Fiction in a Flash. Jessica Alexander, Instructor

Course Description 

This course explores techniques for building evocative settings, compelling characters, suspenseful narratives, and (un)believable worlds through the study of flash fiction. Because flash fiction is a narrative microcosm, it provides the ideal medium through which to study the mechanics of story, sentence by sentence. Writing flash fiction is also an excellent exercise in precision and economy. It’s an exercise in understanding the spine of a story. In this course, we’ll study the fundamentals of story (inciting incident, rising action, climax, dialogue, scene, and summary) through various works of flash fiction. Students will generate new work and have multiple flash workshops.  

Through a combination of collaborative craft talks, writing exercises, and peer feedback, participants will learn how to turn tension into full-blown conflict in swift and efficient strokes. This class is for beginning and experienced writers alike. It’s for students who wish to grasp the fundamental elements of story in their bare-bones form.   

While participants will be given prompts to help them generate new flash fictions, they are also welcome to revise existing flash fictions, or to transform existing material into flash fictions. Participants will share their responses in class and receive instructor feedback.  

While we’ll look, specifically, at published flash fiction, this course welcomes writers of all genres who want to better grasp the core elements of narrative structure.  

This course includes a 30-minute one-on-one Zoom conference with the instructor. 

Instructor 

Jessica Alexander has taught creative writing workshops at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette; Franklin and Marshall College; Porchlight Literary Arts Center; and the Chattery, among other places. Her novella, None of This Is an Invitation (co-written with Katie Jean Shinkle) was published by Astrophil Press in summer 2023. Her story collection, Dear Enemy, was the winning manuscript in the 2016 Subito Prose Contest. Her collaborative memoir (co-written with Vi Khi Nao) That Woman Could Be You came out with BlazeVox in April 2022. Her novel, Agnes, We’re Not Murderers is forthcoming from Clash Books in 2026.  

Registration & Fees 

The fee for this course is $450. Payment in full is required to register. 

Registrations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. 

Class size is limited to 12. 

Note: Your credit card payment will be processed by an external provider and will appear on your credit card statement as “UI Writing—Magid Center.” 

Refund & Cancellation Policy 

If you need to cancel your enrollment, please let us know as soon as possible. We can only offer full refunds if you cancel one week prior to the start of class. After that, before the start-date of class, we can offer a 50% refund. We cannot refund day-of cancellations, and we cannot refund or partially refund registration fees once the class has begun. 

Terms & Community Policy 

1.  The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is a program for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to enroll in Festival workshops. 

2.  The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is a community built on an assumption of shared enterprise, in the spirit of mutual respect. We reserve the right to a) revoke the registration of or b) dismiss from the program any person who disrupts the learning/working environment of others. Participants in the Festival are subject to all University of Iowa policies governing conduct in our community, whether online or in person. 

Questions? 

Contact the Iowa Summer Writing Festival: iswfestival@uiowa.edu. Phone: (319) 335-4160. 

Our small staff is out and about. If you phone and we miss you, please leave a detailed message!