you. It’s an eery tale of metamorphosis and children outwitting their elders. I love how Brian Sneedon manages to squeeze character, place, time and plot into one opening sentence. No wonder this pocketed the Donald Barthelme award last year!
The Wheels on the Bus (Bill Merklee | Had)
Why I like it: I love the silent empathy in this character-driven bus driver story, the simplicity of language. How this driver, who takes kids to school and back, a man programmed to be bullied, manages to turn things around, see the children on his bus as creative material, as lost kids in dire need of being heard.
Apocalypse (Lisa Alletson | Cincinnati Review)
Why I like it: I love the sense of limbo in this piece. The idea that there’s no going back to how life was, but equally the frightening uncertainty of what’s to come. Writers are in limbo too, having hit overwhelm, as the writer-narrator stands hip-deep in the water, just about buoyant, and tunes her ear to a deep-sea lullaby. A ripple of hope perhaps.
Prophecy (Tom Vowler | Fictive Dream)
Why I like it: I love it for its deft construction, how the remembered honeymoon car journey works as metaphor for a doomed relationship. And crikey, that final image! How it lament-howls back to the title! For just as the reversing driver sees what’s behind her, focussing on what has already come to pass, the passenger looks forward at what’s yet to come – mangled limbs, carnage.
Going Down (Tim Craig | Ellipsis Zine)
Why I like it: I love this lift story for its matter of fact, fable-like narration. It makes the characters and their last words all the more moving and tragic and mundane. I love how it ends with a slap of dark humour, which is almost always nibbling at the toes of Craig’s writing.
Ann Presents (D.B. Miller | Le Roi Fainéant)
Why I like it: I dig this piece for the intricately distilled humour throughout. Crafted with surgical precision, this hermit crab, in the form of dental records belonging to a patient named Ann, reveals a narrator-dentist who wants to be more appreciated in his job, have his playlist recognised, who might be that little bit in love with his patient.
Batting .500 (Paul Rousseau | Lost Balloon)
Why I like it: I love this for the power of its title, which does all the “batting”, so to speak. This breathless micro explores the odds of winning and losing in life - in relationships, as in baseball - from the perspective of a teenager from a fractured home. We see how life can hit you, again and again, but to what extent you also have agency, should you decide to manoeuvre it.
A Taco Bell, Champion the Wonder Horse and some random trucker guy walk into a bar (S. A. Greene | Maudlin House)
Why I like it: I adore this piece for its humour and dazzling dialogue throughout, its four brilliantly alive and improbable characters whipped up from inside one barmy brain. I love how S.A. Greene manages to make you spit-giggle until the last paragraph where the core of the story is revealed - the loneliness of unrequited love, strangers craving connection – and so we shelve our smiles and ache.
Danielle McMahon (The night we drive through a Walmart Supercenter | The Woolf)
Why I like it: For the detail and the erotic build-up. The gear shifts between thoughts and metaphors. For the lyricism that never feels forced. For heightened sensations, as the author suggests, this story is to be read whilst listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire”.
Prompt: Play a random song from a random playlist (go on, do it), almost loud enough to make your neighbours growl, then close your eyes and see what your hands start typing or writing.
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 T.L. Tomljanovic and will be appearing (fingers crossed) on the 20th August.
7th-20th October
How do we choose the right words to sharpen up our prose? How do we make our writing unique without it becoming obscure? Is the road to hell really paved with adverbs? This flash fiction course explores language in all its guts and glory, focussing on unique images, concision versus specificity and how to create original tone.
Price: pay-what-you-can (£95 recommended)
"Matt’s courses and materials are an absolute goldmine for anyone who takes flash fiction (or any form of writing) seriously. He is a meticulous teacher, encouraging yet exacting – and his editing is always spot-on. When Matt says he likes your piece, you know you’re onto a good thing. His astute comments will guide you to edit and re-edit till your story has reached a level of near perfection. I can’t recommend him enough!
Nora Nadjarian
Other opportunities to work with Matt
Write Beyond the Lightbulb
Lyrical Writing (4th-17th November 2024): BOOK NOW
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