Summer General Issue – Kingdom of Plantae
Following the launch of each of our issues, we cajole one or more of the contributors into a mini interview with the Trash Cat.
Here they will reveal some writing wisdom and tell you what trash critter they identify with most. Important stuff like that.
Today, we have talented flash writer, Claudia Monpere.
You can read her speculative, transformative flash, The Rooting HERE
Q: What piece of writing advice/ crafting rule would you trash?
A: I’ve always been uncomfortable with the advice to write what you know. I think it’s often more interesting to write what you’re curious about or don’t know or understand. It can narrow our writing if we stick to what we know and I think we can fall into obvious details with things like familiar settings. But I do think it can be incredibly valuable to build on what we’ve felt, amping it up, reimagining it.
Q: Which writers and magazines do you go to to find treasure to read?
A: New Flash Fiction Review, Fractured, Ghost Parachute, Centaur, Gooseberry Pie, Smokelong Quarterly, Cleaver, Milk Candy Review, Bending Genre, Flash Boulevard. And Trash Cat Lit, of course! We’re lucky to have so many amazing lit mags a screen touch away, and I love reading a story that makes me wonder how the heck the writer came up with something so brilliant. Too many writers I treasure to name! But I love anything by Elizabeth Strout and Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
Q: What trash animal do you most identify with?
A: I identify with crows because they’re curious, cooperative, smart, and social. Crows talk to each other from my trees every day and I love watching and listening. It was cool to see crows on a birch communicating with crows on a rooftop next door – how some of the crows flew back and forth but others stayed put. Once I cawed back at a crow in a pattern. The crow repeated the pattern. It was amazing, but I’ve never been able to replicate it. The crow probably spread the word to ignore me.
Q: When your writing mojo is trashed, how do you recharge?
A: A walk somewhere with trees always helps. And webinars and workshops! Smokelong Quarterly, Matt Kendrick, Francine Witte, Meg Pokrass, Kathy Fish, Robert Vaughan, Nancy Stohlman, Sarah Freligh, Ingrid Jendrzejewski.
Q: If you could offer three tips to writing short treasures, what would they be?
A:
1 – Don’t be satisfied with details that come to you easily. Work at incorporating unusual details even if they’re from fields you’re unfamiliar with such as chemistry, geometry, construction.
2 – Exchange drafts with people you trust and whose writing you like. Become part of a community of writers.
3 – Write when your brain is sharpest. Give yourself permission to do this.
Q: What is one thing, if spotted in a crowded charity shop/thrift store, you would just have to buy
A: Dangle earrings. I own way too many and have an emotional attachment to most, remembering who gave them to me or where I bought them. I still have a pair that a 16 year old boyfriend made for me.
Claudia Monpere lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her flash fiction appears in SmokeLong Quarterly, Split Lip, Trampset, Flash Frog, and elsewhere. She won the 2023 SmokeLong Workshop Prize, the 2024 New Flash Fiction Prize from New Flash Fiction Review, and the 2024 Genre Flash Fiction Prize from Uncharted Magazine. She has stories in Best Small Fictions 2024 and 2025 and Best Microfiction 2025 and 2026. Her flash collection, The Periodic Family, is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press. More at claudiamonpere.com.IO
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