We are reposting this interview with Siel Ju from August 2016, in celebration of her book release! Cake Time, a novel in stories, is out on April 6th from Red Hen Press. If you’re in L.A., come join Siel and special guests at Skylight Books on April 5th for the book release party. More events are listed here. Congratulations, Siel!
by Lauren Eggert-Crowe
Siel Ju is the editor of Flash Flash Click, an online lit zine for fast fiction. Subscribers get a weekly flash prose piece delivered every Tuesday. The pieces range in style, tone, and content but all have a compelling narrative driving them, no matter how short. Some veer more towards the lyrical and sublime while others give the reader a sardonic slice-of-life from a first-person narrator. Siel has featured such authors as Wendy C. Ortiz, Catherine Daly, Lisa Cheby, Maureen Gibbon and Molly Fuller. I asked Siel a few questions about her job as editor of Flash Flash Click.
Why did you decide to start Flash Flash Click?
The impetus came from feeling there was a big, untapped population of readers out there who weren’t being reached by the current literary marketplace. I have friends who are writers, but I also have many non-writer friends who are smart and literate — who might very well enjoy reading poems and stories but are completely unfamiliar with the world of literary journals. I think a lot of people don’t even know literary journals exist! So the idea was to start a lit zine that sent a short piece a week via email — tiny bits of prose that can be read easily on a smartphone — sort of like a gateway drug to entice “regular” people to become regular readers of contemporary fiction and poetry. Continue reading “Behind the Editor’s Desk: An Interview with Siel Ju”