account_circle by Matt Briggs
Matt Briggs is the author of The Remains of River Names, published by Black Heron Press. His stories have appeared in The Northwest Review, The North Atlantic Review, StringTown, The Mississippi Review, ZYZZYVA and elsewhere. Essays have been in The Washington Free Press, The Raven Chronicles, and The American Book Review. He lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter.

Micro-Fiction

Craft

The House Rules of the American Short Story

by Matt Briggs
Issue No. 49 ~ June, 2001

If you follow these rules, you are guaranteed to produce an American Short Story Masterpiece. Begin with both feet on the ground. Grab the reader by the throat and don’t let go until they are gasping for breath or pass out. Clearly identify in your …

Book Lovers

What Happened to the Miracle

reviewed by Matt Briggs
Issue No. 53 ~ October, 2001

I began Meri Robie’s first novel with some trepidation. The book began with an overpowering prose style to punch-up what seemed like a very standard plot. A young professional mother looks for a suitable place to raise her son. The young family looking for a …

And Venus is Blue

reviewed by Matt Briggs
Issue No. 51 ~ August, 2001

Unlike the stock detail of William Gay’s Provinces of Night, which wears its Southerness like a Confederate flag iron-on decal, And Venus Is Blue emanates The South as a region and a place where people live and things go on with or without a genuine …

Honeymoon and Other Stories

reviewed by Matt Briggs
Issue No. 49 ~ June, 2001

Despite the odd fact that Raymond Carver and Ernest Hemingway have both been tagged with the term “realistic writer,” both write as if they are more concerned with style and form than any kind of fidelity to experience as actually lived by living, breathing people. …

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Past Issues

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