The 2026 O:JA&L Masters Series: Flash Fiction
Featured Writer Interview
ASSOCIATE EDITOR PAMELYN CASTO
INTERVIEW WITH FEATURED WRITER KENT DIXON
Kent Dixon completed his undergraduate work at UNC Chapel Hill, his MA at Johns Hopkins, and his PhD at the Iowa Writers Workshop. Dixon has taught high school and college and has published in all genres, mostly fiction and CNF, but including translations of French Symbolist Poets. He has published a graphic novel of The Epic of Gilgamesh in collaboration with artist son.
Click on the title FLASH AS FLASH CAN to explore or download the new chapbook offering from Kent Dixon in the O:JA&L Masters Series.
Casto for O:JA&L: Hi, Kent… So tell me, what is your take on flash fiction. What’s your relationship with the form?
Kent Dixon: Could we call them short shorts? ‘Flash’ sounds so brash and flashy to me. When my generation began writing them–and we were the first–they were ‘short shorts’ or ‘mini-stories.’ I wrote my first as an undergraduate in 1962 or 63. At UNC, besides my pre-med courses and my Comp Lit major, I also had a French major. Easy enough to slip into after five years of French in prep school, where I’d dabbled in Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal—when’s that written, the 1860s—and found a kindred spirit: his masque of cynicism and ghoulishness, his sublime elevations of that, and his interest in Edgar Allen Poe, a youthful fascination of my own.
So in college French, it was Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Verlaine, Rimbaud et les autres—but I’m sure you’d prefer a shorter answer. I guess my point was I was discovering the form and developing it for myself at the very beginnings of the form’s finding its way into English. At the Iowa Writers Workshop in the late 60s early 70s, I co-edited a collection of such shorts with my instructor (and mentor) Robert Coover—a mix of his students along with a number of big names we, mostly he, tracked down—Borges, Barthelme, Elie Wiesel, Richard Brautigan, W. S. Merwin, J. C. Oates and another handful whose names we’d no longer recognize but were huge at the time.
Casto for O:JA&L: You call it a form. Is it a form, is it its own distinct genre, as much as say romance or sci fi or fantasy?
Kent Dixon: I’m smiling. That’s such a great question, with so many answers. What are the defining features of this form we call Flash? I’ve got an essay archived way down deep in Open: JA&L, entitled “Brevity is the Soul of the Short Short.” Where I argue that most everything that’s done with the form is generated by its short length; that’s really the only constant and everything else—prose poem, surrealism, sudden fiction, quick realism with punch line, jokes squeezed in if you can, if you can go beyond them; exclusively dialogue, or monologue—those can’t go on too long or people walk out. Showing off on how short you can make something—the dribble or drabble, the famous Hemingway six-word story.
Casto for O:JA&L: What would you say you write, in all that? Your own particular brand of fla— Forgive me, your ‘short short’ form?
Kent Dixon: I think, because of Baudelaire, and humble beginnings of pairing down from short stories, I tend toward realism, or magical realism. I’m dated in that way—beginning, middle, end; a kicker if you can think of one. Kafka-esque straight-face on something impossible. But I do torture those constraints—flip it, tell it backwards, make it a joke on the reader . . .
Casto for O:JA&L: Joke on the reader? That doesn’t sound very winning. How do you mean, without making fun of me?
Kent Dixon: Well, in the collection in Open, look at the one called “Oomph Alas,” about the woman with a skewed navel. It builds and builds, carrying the reader along with conflicts and sympathies, but then in the last line it pulls the rug out from under: everything, anything, you’ve been feeling, thinking, so far, dear reader. . . you were wrong. Bas-ackwards. To be fair to me, the intent is not to insult, but rather to coax one to think about, ride over the same ground again with different eyes, one’s process of reading. That ability, reading, in itself is always a miraculous trip, one of the most amazing we make in our lives, I think, and just as amazing is the aplomb with which we breeze over it.
Casto for O:JA&L: Do you tend to think of your stories as that intellectual? Maybe not the best word, but I sense then that there’s a fair amount of—let’s call it meta–in your work.
Kent Dixon: What is there, of meta, I absorbed from Coover. Robert Coover my main instructor, become mentor, at Iowa. Huge influence in postmodernism, as you know. David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers… Rick Moody was his student at Brown. Angela Carter. I hold back somewhat from those brave hearts, but still: meta-, surreal, fabulation, myth appropriation, re-imagining cultural icons, parody . . . Timidly I go near there, dabble in, and often I spot such experimentation just over the horizon in one of my stories. It feeds me, but I don’t usually give into it I think because I’m not that intellectual. Too brainy begins to boor me. Look at hypertext, that Coover brings us, so-called electronic literature, if you want brainy! Give me a Tana French mystery, at least one foot in reality, however illusory one can make it. Her The Likeness? That’s my kind of illusion vs. reality, because in that novel the illusion is real and everyone is bouncing off that complication, so all your feelings stay with real characters, not intellectual games forcing you to think about form, reconsider convention, as intriguing as such challenges may be.
Casto for O:JA&L: How much are your flash fictions like your short stories then? Are the preliminaries the same: do you come upon, invent, think up, prowl around your subjects in the same way?
Kent Dixon: Not sure. Sometimes a short short is just a failed story. I see after half a page or so that even though this is a fun starting idea, I’m not going to be able to sustain it into story length. At which point it begins to bend, collapse into what I know, or what my instincts are, for the short form. That’s a neat question because it works from the other end too: that is, in my most recent (unpublished) novel, the whole 350 pages is doled out in very short, more or less self-contained, chapters. With titles. Ergo, we’re forcing the long form–because it is a novel, with an over-reaching arc–into short, apparently (for first 50 pages or so) unrelated, self-contained very short stories. Some are less than a page.
Casto for O:JA&L: I’ll have to look at it. Are they so self-contained they’d fit into Open: JA&L’s collections?
Kent Dixon: They’re meant to be. What they’re really lacking right now is an agent! Or a small press. I can’t believe how difficult that whole thing has become. Note to rogue agent:
My dear, if you’re reading this and it sparks any interest,
I’m sure my contact information is around here somewhere.
Would love to hear from you!
Casto for O:JA&L: Something I ask myself on occasion, what about fame? Do you hope to remembered for your writing?
Kent Dixon: Not really, though my son’s and my graphic novel has sold thousands of copies. South Korea alone bought 5000 I think it was. And it is pretty good. It ought to hang in there with the fare on the Gilgamesh epic. But you know, I would like to get one of my novels published so my great grand kids if ever interested could move closer to their own inner lineage. I’ve got an ancestor’s diary from the 18th century.
Casto for O:JA&L: Wow. That must be fascinating!
Kent Dixon: It’s not. It’s incredibly boring. All he does is note down important events that he’s witnessed. ‘I saw the laying of the corner stone of the Marquis de LaFayette today.’ I read it closely for any thought, an opinion or something. Zero. Well, there was one line: Sometimes I feel like a bundle of contradictions. But he stops there!
Casto for O:JA&L: Wow again. How sad. Missed opportunity, for both of you. [they laugh] But say you were remembered, what is it, say some 300 years later, what do you think it would be for? A particular novel, or story, or maybe an idea?
Kent Dixon: There is one thing I think I helped bring to Literature, and I’m always exploring it. But it’s more for writers, not grandchildren.
Casto for O:JA&L: And…? Are you going to tell me or make me wait?
Kent Dixon: Well, it’s complicated. Has to do with point of view. I wonder if I can describe it briefly…? Start with IFS, Indirect Free Style.
Casto for O:JA&L: Start with reminding us what that is?
Kent Dixon: A technique, I guess you’d call it. A device? It was spotted by Proust, in an essay he wrote on Flaubert, and of course Joyce uses it, and Virginia Wolfe and like geniuses. Le style indirect libre, or I’ve seen discours indirect libre, but I think Proust’s term was indirect style. Nowadays we call it ‘free indirect speech,’ but I like the French. It’s where you merge two points of view, not of two characters but of one character’s outer life, a straight narrative 3rd person, merging or blending that with the same character’s inner life, a kind of inner monologue, in effect a 1st person point of view, without ever having to declare it. ‘The boy ran through the neighborhood, right through Mr. Sykes’ back yard which had always frightened him.’ All 3rd person pov, right? So IFS just collapses his inner feelings into his outer activity: ‘He ran through scary old Mr. Sykes’ backyard.’
Casto for O:JA&L: I see. So you do it with metaphor? Scary old Mr. Sykes?
Kent Dixon: Metaphor, whatever you got. The point is to blend indirect speech (3rd person: he went, she said, the storm broke…), with some kind of direct speech, mainly first-person thoughts or attitudes, so you never break your 3rd person narrative flow, but meanwhile you’re characterizing first person mentalities, feelings, a whole inner life. Two for one.
Casto for O:JA&L: Ok. So where were we? Oh. Why is that your legacy then, along with—ahem—Joyce, Wolfe and the rest of them? They’ve passed it on. What’s your contribution?
Kent Dixon: Yeah. Well, like I told you, I like messing things up, and there’s an easy way to mess this up, and gain from that, if you far enough along in your literary studies to recognize the ‘unreliable narrator.’ All I do is insert unreliability into the first person part of that blend, so you the reader realize yes, you’re hearing/seeing/feeling this character’s thoughts, but in fact, from outside narration that reaches beyond that focal character, you see that the character is either wrong or is lying. When you learn to fine tune this, it becomes a very effective device. The focal character not only can be wrong—so the reader is analyzing the story without having to be told anything outright—which is the aspect I like most, bringing the reader into that intimate proximity, without my having to spell it out.
Casto for O:JA&L: You said ‘not only’. The character not only can be wrong, but . . . Where’s the also?
Kent Dixon: Boy, I could use you around the house to help me find my phone. Not only wrong, or lying, but also the character could be right on and making fun of another character, using that character’s presumed inner monologue to mock him. So you can triple your fun.
Casto for O:JA&L: Note to any reader of this Interview: I am looking suspiciously at him after that last remark. He wants me to say ‘for example.’ Not doing it.
Kent Dixon: When I’ve gotten it down really good, I’ve had other writers tell me I’m bringing something new to the fold. That is a compliment I really cherish. Put my name on it if you ever pass it along. Old Un-reliable. . . Indirect and Iffy Free Style Dix. IIFSD. FSD, by the way, is both my father’s and grandfather’s initials, so you see—legacy.
Casto for O:JA&L: I’m looking through my notes. Can’t find, but a couple of minutes ago you ran some quick examples of straight 3rd person point of view: he said, she ran, ‘the storm broke’ was it? How would you apply IFS to ‘the storm broke’?
Kent Dixon: Uh, maybe bad example. I was just reaching for a cliché—it was a dark and stormy night. But it can be done. Cue a little incidental music please.
Casto for O:JA&L: [Interviewer accurately hums Jeopardy’s ‘think music’] [Interviewee nods approvingly and says: ]
Kent Dixon: Here you go: ‘the storm broke’ we might turn into: it’s like the wind began to shriek, the storm god said fuck it, I’m letting lose with everything I got. . . . Maybe a bit long-winded, but you get the idea. Anything can be internalized.
Casto for O:JA&L: Can you turn ‘Well, that’s all we have time for’ into Indirect Free Style?
Kent Dixon: Sure. Lessee… The interviewer—
Casto for O:JA&L: Stop! That’s enough, but thanks, Kent, for storming these literary walls. We’ll pass on your legacy at Open: Journal of Art and Letters, posted along with a new collection of flash fiction by our guest, and a brief essay . . . on what?
Kent Dixon: What’s on second. I don’t know who’s on first. I haven’t written it yet.
Casto for O:JA&L: Who’s on first, but I don’t want to get into that. “Goodnight, everybody.” Isn’t that how they closed their routine?
Kent Dixon: How might be on third. It’s never been clear.
Casto for O:JA&L: No, it was a small team. There was no 3rd baseman. Third had to be covered by the short STOP!!
Kent Dixon: [the dialogue fades to silence, and then an electronic click]
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER:
PAMELYN CASTO, twice a Pushcart Prize nominee, has published feature-length articles on flash fiction in Writer’s Digest (and in their other publications), Fiction Southeast, and Writing World (and elsewhere). Her essay on flash fiction and myth appears in Rose Metal Press’s Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field and her 8,000-word essay on flash fiction is included in Books and Beyond: The Greenwood Encyclopedia Of New American Reading (4 volumes). She also has a 5,000-word article on flash fiction as the lead article in the new book Critical Insights: Flash Fiction. Subscribe to her free online monthly flashfictionflash newsletter (first issue published in 2001) for markets, contests, and publishing news for flash literature writers. Casto is an Associate Editor at O:JA&L. Pamelyn Casto’s book Flash Fiction: Alive in The Flicker (A Portable Workshop), in release from O:JA&L’s Buttonhook Press, is available now on Amazon.
Image: Photo courtesy of Kent Dixon.
Other works by Kent Dixon available on O:JA&L:
Featured Writer Kent Dixon|An Essay on Craft|”Flash Discourse: The Long of the Short of It”
Featured Writer Kent Dixon|Flash Fiction|”It Wasn’t Me”|(from WIP Not for Sunday School)
Featured Writer Kent Dixon|Flash Fiction|”Older Brother James”|(from WIP Not for Sunday School)
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints Buttonhook Press, HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, and HIGH BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Art, supports writers and artists worldwide.
O:JA&L’S BUTTONHOOK PRESS MASTERS SERIES
Click on the titles below to explore or download the free PDF chapbooks in the O:JA&L Masters Series.
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Brian Clements on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Mark Budman on Flash Discourse
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Ray Gonzalez on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Michael Martone on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Roberta Allen on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Peter Conners on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Maxine Chernoff on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Pedro Ponce on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Tom Hazuka on Flash Fiction
With an interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
MORE TITLES IN PRESS
