Flash Craft in Meg Pokrass’ “Stranded Sea Mammals”

For today’s craft discussion, I want to share Meg Pokrass’ lovely flash piece, “Stranded Sea Mammals,” published in Jellyfish Review. If you don’t know Meg’s work, connect with her on social media and you won’t miss a beat. In the flash world, she’s a teacher, flash diplomat, and literary badass. And lucky us…Meg is going to read her work in her own voice!

Sometimes stories come to us after years of freewriting, pondering, sifting, and revising. Other times, they seem to drop down through our pens, as if from the heavens. Most of the time, though, it’s something somewhere in between those two extremes. For this story in particular, Meg shared, “I have no idea where ‘Stranded Sea Mammals’ came from or why it found me. This is the weird thing with my writing. I never know where the stories come from, and that’s one reason I love writing! It’s mysterious. There were 2 prompt words:’“video’ and ‘Grand Canyon.’ The story came to me while I was writing it, word after word.”

If you enjoy playfulness, practicing, and staying present to your creative self as a writer, please consider joining this April’s community of flash form writers who are coming together for my Into the Flash course. Whether you’re writing prose poetry, trying to sort out NaNoWriMo drafts, editing a novel, or having fun with flash already, this class will challenge, inform, inspire, and ignite new work. It also includes a chance for feedback on in-progress drafts from the instructor (that’s me!). Stay accountable, without the guilt. Learn, without having to travel or pay housing fees. Meet others who are curious and creative, like you!