Stripped: A Collection of Anonymous Flash Fiction Gets Dressed!

StrippedStripped: A Collection of Anonymous Flash

PS Books | Philadelphia Stories, 2012 (Author unveiling, 2013)

Editor: Nicole Monaghan

 

If you’ve not heard about this really cool project Nicole Scarpato Monaghan put together, titled Stripped, A Collection of Anonymous Flash Fiction, you should really check it out. For a year, Nicole kept the authors of the stories in this anthology, secret. Bios and names were included in the back of the anthology, but authors were not matched to stories. The concept being, kill the author gender for a time and read each story unknowingly. The Anthology has officially come out and stories have been gender-dressed. Nicole unveils which story belongs to which author here.

Authors | Amber Sparks, Ashley Inguanta, Aubrey Hirsch, Darlin Neal, Ellen Parker, Erin Fitzgerald, Ethel Rohan, Gay Degani, Gill Hoffs, Heather Fowler, Jeanne Holtzman, Jess Charest, Kathy Fish, Kerri D. Schuster, Kierstin Bridger, Meg Tuite, Michelle Reale, Myfanwy Collins, Nicole Monaghan, Pamela Painter, Roxane Gay, Sara Lippman, Sherrie Flick, Tara Laskowski, Tara L. Masih, Casey Hannan, Christopher Allen, Curtis Smith, Devan Goldstein, Eric Bosse, J. Bradley, Kenneth Pobo, Len Kuntz, Marc Nieson, Marc Schuster, Michael Martone, Nathan Alling Long, Peter Schwartz, Randall Brown, Robert Swartwood, Robert Vaughan, Rusty Barnes, Sean Lovelace, Scott Garson, Sheldon Lee Compton, and William Henderson.

Issue No. 13 | Spring 2011


MMR ANTHOLOGY 2011 — Fiction, Poetry, Art

CONVERSATIONS & CONNECTIONS Johns Hopkins University, D.C. | April 16th | 18 Journals/6 Presses  REGISTER NOW!


 
GALLERY | Ogun Afariogun
 
 
COMEDY SPOTLIGHT | Christian Pole Dancing Fox News
 
 
SPRING 2011 ECLECTIC GROOVE MIX | Marvin Gaye, Beirut, Infected Mushroom, The Bird and the Bee, U2, 30 Seconds to Mars MMR Editors

The Office They Gave Me Randall Brown

The Anger of Others (Excerpt from MMR Anthology 2011) Roxanne Gay

A Diverse Flora of Native and Introduced Species, Beautifully Adapted to Their Microenvironment Don Hucks

Thieves Len Kuntz

The Weeping Fig T. J. McIntyre

Bomb Squad Jason Olsen

The Makers Natanya Pulley

Smoke Chad Simpson

POETRY |

Common Nicholas YB Wong

This is for Our Mistakes Roheeni Saxena

PROSETRY |

WINTER 2011 FIRST PLACE WINNER | Come to Me Anne Earney

WINTER 2011 SECOND PLACE WINNER | You Must Hold the Baby Like This Mel Bosworth

SPRING 2011 CONTEST | GETUPSTANDUP (Contest Guest-edited by Laura Ellen Scott)


The Office They Gave Me

Its window looked out over the stone chapel of the Order of the Holy Child, and inside completely bare, only a tangle of electrical cords, not even an outlet. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the snake appears to Eve walking erect, before God curses him, but these weren’t snakes. They were nerves.

Eventually, the rest would come — the desk, chair, computer, bookshelves, corkboards, telephone, file cabinet, outlets, Ethernet. Those first few days, I sat cross-legged as if at a fire, spent the morning and into afternoon with the chapel’s stained glass nuns, an evergreen branch between me and them. I envied their stillness, their fixed eyes. My eyes often closed. None of my limbs yet trembled. There were no chest pains, shortness of breath, the closing of the throat, my lying on the floor in case I were to pass out. The Sisters of the Order on the windows, who once gave comfort,  would then give none, just cold looks that confirmed my weakness.

I tied the cords around my legs, or maybe they wrapped themselves around me on their own accord. Either way, it didn’t work; the whole desk and chair shook. I wasn’t made for this world, the phone buzzing, two-hundred emails a day, piles of forms, proposals, grants, applications, and the wall clock that didn’t exist when the room had been empty of the world and for the tiniest of instances, one of the windows seemed to glow, as if there were more to life than this.

 

 

Randall Brown is the author of Mad to Live (Flume Press 2008). He directs and teaches at Rosemont College’s MFA in Creative Writing program and holds an MFA from Vermont College. Short fiction pieces have appeared or are forthcoming in journals, including Harpur PalateRedivider, Mississippi Review, Cream City Review, Hunger Mountain and The Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction. His work has received nominations for the Pushcart, O. Henry, Million Writers, and Best of Web Prizes.