Scott Garson - Five Flash Fictions:
What impressed me the most was how Scott gave
you five flash fictions that were all great, but also were all written in
completely different styles. A straightforward narrative, one involving the
narrator looking up words to move the story forward, one broken into sections,
one almost a word association effort and then one with the majority of the
story being in dialogue.
Do you find yourself looking for variety
between pieces when you are considering accepting multiple efforts from a
single writer?
David McLendon:
That’s a good point, Dan. I am very impressed
with Garson’s ability to create a variety of strong and lasting voices within
the small frames he allows himself. That said, I look less for a variety of
style than a consistent way of seeing. While his pieces are stylistically
opposed, the heart of each is built from a kind of myopic contraction that only
Garson possesses. His way of seeing the world is what carries all of his work.
There is a strangeness to Garson’s pages that seems drawn from his ability to
express through language the peripheries of the world in a clear-sighted
manner. Every little thing matters, especially those things that are commonly
overlooked. I imagine that when Garson walks down the street his eyes are
always straying from the accessible path that was laid for the good tax-paying
citizens. His seeing is inclined to focus on the stuff winged into a ditch or
gutter, and those parts inside people that most people try to hide. His greater
gift is placing his way of seeing into language. No matter the stylistic
variety, his keenly off-kilter way of seeing always comes across.
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