introducing maureen sherbondy

A little more than three and a half years ago, I helped to launch a writers’ group. I knew several of the women who would be members, but one was new to me, a poet and short-story writer named Maureen Sherbondy. My tenure with the group ended when I sold my first novel and began writing full-time, but my friendship with Maureen endured. Today I’m happy to announce the publication of her first short story collection, The Slow Vanishing.

Here’s what I had to say after reading it, pre-publication:

In The Slow Vanishing, Maureen Sherbondy looks at our lives through a lens of fantasy and wisdom, then tells our stories in compelling and magical ways. Thought-provoking, entertaining, troubling, and true, these tales will have you nodding your head in recognition, eager to read more.

I asked Maureen to talk a little bit about her work, and this book in particular:

I’m excited to be guest blogging on your site to talk about The Slow Vanishing. It’s difficult to get a short story collection published these days, so I am thrilled that the book has just been released. I’ve been working on these stories for about five years. Many of the stories are flash fiction pieces. For those of you who don’t know what flash fiction is – they are very, very short stories. These are also referred to as “sudden fiction” or “micro fiction”. These stories are different from traditional longer stories in that they don’t always follow the typical story arc of beginning, middle, and ending, with a conflict, resolution, and a change in the main character. These flash fiction pieces are usually image-driven and often surreal. Flash fiction pieces are perfect for readers who don’t have much spare time. In the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, a reader can read an entire flash fiction story. Some of the stories in this collection first appeared in literary journals.

It’s important for people to support small presses like Main Street Rag Publishing Company, the publisher of this collection. Many authors (like myself) struggle to get that first book published. If not for these small presses, many new authors would never find a home for that first full-length collection. The book can be ordered directly from the publisher here.