A while ago Patti Abbott and Steve Weddle had a flash fiction challenge looking for stories inspired by the website, People Of Wal-Mart.
There was some worry that maybe we'd be making fun of the people featured on the website but when the stories were posted - about forty of them - and as I travelled around the web that day I was very pleased (and should not have been surprised) to read the terrific stories.
The big discount store (at least one of the stories takes place somewhere in the UK and it isn't the same chain) is just used as a symbol, I guess the way the real Wal-Mart has become a symbol for a lot of things these days.
And now all of the flash fictions have been collected (and edited by Patti and Steve) and will be published on October 22nd by Untreed Reads as an e-book for $4.49, available here.
It'll also be available from Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Chapters-Indigo, iBook, Smashwords and more. So far I really like what I've seen from Untreed Reads.
I also really like the idea of this collection. In this case the flash fictions really do fit together. It may have been one of those moments of serendipity, the ideal things to link the stories at the ideal time but I hope to see more like this.
And this kind of collection seems like ideal material for an e-book.
I have a feeling this is just tip of the iceberg stuff, that e-books and online distribution will have a greater effect on content as things progress.
What do you think?
