Spotlight On…

Kathy Fish is one of my favorite writers of short short fiction. I hope to meet her one day and tell her as much in person, to hug her and try to rub some of her magic onto myself. In my first shaky months around these parts I reached out to Kath and she said yes and yes and yes again. More, I admire her humility and restraint. She is a gentle and gifted presence among us.

Here she is, under the glare.

–Ethel Rohan

Writing-wise, where are you now?

It is never a nice, straight line for me. I have these periods where I hardly write at all. And then that painful period ends and I’m productive and happy for about three solid months. I think I just live for the productive times and endure the rest. I’m just coming out of a down time now and it feels great.

Writing-wise, where are you going?

I have a new chapbook I may call “Fine Girl” or “Foreign Film” coming out from Willows Wept Press in the distant future. Also, I am working on a novella in flashes built on a sort of nonlinear, mosaic structure. I am trying my hand at writing some one-act plays. I’d love to eventually publish a full-length collection of my flashes and short stories, but I am extremely picky about what goes out to the world, so it may be awhile.

What informs your creative process? How do you keep inspired?

I think remaining open and receptive to the world informs my creative process. Reading excellent fiction always inspires me. Music. Nature. Visual arts. The usual stuff.

Tell us something that most people don’t know about you?

I had these strange, out of body type experiences on a regular basis when I was a kid. I never told anybody and eventually they stopped. I had this very weird inner life as a child that nobody knew about. Actually, I think most children do. That is probably a good thing.

How has the Internet impacted your reading and writing? What is the future of print publication?

I probably wouldn’t still be writing today if I hadn’t met and workshopped with so many other writers online. I started writing relatively late and the other writers at the Zoetrope Virtual Studios became my teachers and mentors. So the internet, at least in the early days, had a huge, positive impact on my writing. My feeling now is that the internet is a tremendous time suck. I think Ron Carlson said the internet is the writer’s enemy and I have to agree. I don’t have a personal website or blog to promote my work and there is this nagging feeling that I ought to, but so far I have successfully ignored this feeling.

I just guest edited Dzanc Books’ 2010 Best of the Web anthology (available now for pre-order if I may put in a plug) which really opened my eyes as to just how high quality online literature has become. It’s incredible, compared to ten years ago when I first started reading and publishing online. I do hope, though, that printed magazines and books do not fade from existence. I would miss them.

If you didn’t write, what would your life look like?

I shudder to think of this actually! I have no other skills. I would probably go back to school and finish my Master’s degree in psychology. And then I would be a terrible psychologist. Maybe my patients would write terrible stories about me and publish them and I’d find them and read them. Shudder.

Please do a five minute free-write with the word “worth,” and share:

There was the time she made us all pile into the car, not even making us put our shoes on, but she took the time to lipstick her mouth and pin her hat to her hair, and we watched her cigarette tremble in her fingers as she drove. We could see we were going to Grandpa’s house, the grandpa with the English bulldog we were afraid of because it snarled and nipped at us. Thing looked just like him. We got there and she told us to stay in the car, but as soon as the door slammed we wrestled each other into the front seat and watched her climb the steps to his front door and watched her pound on it. He opened the door as she was opening her pocketbook and dropped it and he went to pick it up for her and she put her hand out, all the while saying something to him we couldn’t hear. But next thing we knew she was holding a dollar bill out in front of him and flicking her cigarette lighter at the corner of it and we saw it take flame. The both of them watched it burn until she had to let go and she came back to us, blowing on her fingers, saying now you know what your money is worth.

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Kathy Fish’s short stories and flash fictions have been published widely both online and in print. A collection of her short shorts may be found in “A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women” published by Rose Metal Press. Another collection of short fiction is forthcoming from Willows Wept Press. She was the guest editor of Dzanc Books’ 2010 Best of the Web.