Rift

by Robert Vaughan, Fish Kathy

Overview

A stunning collaboration from Robert Vaughan and Kathy Fish, two masters of flash fiction, who've blended their work together in a vibrant explosion that is all of these things: evocative, heart wrenching, rare in the wild. The stories in RIFT explore the gamut of human connection and conflict, where emotions run deep beneath the surface. Divided into four sections: Fault, Breach, Tremor, and Cataclysm, writers Fish and Vaughan thread together their tales of strange encounters, mishaps, accidents, and disrepair. The world of RIFT is riven, tumultuous, and haunting. In here, danger lurks and the fallible human heart lay exposed and vulnerable. Fish and Vaughan leave their readers spellbound, mystified, and eager for the next story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780996352604
Publisher:	Unknown Press
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.49(d)

About the Author

Robert Vaughan leads roundtables at Red Oak Writing in Milwaukee, WI. He also teaches workshops in hybrid writing, dialogue, playwriting at places like The Clearing in Door County, WI. He was the co-founder of Flash Fiction Fridays, a radio program on WUWM in Milwaukee, where he premiered local flash fiction writers, and also starred writers from America and abroad. He is a senior editor for JMWW, and Lost in Thought magazines, a guest editor for Uno Kudo #5. His fourth collection, Rift, co-authored with Kathy Fish, is out in November 2015 from Unknown Press. His writing has been published in over 500 various literary journals, such as Necessary Fiction, Elimae, Literary Orphans, Everyday Genius, The Lit Pub, and Nervous Breakdown. He's also been selected for many anthologies such as Stripped (20120, Flash Fiction Funny (2014), and This is Poetry (2015). He is the author of three collections: Microtones (Cervena Barva Press, 2012); Diptychs + Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits (Deadly Chaps, 2013); and Addicts & Basements (CCM, 2014). He also edited Flash Fiction Fridays (2011). His awards include Micro-Fiction (2012), Gertrude Stein Awards (2013, 2014). He blogs at www.robert-vaughan.com.

Table of Contents

FAULT ~ p. 9
Kathy:

A Room With Many Small Beds
Düsseldorf
Vocabulary
Bear
There is No Albuquerque
We Learned to Pronounce Prokofiev
Woe
Enigma
Game Show

Robert:

Galloping Into the Future
Time for Dessert
If You Have to Have an Ism
She Wears Me Like a Coat
The Rooms We Rented
Last Exit From Liberty
Night Life
Temporary

TREMOR ~ p. 59

Robert:

What Lies Ahead
The Farms of Ohio Were Replaced By Shopping Malls
Life After Love
What's Left Unsaid
Fling ~ Fatigue ~ Rejection
Philadelphia Cream Cheese
When He Left It All to Me
Help I'm Alive
Pets: Three Vignettes

Kathy:

Birth of the Giant Sand Babe
The Blue of Milk
No Time For Prairie Dog Town
Abandon All Thoughts
Endangered ~ Out of Place ~A Botched Affair
A Pirate or a Cowboy
Neal Figgens
Hello
Love Train ~ Lifelike ~ Spill

BREACH- p.109

Kathy:

Tool
Peacock
Grip
Pulse
The Four O'Clock Bird
Sea Creatures of Indiana River
Go Dog
The Possibility of Bears

Robert:

Postcards of a Life
Dew Drop Inn
Dehydration
The Literary Savant
Keep It Curt
Four Stone Cups
Picnic
Cosmos at Aspen
No Face World Champ

CATACYLSYM ~ p. 163

Robert:

Me and You and a Voice Named Boo
Adrift
Too Much Oxygen
The Tangerine Ibis
Loose Canon
A Box
The Guy in This Sky
No Soul
Dream Maker

Kathy:

Everything's Shitty at Price King
A Rift, A Stampede
Come Loose and Fly Away
Strings
Swell
Collection Day
A Proper Party
This is How Eventually the World Falls Apart
Akimbo

Editorial Reviews

"Each vivid piece in Rift, this sharp collection, clutches the reader suddenly -- needing to offer its secret with the urgent elegance of the very best short short fiction." Ron Carlson (Five Skies)

"RIFT made me laugh my face off, cry my guts out, and remember why writing matters: stories save us from our idiotic but lovable selves." Lidia Yuknavitch (The Small Backs of Children)

"The stories in RIFT are peculiar and exciting and riveting and mournful and veer into places I had't noticed in my peripheral vision. You know, like life." Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket, We Are Pirates)

"This is close-up magic, jazz hands, mixed with twin talented samurais slashing through the translucent shoji of a too-close-for-comfort closet. This duet does it. The performance leaves you less than breathless. Hypnotized. Hypoxic. Hyphenated. Hysteric." Michael Martone (Hinesburg, Ohio)

"These stories by Kathy Fish and Robert Vaughan are rich, textured, and physical - they smart with tension and possibility. RIFT is peppered with appealing, complex characers and atmospheric details." Megan Mayhew Bergman, (Almost Famous Women)

"You can shave with the razor-like fictions in this collection from Kathy Fish and Robert Vaughan. These stories are as sharp as they cut deep, very like the people featured here, who come up and square off against each other in these dangerous, domestic arenas." Robert Lopez (Kamby Bolongo Mean River)

"When Robert Vaughan and Kathy Fish, both masters of the form, combine forces, the end result is nothing short of breathtaking." Michael J. Seidlinger (The Strangest)

"Reading Fish's and Vaughan's electric collection is like listening to two seasoned singers trading songs in a tunnel: their voices echo, resonate, and harmonize in impossible octaves. RIFT is a book of sublime melodies that sustain and remain." Ryan Ridge (American Homes)

"I have been a devoted reader of Kathy Fish's stories for years. Countless times, I have turned to her work for instruction and comfort. And if possible, this collaboration with Robert Vaughan, RIFT, has strengthened my devotion. The stories here are full of precision and heartbreak. This book is an accomplishment, elegant and sparse, and richly imagined, and I loved it." Jensen Beach (Swallowed by the Cold)

"These stories made me not sit still. They turned me around and turned me around." xTx (Today I am a Book)

"Vaughan and Fish are twin aficionados of flash. Side by side, in RIFT, they captain language catching great tunas (of memory), so this book sails as fleet. Vaughan as name means "little" (he's BIG) and Fish can be "tuna" (prize fish)! The Little Tuna are a specie that rush and dart, reaching speeds of 47 miles an hour (fact)! These flashes are far faster, sleeker, and sharper than that- physical enough to hold gasping in hand." Luke Goebel (Fourteen Stories and None of Them Are Yours)

From the Publisher