LYNNE BARRETT

Photo by J. Tomás López

Writer, Editor, Teacher

Books

Just Published!

MAKING GOOD TIME: TRUE STORIES ABOUT HOW WE DO, AND DON'T GET AROUND IN SOUTH FLORIDA, edited and with an introduction by Lynne Barrett, published by Jai-Alai Books, launched on Sept. 21, 2019 at Books and Books in Coral Gables, FL, 7 PM, with many of the 32 stellar authors who've contributed new nonfiction about the adventures and misadventures of moving around on our (crazy) South Florida map. Signed copies available via Books & Books.

Now in its second printing:

What Editors Want: A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines covers the steps in the submission process and how to handle them...and stay as sane as a writer can.

Please use this link to order from the publisher Rain Chain Press. and save on shipping. Discounts available for those ordering multiple copies, as many writers' groups have done.

Praise for What Editors Want:

"Chock full of incredible insights. Every writer shold read this to make the most of their lit mag submissions."
—Becky Tuch, Editor, The Review Review

Magpies

My third short story collection, MAGPIES, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press, received the Gold Medal for General Fiction in the Florida Book Awards.

Selected by the Center for Literature and Writing at Miami Dade College for their Current Voices In Literature Program.

Publishers Weekly says of Magpies: "Barrett portrays adult lives with minimal flourishes and a powerful command of setting. Florida is electric with the tension of "all that can happen"—hurricanes, sinkholes, and a boom-and-bust history. It becomes as eerie as it is richly imagined, whether stories take place in an Art Deco building or a gas station. One of the year's finer university press offerings..."

In The Rumpus, Joseph Olshan writes: "Sentence for sentence, Barrett is a superb writer. Her work brims with original ideas, questions and philosophical musings, the product of a probing intelligence and a highly literate sensibility. But what separates her from many contemporary short fiction writers is her consummate story-telling ability."

For more reviews and information about the book, please go to the Magpies page.

To see some of the independent bookstores where readers have found or ordered Magpies, check out the Publications Page.

If you would like a signed copy of Magpies or Making Good Time, they are available from Miami's great independent bookseller Books & Books, 305-442-4408.

Signing at the IWWG booth at AWP.

Around the web

I'm among the writers discussing their habits, tastes, and distastes for Monica Uszerowicz's feature in Bon Appétit: "Nine Authors on What They Eat While Writing."

and around town

You can hear me reading my poem "Polylingual" at the start of this short slideshow about the WLRN and O Miami Poetry Festival "That's So Miami" project. Just follow this link and scroll down.

To see some of the independent bookstores where readers have found or ordered Magpies, check out the Publications Page.

If you would like a signed copy, they are available from Miami's great independent bookseller Books & Books, 305-442-4408.

Women of Florida Fiction

Women of Florida Fiction, Essays on 12 Sunshine State Writers, edited by Tammy Powley and April Van Camp, is available from McFarland. "Florida as symbol and myth is the subject of this collection of new critical essays exploring fiction written by female Floridian authors."

Scholar Claudia Slate contributes a chapter on the stories in Magpies, and the book’s final section includes interviews with Florida authors Lynne Barrett, Jeannine Capó Cruz, Vicki Hendricks, and Angela Hunt.

At the 2015 Florida College English Association conference in St. Petersburg, Vicki Hendricks and I spoke about what it's like to write in and about Florida at a plenary session and a panel of critics and teachers discussed Magpies. The conference theme was "Turn Back the Page: Discovering Florida's History through Texts"

More journals and anthologies

Just to Watch Them Die: Crime Stories Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash, from Gutter Books, includes my short story, "A Boy Named Zoé."

Just to Watch Them Die was a 2018 finalist for the Anthony Award for Best Anthology.

S.W. Lauden interviewed several of the contributors to this anthology, including Lynne, about their connections to the music of Johnny Cash and his influence on their crime stories.

Two of my flash fiction pieces, "Distance" and "Little Red Returns," are included in John Dufresne's Flash! Writing the Very Short Story, published by Norton, which offers a great array of flash writing along with lots of exercises and prompts to try.

Florida Flash:

As editor of Tigertail, A South Florida Annual: Florida Flash, I looked for very short prose works to explore the edges and overlaps between lyrical and narrative approaches. Fifty-four authors with connections to Florida contributed prose poetry, flash fiction, and flash nonfiction of no more than 305 words—a number representing the original South Florida area code.

More about the collection, and the radio contest it inspired, on the Anthologies page.

To learn about more of my work you can find online or in print, please go to the pages for my books, stories, creative nonfiction, poems, and other projects, all under the Publications menu.

The latest...

Illustrator: Anuj Shrestha / Topos Graphics / Publisher Jai Alai Books

On the radio! WLRN Public Media's Chris Remington interviewed me for Sundial, talking about MAKING GOOD TIME: True Stories of How We Do, And Don't, Get Around in South Florida, and the funny, sad, frightening, and thrilling stories told by its 32 contributors.

Around town: MAKING GOOD TIME: True Stories of How We Do, and Don't, Get Around in South Florida, edited and with an intruction by Lynne Barrett, published by Jai-Alai Books, launched in at Books and Books Coral Gables with more than twenty of the presenters giving short (drive-by) glimpsed of their work. And we had a great session at Miami Book Fair featuring Terence Cantarella, Jennine Capó Crucet, Sammy Mack, Alex Segura, and Lynne Barrett, with other stellar contribuors on hand for the conversation and signing books afterwards. with ou can order the book from the press or at any Books and Books branch. (Follow the link to Books and Books event info here.)

Great News: Making Good Time was the cover story in the November issue of the Biscayne Times, which includes an excerpt from my introduction, and nonfiction stories by Madeleine Blais, Terence Cantarella, Lauren Doyle Owens, Alex Segura, and a collaborative essay by Denise Duhamel and Julie Marie Wade.

The Biscayne Times is distributed to many homes in NE Miami-Dade from Brickell up to the Broward line, including the islands, and copies can be picked up (while they last) at many local businesses, but wherever you are you can also check out the cover feature online. Sneak peek at the feature's first page & start of my introduction, below:

Cover image, Biscayne Times, Vo. 17, Issue 9, November 2019.

Image: courtesy of The Biscayne Times, Nov. 2019. Spread photo by Silvia Rios.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Just Announced:

Madeleine Blais, Richard Blanco, Anjanette Delgado, Les Standiford, and Norma Watkins will be on hand to read from their essays in Making Good Time: True Stories of How We Do, and Don't, Get Around in South Florida, with editor Lynne Barrett on hand as emcee.

March 1, 2020 at 4 P.M. at Books and Books in the Suniland Shopping Center, Pinecrest, FL.

March 13 & 14, 2020, I will be at the Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers annual conference in Fairhope, AL.

I'm the current president of this regional organization for writers, students, teachers, editors and publishers in or interested in the Gulf states region, which I've been part of since the late 1990s. Registration is now open. Learn more.

April 3-5, 2020, I am happy to say that I will be among those presenting at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace conference in Boston, MA. The schedule and information about all of the presenters is now online. Registration is open for both sessions and appointments with agents and editors.

April 27, 2020 is National Independent Bookstores Day and that evening Making Good Time will be part of the festivities at Books and Books in Coral Gables. More information coming soon...

I'll be teaching a limited-enrollment manuscript-based advanced fiction workshop at the International Women's Writing Guild summer conference, July 24-30, 2020, at Misselwood at Endicott College in Beverly, MA (on the water). I'll also be talking about What Editors Want as part of the business of writing series of presentations at the conference. Registration is now open.

Mark your calendars:
The Sanibel Island Writers Conference will be November 5-8, 2020, at the newly-rebuilt Big Arts Centre, Sanibel, FL. I'll be among the presenters on hand.

...short stories, nonfiction, & more

NEWS: I am honored and delighted that my essay "Scar Tissue" has been nominated for by The Hong Kong Review for the The Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses Series 2019. I'm grateful to Anjanette Delgado, the guest editor of the magazine's third issue, who offered me her wonderful insights and ideas for this essay. You can see the list nominees and read short excerpts from the nominated work at the magazine website.

Learn more about this journal, which aims to bring together "literary voices from all over the world."

Other upcoming publications:

My memoir piece "First Kiss" will be published in Grabbed: Poets and Writers Respond to Sexual Assault, edited by Alisa Albo, Richard Blanco, Caridad Moro, and Nikki Moustaki, forthcoming from Beacon Press with an introduction by Joyce Maynard and an afterward by Anita Hill, later in 2020.

My short story "To Go" will be included in Akashic's Miami Noir the Classics, edited by Les Standiford, to be published in Fall 2020. My story was first published in the 1990s, and was produced as a staged production by the Shee Theatre company in the early 2000s in California.

I was among the authors interviewed by Nancy Stetson in Florida Weekly about our favorite punctuation marks, for National Punctuation Day, September 24, 2019. Which was mine? Take a look...

My short story "Marble" was published in Mystery Tribune, (available in both print and digital form, as are subscriptions) features South Florida penthouses, dive motels, and murder...

... and I'm honored to announce that "Marble" made the list of the year's "Other Distinguished Mystery Stories" in Best American Mysteries 2018. Series editor Otto Penzler's foreword describes the process of reading more than three thousand published stories in print journals, e-zines, and anthologies to cull from 3000-plus short stories, which shows both how strong the interest in short crime fiction is today, and how tough the competition.

My flash essay "Window Vent" is up at River Teeth as part of their Beautiful Things series.

Issue #13 of New Flash Fiction Review includes my very short story "Accordion."

My short story "Texaco on Biscayne," which appears in Magpies, was selected for inclusion in Florida International University's new Lit 1000 textbook: The FIU Introduction to Literature, a collaboration with W.W. Norton and Company that includes some works with a South Florida setting. The book's launch was celebrated at the Green Library on FIU's MMC Campus, with a book cover image-frosted cake. More details here.

2020 Events (so far)

Writers workshop: On Feb. 8, 2020 from 10 AM to 1 PM, at Books and Books in Coral Gables, I taught a Miami Book Fair year-round workshop: Making Good Time and the Map of Opportunity, using the concepts that went into Making Good Time to help a group of 15 writers learn to use territory, place, boundary crossing, and other concepts where spatial movement helps to construct and shape stories, fictional and nonfictional, to get going on new projects or get a handle on ongoing ones.

2019 Event Highlights

On Sunday, Nov. 24, at 11 AM, I had the pleasure of leading a Miami Book Fair session focusing on Making Good Time: True Stories of How We Do, and Don't, Get Around in South Florida, featuring contributors Terence Cantarella, Jennine Capó Crucet, Sammy Mack, and Alex Segura, with other contributors on hand for the conversation and book signing.

As part of the Florida Gulf Coast University OFF THE ISLAND mini-conference, I taught a workshop for students and did a reading along with M.J. Fievre at FGCU's campus in Fort Myers.

Oct. 16: 6 PM: Making Good Time Panel at the Mandel Public Library of West Palm Beach, 411 Clematis St. Featuring editor Lynne Barrett and contributing authors Lauren Doyle Owens, Thomas Swick, and Monica Uszerowiz, were on hand to read from their work and discuss the issues it raises, with a lively audience. We also distributed inforomation about the Miami Book Fair, including details on getting there by train Palm Beach and Broward Counties.

Oct 1: 6:30 PM MGT First Draft: A Literary Social, Books & Books @ The Arsht. Miami Book Fair presented Lynne Barrett leading a Making Good Time-themed session of guided writing prompts and conviviality.

Making Good Time: True Stories of How We Do, and Don't, Get Around in South Florida launched on Sept. 21, 2019 at Books and Books Coral Gables. 19 of the 32 contributors read from their work for one minute each, so that the large and receptivie audience got a quick tour of the range of voices, places, and experiences in the book. You can order the book via any Books and Books branch. (Follow the link to Books and Books event info here.)

Lynne Barrett reading at Soya y Pomodoro, Miami.

On August 28th, I spoke at Soya y Pomodoro in their historic downtown Miami building, sharing some of the ways Miami gets my stories going, for To Write Miami, the great series organized by Anjanette Delgado and the Museum of Art and Design at MDC.

For more info. about the series, the venue, and Lynne, check out this great piece by J.J. Colagrande at The Jitney, "To Write Miami and Lynne Barrett Coming to Downtown for Best Literary Series in Miami."

At the International Womens Writing Guild's 42nd annual summer conference, held at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, July 12-19, I taught an advanced fiction workshop, "A Path Through the Labyrinth," which was limited to ten, and filled with a great group of fiction writers. The overall conference theme was Writing the Body: Voice, Art, and Craft in a Changing World, and it offered workshops, critique sessions, readings by participants, and more. The organization holds some regional one-day workshops in addition to the summer conference, and offers online webinars and other resources to members. More on the IWWG here.

I presented two craft classes on plot and structure ("Disentangling Time" and "Crossing Paths: The Map of Opportunity in Story") at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace Conference in Boston, April 5-7th, 2019. The Writer magazine says the Muse is the "#1 Writers' Conference in America." I will be presenting there again in 2020.

Photo by Sara DiVello from Muse & the Marketplace. Photos at literary events often include the backs of heads. LB

Noir at the Bar readers at Miami Book Fair International. L to R: Lynne Barrett, Lauren Doyle Owens, Alex Segura, Mike Creeden, Jon McGoran , Joe Clifford, and Hector Duarte, Jr. Photo by Melissa Messulam

I was part of Miami Book Fair's Noir at the Bar reading on November 15, 2018. Our emcee Alex Segura, Joe Clifford, Mike Creeden, Hector Duarte Jr., Jon McGoran, and Lauren Doyle Owens and I served up slices of crime fictionand Gold Dust Lounge provided live noir lounge music, at MBFI's The Porch at Miami-Dade College's Wolfson Campus in Downtown Miami.

I also ran The Florida Book Review's annual Book Fair blog, which takes you to many of the readings and panels as well as giving a sense of the amazing street fair. Check it out here.

To see other recent events and to get more details about upcoming book group meetings, workshops, and conferences, please go to the Events page.

"Dancing in the Dark" appears in Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen. (Part of the proceeds benefit the Bob Woodruff Foundation.) Trouble in the Heartland was a finalist for the Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection. Read more about the project from editor Joe Clifford. (Cover by Chuck Regan of Zelmer Pulp.)

"Morning Glories" is in Fifteen Views of Miami, a collection of lightly linked stories edited by Jaquira Diaz and published by Burrow Press.

Connie Ogle discusses the collection and interviews the editor and some of the contributors in a great piece in the Miami Herald. And Tina Egnoski reviews it for the Florida Book Review.

Miami New Times has named Fifteen Views of Miami to its list of "The Seven Best Books About Miami."

"Millinery," a memoir piece about my first landlady, storytelling, and hats as essential clues to character, is in the Southern Women's Review.

The issue (which has a needlework theme) can be downloaded as a pdf.

"The Tree Man" was published in Wraparound South. Read it here.

A brief excerpt from the story was used as the text for a broadsheet Pip Brandt and I did for the Sweat Broadsheet project. You can see the broadsheet on the Stories, Essays, Poems, page

The Editors of Wraparound South nominated "The Tree Man" for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net anthology, the Million Writers Prize, and for a Pushcart Prize.

Illustration for "Mary Anne's Tan," Fort Lauderdale Magazine

"Mary Anne's Tan" was featured in Fort Lauderdale Magazine. Read the story online here.

Teaching

I teach in the Creative Writing program in FIU's English Dept, and often speak at writers' conferences around the country. I'm immensely proud of my students, and you can read about some of their many achievements on my Teaching Page.

I was honored to be chosen as a Florida International University Top Scholar in 2012, and to be featured in a full-page ad for the university in the Miami Herald.

In 2011 I received an FIU Award for Excellence in Graduate Mentorship, and I previously received the FIU Award for Excellence in Research. In addition, I have received an award for Service from FIU's College of Arts, Sciences, and Education (CASE) and one for Teaching from the Department of English.

With FIU President Mark Rosenberg, 2012 Top Scholars Reception, April 2012.