In Process with: Libby Flores
"I went looking for these pieces, these panels seeking well, I guess a recipe. A road map? And there is not one. You get up and make another when that is done you do it again."
Today’s In Process With…takes us to the desk (and sometimes subway car) of writer, teacher, publisher, editor, and champion of the short story, Libby Flores.
Though Libby currently lives in Brooklyn, per her words, she will always be a Texan. And there is something this New Yorker sees as undoubtedly big in Libby; every conversation I’ve had with her has been expansive, plunging the depths in the best way, about the possibilities for what a single story can do, and there’s a delightful irony in that, isn’t there, for someone who is so committed to the shortest—and, as we often discuss, trickiest form of fiction (sorry, not at all sorry, novelists).
It feels imperative to let you know that Libby and I ended our first coffee date with an impromptu trip to Strand, Libby’s first time there I believe, and we found the story collection she had been looking everywhere for—Andre Dubus’s Dancing After Hours—in the unsorted carts of new to the floor used books by devoting ourselves to really looking for it. It was a triumph that only two short story writers could revel so much in accomplishing, as though we’d found gold in the riverbed.
Libby’s work itself is expansive, magic she accomplishes with a firm grasp on what is hard on a character’s heart, and a fearlessness of looking at it anyway, or because of that fact. Her language is precise and powerful, every sentence casually holding something enormous. Even when Libby describes her love of flash as a form, she manages to invoke the same pleasure we get in reading a really delicious sentence. In her words, in an interview with her editor at One Story: “The management of words, the brevity, the music of language (yes, there it is again) all there in one amuse-bouche. Perfect in its container, but not limited in its effect.”
One particular piece of flash fiction, “Good,” unraveled me line by line as the narrator unravels himself in the literal sense—saving his clothes from getting wet—and also on a much deeper level as he delivers news that cements his own heartbreak:
I was distracted by what I’d worn to announce this news. My once-pressed grey slacks were now rolled up past the shins, and my Oxford—reserved for interviews—was unbuttoned. The undershirt was one of the older ones, its pits blooming soft, yellow stains. I wore it because it would be the last thing I would take off and it promised nothing. She tugged my arm as my shirt billowed back, and now our feet were out of the white dust and smacking on the wet sand like drying cement. We left these indentions as we found the sea.
I could indeed eat these sentences, gobble up the tender details such as “reserved for interviews” and “smacking on the wet sand” and “as we found the sea” and “it promised nothing.” Have I ever been as in love with an image that refers to the consequences of having armpits? I have not. You can read the rest of “Good” at American Short Fiction, or, if you are feeling luxurious, listen to Libby read it to you on the same page.
My questionnaire for In Process asks folks if they have books so I can link to buy them. Libby’s answer was one of longing to be able to say yes to that inquiry, but as you’ll see below, she is getting so so close, and I know I will be among the first in line to read this collection when it hits shelves (and that there will be no hunting the bargain shelves for it; it will undoubtedly be up front in all the bookstores). Libby and I have talked about how neither of us appreciates the pace at which we write, but also what can you do, and also, knowing what I know about Libby’s work, that it is worth waiting for. I don’t want her to rush the good stuff.
I encourage you to read what you can of Libby’s writing right now, while we wait. You can find it in One Story Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Gagosian Quarterly, American Short Fiction, Ploughshares, Post Road Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House /The Open Bar, The Guardian, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the Associate Publisher at BOMB Magazine and the 2024 guest fiction editor of the Bennington Review. She has taught creative writing workshops for the Sackett Writing Workshop, Tin House, One Story, Hub City Writers Project, Bennington College, and PEN America and is teaching a class that dives deep into character via Tin House this very weekend, on September 22nd.
And yes, Libby, we are all so very glad I asked how it’s going.
-Danielle
What have you been working on this week?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Talk Soon to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.