H2O: RAIN, OCEAN, TEARS, ICE, in Meniscus

I should have been polyamorous from the start. I learned the hard way with my first two books, Night by Night and Provenance. I barely wrote any other fiction during the years of those two novels, and, much as I loved writing them, I was hostage to them.

Then towards the end of Provenance, the idea for Hopscotch came to me in one those rare blinding flashes. I’d sneak in a few hours away from Provenance. I’d dabble, dream, jot notes, write a page or two, talk to my characters. It was so exciting, so freeing.

These days I always have a few works going for those times when I need refreshment. I especially like having a few short works underway. I love that joyous ‘done’ feeling (even if I go on to revise the thing ten more times.)

Flash prose is perfect for this. It’s a challenging form to write in because of its brevity; but because of that brevity it doesn’t matter if you write one that doesn’t sing.

Three of these flash prose works, ‘H₂O: Rain, Ocean, Tears, Ice‘ have just been published in the online Australian journal Meniscus (vol 12, no 2, 2024). The first one is nonfiction, the second is fiction, and the third is speculative fiction. You can read them individually or as a set linked by H₂O. Here’s an excerpt:

Old like rain
It’s always warm in Urunga, up north of Sydney just forty minutes by air. My father is not travelling much on his own anymore, so I fly with him to visit family there. Dad’s nephew is at the handkerchief airport to meet us. I watch them as we walk to my cousin’s faded, 80s Mercedes. He’s telling us about the rivers, his house, the shed where he and his wife sell their artworks. Both men are slightly tipped forward, pointing down towards the earth that soon enough they shall meet. Their ages total 172 years. They’re older than the town itself…

Read them all at Meniscus

Meniscus, vol 12, no 2, pp 174-177