Jon Fain has worked as a silk-screen printer, warehouse worker, resume writer, corporate documentation and training consultant, and freelance editor. He began publishing fiction in commercial and literary magazines in the 1980s, and later in some of the first online literary journals in the 2000s. More recent publications include short stories in A Thin Slice of Anxiety and Malarkey Books’ King Ludd’s Rag; flash fictions in The Broadkill Review and Reservoir Road Literary Review; and micro fictions in Blink-Ink, The Woolf, and CLOVES Literary. In 2023, stories of his will be in anthologies from Running Wild Press, Murderous Ink Press, and Three Ravens Publishing, and his chapbook “Pass the Panpharmacon! (Five Fictions of Delusion)” will be published by Greying Ghost Press. He lives in Massachusetts.
Here's a story just published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety.
Interview with Jon Fain
about his story "Between Wilshire and West 6th"
Honorable Mention for The Scribes Prize
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What inspired the piece?
I wrote this one from a prompt for a different micro fiction contest, for the site Storytwigs, back a couple of years ago. (It came in third.) The prompt was "Pitch." I've always been fascinated by the LaBrea Tar Pits since I read about them as a kid in school; it was the place I wanted to go to most when I first visited Los Angeles (screw the beach), and so setting something there was automatic. The idea that someone fairly newly arrived with typical Hollywood ambitions would think of bringing a "date" there also came quickly.
What draws you to micro-fiction?
When I returned to writing fiction in 2019 after a hiatus of many years, and started looking around for places to submit to, I saw there were a lot more opportunities for 50-500 word stories. I went through years of old drafts and notes, and started pulling out sentences and situations that could become the basis for micros. I like them because they're generally quick to write, or at least, it's usually clear if there's something there. I like the fine-tuning of getting it down to a specific word count, although at times, depending on the outcome, it seems a little like a parlor trick, to come up with something good within the word constraints.
What's next/future publications?
I have quite a bit of fiction pending publication. (No links yet as I write this, although that may change in a few weeks.) A chapbook of flash fictions from Greying Ghost Press. A short story in Running Wild Press's annual story anthology. A short story in Three Ravens Publishing collection of post-apocalyptic fiction. And a short story in one of Murderous Ink Press's crime fiction imprints. I also have a non-fiction/memoir piece coming in an online journal commemorating the centenary birthday of the writer William Gaddis, who I studied with at Bard College.
I wrote this one from a prompt for a different micro fiction contest, for the site Storytwigs, back a couple of years ago. (It came in third.) The prompt was "Pitch." I've always been fascinated by the LaBrea Tar Pits since I read about them as a kid in school; it was the place I wanted to go to most when I first visited Los Angeles (screw the beach), and so setting something there was automatic. The idea that someone fairly newly arrived with typical Hollywood ambitions would think of bringing a "date" there also came quickly.
What draws you to micro-fiction?
When I returned to writing fiction in 2019 after a hiatus of many years, and started looking around for places to submit to, I saw there were a lot more opportunities for 50-500 word stories. I went through years of old drafts and notes, and started pulling out sentences and situations that could become the basis for micros. I like them because they're generally quick to write, or at least, it's usually clear if there's something there. I like the fine-tuning of getting it down to a specific word count, although at times, depending on the outcome, it seems a little like a parlor trick, to come up with something good within the word constraints.
What's next/future publications?
I have quite a bit of fiction pending publication. (No links yet as I write this, although that may change in a few weeks.) A chapbook of flash fictions from Greying Ghost Press. A short story in Running Wild Press's annual story anthology. A short story in Three Ravens Publishing collection of post-apocalyptic fiction. And a short story in one of Murderous Ink Press's crime fiction imprints. I also have a non-fiction/memoir piece coming in an online journal commemorating the centenary birthday of the writer William Gaddis, who I studied with at Bard College.