Flash fiction – stories of up to 1,000 words – is a new way of writing, and one that sounds quite appealing. Nancy Stohlman’s book is a short (as you’d expect) introduction to the subject. She’s passionate about writing to word limits (so am I) and she’s convincing in making the case that this is not necessarily an easier way to write. Indeed, writing a 300 word micro-story is in some ways much harder than writing a ‘normal’ short story ten times that length. The best part of the book: she offers dozens of prompts, ideas to get one started writing. If I ever publish flash fiction, remember: it started with this book. (And that was about 100 words.)