Sarah Freligh is the author of seven books, including Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize, Hereafter, winner of the 2024 Bath Novella-in-Flash contest and Other Emergencies, forthcoming from Moon City Press in 2025. Her work has appeared many literary journals and anthologized in New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (Norton 2018), and Best Microfiction (2019-22). Among her awards are poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Saltonstall Foundation.

Q & A with Sarah Freligh

• We’re delighted you are judging the next round of the BFFA for 2025 the year after you won the Bath novella in flash award in 2024 with your beautiful and deeply moving novella in flash, Hereafter available from Amazon and from adhocfiction.com
  Have you any new writing projects on the go at the moment?

I’ve been working on stories – short and long – that revolve around two characters named Rita and Chuck. Rita’s stories are narrated from her point of view while thus far, all of the Chuck stories are narrated from women who have entered his life at various times. I’ve been reading a lot of Elizabeth Strout and am fascinated how a minor character in one story will emerge, full formed, in a later story. I’m thinking that at some point, Chuck and Rita will interest, so stay tuned.

• Your writing, both prose and poetry always has great emotional resonance. The micro ‘McDonalds’, which is linked here, won second prize in the October 2022 BFFA and is also included in Hereafter. It is very affecting, particularly the ending. Do you write with emotional impact in mind?

Thank you for those lovely words! I wish I could say I had an intent when I sit down to write, but the truth is, I’m maybe the least intuitive writer in the world. I’m constantly stumbling around a dark room in search of the light switch. I try to get hold of the tail of something – usually character – and hang on and let them take me where they will.

• I know you have written a micro a day in August for a few years and I think Hereafter began as a result of micros written during a month of intensive writing. What happens with your writing when you write a story a day like this?

Writing daily with a goal in mind is a lot like exercising over time: you get stronger and fitter and bolder in a way, a lot more willing to try and fail because there’s always more words to come tomorrow. I write a lot and I toss out a lot and that’s fine, too.

• We have a picture here of the lake where you swim most days when it’s warm enough. Do you get ideas for writing while you are swimming?

All the time! Swimming distance in open water is physically and emotionally lovely, but mentally boring. In the pool, I might stop and drink water and chit chat with someone in the next lane, but swimming in open water is solitary and very, very quiet. It’s takes a few minutes but I usually fall into what I call mule mode – I put my head down and pull and when I do that, I get full up creatively. I’ve started stories in the water and solved problems with ongoing stories.

• You teach popular online classes on writing short fiction ( more details linked here) and I am very pleased you are running a session for the online Flash Fiction Festival day on January 11th next year. It has a great title — ‘Hopperaerobics! A Ninety-Minute Excursion into the Museum of Narrative’ — and will offer guided prompts based on Edward Hopper’s paintings. What do you enjoy about teaching?

I love teaching highly-motivated adults, who comprise the majority of my classes, and love being kind of a creative midwife to whatever poems or stories get born. It’s such a kick to see those pieces all grown up and out in the world!

• Finally, can you give us a top tip for writing stories up to 300 words and a prompt for would-be entrants?

Start fast and treat words like currency—don’t waste one of them!

Prompt: Start with a how or why title – “How to Make Your Mother Cry,” “Why I Live at the Laundromat,” “Why I Don’t Date Men With Children,” “How to Lasso the Moon” – and on and on.

Now write the story.