I’ve lived in a variety of apartments during my adult life, but my favorite space would have to be the studio apartment I rented when I moved to Rochester in June 1991. The rent was ridiculously affordable and the location—in the heart of what would become The Neighborhood of Arts— spectacular. But it was the little things that sold me on the place: the ample storage space (three closets!) and one wall of windows that offered a view of the changing Rochester skyline, yet another that overlooked the Memorial Art Gallery.
There is an odd kind of comfort in living in a small space surrounded by all you own in the world, possessions that I seasonally edited and often didn’t replace. It’s the same kind of comfort I feel when I’m working in short forms—flash fiction and/or prose poems—a pleasure that comes from working on a very small canvas in which each image, every action must contribute significantly to what Edgar Allan Poe called the “importance of the single effect.” I’ve always found this decluttering – whether applied to words or worldly goods – to be freeing rather than constrictive.
On February 17, I’ll be offering a class entitled “Standing at the Intersection of Lyric and Narrative: A Master Class in Flash Fiction/Prose Poetry.” I invite you to join me in exploring these little rooms of words and go forward to design your own. You’ll leave class with a draft well underway and some potential markets for publication.
I suspect we’ll all be weary of winter by then and eager for the new beginnings that spring always seems to bring. Why not start here?
Read Sarah’s instructor bio by clicking here.
To read more about Sarah’s upcoming Master workshop, click here.