Stories

An interview with Professor Claudia McIsaac

By Julia von Gersdorff ’25

This winter, Professor Claudia McIsaac was honored with several awards for her stellar, poignant flash fiction pieces. Her story "After", won the New Flash Fiction Prize from New Flash Fiction Review. She also won the Genre Flash Fiction Prize from Uncharted Magazine for her piece called "We Undark Night with Our Tongues”. On top of these two amazing wins, her stories "Solar Flare" and “River” were selected for Best Small Fictions 2024 and Best Microfiction 2025,  respectively.

In celebration of Professor McIsaac as both an award-winning writer and an excellent, engaged educator, and to learn more about flash fiction in general, we conducted an interview with her via email.

Q: What inspired your shift into writing more flash fiction?

A: I’d been working on a novel that overwhelmed me—too many plot possibilities. Years earlier, I’d had a flash piece published in Smokelong Quarterly, “What I Wore” and it had been so fun to write. When a friend asked me what sparked joy in my writing, I realized I needed to pursue the flash form.

I joined A Smokelong Summer, flash writing workshops, and I’ve never looked back.

Q: What makes the flash fiction writing process unique from more traditional fiction stories? What about the editing process?

A: So much! Because flash is short, (under 1000 words; micros are under 500 words) writers generally invest less time in it than a longer story, which encourages play and experimentation. Every word matters, so craft is key, but also fun to play with. Much easier to pay attention to every single word, to sentence structure and rhythm and sound in a flash or micro than in a 7000 word short story.

Q: Are there any topics, images, etc. that you gravitate towards or against when writing such short-form fiction?

A: I often write about characters struggling to connect with family. I often explore themes of gender violence, environmental destruction, and authoritarianism. Images and ideas from physics and the cosmos make their way into a lot of my stories as do flowers, trees, and bodies of water.

Q: What has teaching a flash fiction class been like? What are some of the most unique challenges or notable joys of that process?

A: It’s been such joy seeing my students fall in love with flash, seeing how much progress they can make pretty quickly. Nate Hirschtick ’25 had a flash he wrote in my class accepted by the literary magazine, Trampset, which accepts only 4% of submissions. My flash had been in the same magazine earlier; what a thrill to see Nate there! I loved helping my students become part of the amazing flash community. They interviewed my flash friends, and Nate and Ashley Haba ’25 were so inspired by meeting with Dawn Tasaka Steffler that they joined Smokelong Fitness, an international community workshop in flash fiction while taking my class. And at AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), I introduced Nate and Valerie Braylovskiy ’25 to flash editors and friends. Valerie’s had poems published recently, and I’ve worked with her on some flash creative nonfiction which I’m sure will get published soon.

Q: Is there anything that you are currently writing, in or outside of the realm of flash fiction?

A: I’m working on a novella in flash and on a collection of speculative flash and micros. I still write poetry, but I can’t imagine returning to writing longer fiction.

Q: Lastly, why should people write and/or read flash fiction? In other words, give us your best "pitch" for the genre!

A: For readers, it’s a tiny time commitment for a big payoff. For writers, it’s fun, almost magical. It’s a very accessible genre to enter. And there are endless opportunities to grow as a flash writer, so many workshops and classes available. Lots of great lit mags so submit to. And the flash community is incredibly supportive. People celebrate each other’s successes with remarkable cheer. Oh, and I love the international aspect of it. Many folks writing from South Asia, Australia, Nigeria, Canada, all over Europe. I’ve been writing poetry and fiction for decades; writing flash has given my writing life new energy and joy that I’d never dreamed was possible.