Katie Cortese's Girl Power Masters the Flash Fiction Form
by Colleen Kolba
An embarrassed girl disappears into a black hole at a high school dance; an orange attacks humans; a drug promises treatment for “involuntary celibacy.” This is just a tiny sampling of the captivating short short’s that make up Katie Cortese’s new collection, Girl Power (ELJ Editions, 154 pp, $20.99, September 2015). Divided into three parts “Maidenhood,” “Motherhood,” and “Matronhood”, Cortese’s collection chronicles the diverse experiences of women. The headings of the three parts eschew expectations for what these stages in a woman’s life can mean. In “Maindenhood,” there’s a strong thematic thread of death, disappearance, and absence, defining “coming-of-age” as something that can happen at any time, as well as happen more than once in a person’s life. Similarly, “Matronhood” shows the way new life can be found as a woman ages. She dips in and out of realist and surrealist writing, and each story captures one brief moment of lasting impact. All of the short-shorts in Cortese’s collection are told from the point of view of women, inviting voices that are often ignored or discounted to tell their stories.
Girl Power is reminiscent of Naomi Shihab Nye’s There is No Long Distance Now in each short-short’s brevity and power. Both collections use many small moments as microcosms for the larger human experience. Each of Cortese’s stories is a page or two, which means she asks the reader to move on to a new character and a new place, creating an interesting overlap as one character lingers in the reader’s mind as the next is introduced. Cortese effortlessly reflects the way women have unique lives and personalities, but can still share and appreciate the experiences of other women as a collective story. Girl Power is a triumph of the short-short form, and Cortese’s collection proves that an abundance of voices can unite as one story.
Girl Power is reminiscent of Naomi Shihab Nye’s There is No Long Distance Now in each short-short’s brevity and power. Both collections use many small moments as microcosms for the larger human experience. Each of Cortese’s stories is a page or two, which means she asks the reader to move on to a new character and a new place, creating an interesting overlap as one character lingers in the reader’s mind as the next is introduced. Cortese effortlessly reflects the way women have unique lives and personalities, but can still share and appreciate the experiences of other women as a collective story. Girl Power is a triumph of the short-short form, and Cortese’s collection proves that an abundance of voices can unite as one story.
