Sean Lovelace: It really varies. I mean one story I wrote years ago and one I wrote/ rewrote/ rewrote probably two weeks before sending in the manuscript.

SL: No. Basically, I have tons of flash fictions in all types of folders and all over like falling leaves and whatnot and then I try to grab a bunch with similar color hues, crackle, and sensibilities. A collection needs to feel like one thing, although it is many. I think this is best accomplished with voice and tone, though subject matter might also work. This can be tough for flash fiction writers who experiment with everything: theme, language, structure. So then it's difficult to gather these tentacles into a sensible octopus. Poets have the same problem, especially if they are experimenting with different techniques and so on. Poets usually figure out a collection by, again, tone. Fiction writers do the same.

SL: See above. I chose them if they "fit" the voice. The voice here was aloof, a bit sad, with a hint of magical realism as everyday life: Things don't seem right. I think that's the theme of the collection. I tried to make these stories float a few inches off the ground. I think a lot of people are going around wondering why life doesn't fit what they were told, things don't work as promised, sand is in the gears of the mechanical days unfolding, etc. I wanted humor but the type of humor that makes you kick a hammock in the forehead. Did I succeed? Who knows? The order I don't know. I did have a character from the opening story reappear in the final story, so that was purposeful, for symmetry. We all love symmetry.

TSR: What does the word "story" mean to you?

SL:  I am intellectually curious. It needs to stimulate. Because I teach fiction and 99% of students writers go for realism, I would really prefer the story not be in the mode of realism. Anything else. But that's not really answering your question, is it? Story is a term for interesting, to me. Interesting in its language, its ideas, maybe its scaffolding and design. Story can be so many things, as many of the up-and-coming writers are proving. This is why I prefer online fiction right now. Some of these writer/blogger types are really bending the idea of story. I am thankful for the presses and lit mags and everyone so open to this right now. Story is exploding.

TSR: Do you have a "reader" in mind when you write stories?

SL:  I do not. I got over this in grad school. I felt like I was writing to impress someone or to seem like this or that, and I realized that is a very distracting and shallow way to create art. I try to stay in the moment while writing. To focus on the page and the experience, not some reader somewhere diving for whale sharks off the coast of Australia. The act of writing itself is a difficult happiness, and that is enough for me.

TSR: Is there anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your collection, anything at all?

SL: Will you buy me a dark beer?

TSR: How does it feel knowing that people are buying your book?

SL: Pretty great. It implies they will read the stories. Maybe 10 stories of life wobbling off-center will make someone feel better when they wake up and life is, uh, wobbling off-center.

TSR: What are you working on now?

SL: A group of stories about people getting drunk and buying things on Ebay. A group of stories about every drug. In fact, one I just finished (cocaine) will appear in Barrelhouse online soon. I am also writing essays about writing prompts, fortune tellers, Jenna Jameson, and a chemical company in Memphis, Tennessee.

TSR: What are the three most recent short story collections you've read?