Meet The Editor #5: Kate Lewis

February Submission Theme: GROWTH

Hi, We’re The Flashies, and We Want To Publish Your Work.

We’re a writing group devoted to flash CNF (creative nonfiction), and we’ve spent the last two years editing each other’s pieces while racking up publishing creds. We love working in flash— the electric way a single sentence, a single short paragraph, a single phrase can change the way you view yourself and the world in the span of a moment. We want to create more opportunities for short flash nonfiction in the literary world, and are excited to do so here.

The five of us will co-edit the IN A FLASH literary magazine here on Substack, each month publishing one piece of excellent creative nonfiction, written to theme, in 500 words or less. We’ll also spotlight the author with a Q&A section and lots of editorial compliments.

If you’re already excited about submitting, yay! Here’s a link to our submission guidelines. Our first submission period will be from October 1-15 on the theme of STILL. (Interpret as you will!)

If you’re already excited about reading, yay! Please subscribe and tell your friends.

Meet The Editor: Kate Lewis

Hi, I’m Kate!

Flash non-fiction, for me, was a way to keep writing during the years of motherhood when my children were very young, my attention split between spilled Cheerios and shouts, the blare of cartoons and chaos. It was difficult to find the time to draft and revise longer literary work, but the brief pulse of flash could be written and edited on my phone, held both in the palm of my hand and within my small span of focus. 

I believe flash is one of the most exciting forms of literary work at the moment, and I love pieces that take risks and expand what we think is possible from words on a screen. My favorite flash pieces are those that evoke emotion, where the reader is immersed in the writer’s experience. We can’t wait to experience your work.

The Essay

For our first 5 posts, we’ll be introducing ourselves to you through our own flash writing. Here’s Kate’s essay.

SNAPPED

I heard the snap before I saw it – my late grandmother’s worn rosary tugged apart by my preschooler’s tight grip. She’d only wanted to look, and I’d let her, and my sudden tears were a surprise. My first-grade son hovered nearby with solemn eyes as I set the rosary aside. “Can you fix it?”

“It’s too broken,” I wept, though I dashed the tears away as fast as they came. Things break often around toddlers – toys smashed upon the floor, cups thrown from the table, tempers frayed and mended over the course of a morning. It’s how you put them back together that matters, and so I drew my daughter close, both of us needing comfort.

Calmer, she and I gently put away my remaining mementos, and my son slipped from the room. When he returned, the rosary was cradled in his small hands, the same as it once had been in my grandmother’s, a symbol of her hope.

It’s how you put things back together that matters, the care you take for others’ hearts and your own. My son had used scotch tape, the sticky plastic folded carefully around the snapped cord of linked beads, rendering the rosary usable once more. Some broken things aren’t ruined forever. Some broken things can be made whole.

This essay was published in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things.

How This Essay Came To Be

I knew I’d write about this moment with my children soon after it occurred. It was less than five minutes of our lives, yet filled with so many moments of surprise: the snap of my grandmother’s rosary, my unexpected flare of grief, my daughter’s sorrow, my son’s kindness. It felt – even as it took place – like something momentous. I often write about family – the ways our lives are woven together, the immense meaning I find in raising children, the surprising ways raising children shifts how I think about the world – and I wanted to evoke those sentiments in a piece that echoed the swiftness with which they happened. 

As I say in the piece, things break often around children – toys smashed upon the floor, cups thrown from the table, tempers frayed and mended over the course of a morning. It was important to me to write into a sense of how we rebuild and repair these moments and these relationships, some of the most significant in our lives.

Here’s a Writing Prompt To Try

Think of something broken in your life: a physical object, a connection, a relationship. What does the idea of ‘mending’ mean to you? Is repair possible or even desired? The essay posits that some broken things can be made whole – what meaning does ‘broken’ hold in your own experience? 

I find particular inspiration in the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken objects with gold lacquer, and the metaphoric meaning it holds. “Kintsugi celebrates a break, honoring the story of the object, its ruin and repair,” according to Marie Kondo’s Beauty in Broken Things: A Guide to Kintsugi. “Mistakes and accidents are simply a part of the experience of living.”

Write into your experiences of breaks, mends, repairs, and relationships, whether to an object, to people, or anything else that moves you. Lean into the ways these experiences make meaning for you - beyond the ‘what’ of what happened, write into the ‘why’ these breaks and repairs are so momentous.

Author Bio

Kate Lewis is an essayist and poet whose work appears in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Men’s Health, Romper, The Good Trade, Literary Mama, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, and elsewhere. She lives outside Washington, D.C. with her husband, their two young children, and a mischief-making dog. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and supported by the Perry Morgan Fellowship from Old Dominion University. At Substack, she writes The Village, conversations on craft and community. Find her online @katehasthoughts.

Submission Calls

Before submitting, please refer to our Submission Guidelines page. (We’ll be linking to it in every new post, don’t worry!)

From October 1-15, please submit pieces on the theme of STILL.

From November 1-15, please submit pieces on the theme of BODY.

From December 1-15, please submit pieces on the theme of RHYTHM.

From January 1-15, please submit pieces on the theme of DREAMS.

From February 1-15, please submit pieces on the theme of GROWTH.