Writing Exercise

May 1, 11:09 AMSeattle Literary ExaminerDave Clapper

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We have another guest today! Kelly Spitzer is pretty amazing. She lives down in Centralia and writes amazing prose. Check out how much she crams into 21 words at elimae, or her Pushcart Prize-nominated story in Vestal Review. If you're still hungry for more (and who wouldn't be?), check out this list of credits (and that's just her published flash fiction; her short stories credits are here). She's also, much to my great delight, an editor for SmokeLong. And she publishes fantastic interviews with writers in her Writer Profile Project, and roundtables with editors and writers in the Get Real series, which she runs with Ellen Parker. In short, she's a cool, cool chick, and her exercise for today is great:

Historical Fiction, In a Flash
I recently read Amy Knox Brown's debut short story collection, Three Versions of the Truth, which combines contemporary short stories with pieces of fictionalized historical flash. The book, and the concept, is brilliant. Brown writes her own stories about Sitting Bull, Custer, and Comanche, to name a few. As you can see, all of these are mid-western characters, and most of the stories take place in Nebraska, where Amy is from.

I moved to Washington state from Colorado in 1998. I've been here ten years, and still, I know very little about the history of this region. This is what I do know: Seattle is the home of the grunge movement, which includes the legendary bands Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. It is also the home of many infamous serial killers, including Ted Bundy. The state as a whole has a strong labor movement, which has seen its share of strife, especially from the IWW, aka the Wobblies. That's not a whole lot, is it? Okay, I know Jimi Hendrix was from Seattle, and it's the home of Microsoft and Boeing, but what happened further back in time? Who are some of the great characters of Seattle's past?

After reading Amy's collection, I find myself interested, and I thought it would be fun to write a fictionalized flash about, or involving, a Seattle or Washington state personality. So that is the exercise I'm proposing—in 1,000 words or less, turn history into fiction, give it your own spin, your own voice. Show us what Seattle's founding fathers did for leisure. Was there rivalry among them? Lust? Take us inside Jimi Hendrix's childhood, or the daily struggles of Chief Seattle. Show each other, and me, what it means to be a Washingtonian. Wikipedia has a good list to get you started. Ready now? Go!