About this course

The recordings included in this course are from our 2024 Flash Fiction Workshop. The instructor is not available for questions or feedback, nor is there an organized group story/feedback exchange included with this course.

This flash fiction course explores literary compression and the potency of short work. We will unravel short-form craft techniques and borrow from various genres such as poetry, horror, magical realism, etc. to write flash fiction pieces informed by the art of compression.


Topics Covered: 

  • Ways to open a speculative story.
  • Creating complex characters and worlds in a limited space.
  • Working like a poet to quickly and deeply affect readers.
  • Finding room to play in a compact story.

Student Takeaways: 

  • An overview of the sub-genre
  • Idea-generating exercises and writing prompts
  • Recommended reading
  • Revision strategies

Duration of Class

80 minutes

We suggest giving yourself ample time to work through the prompts and exercises - this was originally delivered as a weekly series.

What's Included

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African woman with curly hair in a red dress with beaded necklace in front of a waterfall

About Your Instructor

Yvette Lisa Ndlovu


Yvette is a Zimbabwean sarungano. Her debut short story collection Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky) won the Cornell University 2023 Philip Freund Prize for Creative Writing, shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin Prize for Fiction and nominated for the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Collection. Her novel manuscript-in-progress was selected by George R.R. Martin for the Worldbuilder Scholarship. She earned her BA at Cornell University and her MFA at UMass Amherst. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Tin House Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute. She is the Newhouse Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wellesley College and has taught at UMass Amherst, Clarion West online, and the Juniper Institute for Young Writers. She is the co-founder of the Voodoonauts Summer Fellowship for Black SFF writers. Her work has been anthologized in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2021 and the NAACP-award nominated Africa Risen (Tor). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Columbia Journal, F&SF, Tor.com, Lightspeed, FANTASY Magazine, and Fiyah Literary Magazine for Black Speculative Fiction. She is currently at work on a novel.