Hello! My name is Courtney Clute, and I am one of ten 2023 Creative Pinellas Professional Artist Grantees. I am honored to be a grant recipient.
About My Art
I am a writer based out of St. Petersburg, and I primarily write flash fiction. What is flash fiction? Well, I’ll be getting to that in my next blog post, so stay tuned! But for now, I’ll define flash fiction as a very short story.
As for my publications of flash fiction, I have a chapbook (a small collection) of flash fiction called The Fermi Paradox available from Alien Buddha Press. I also have individual flash fiction pieces published in various online and print literary journals. Links to some of my individual publications can be found on my website here. I most recently had two flash fiction pieces published in the literary magazine Bullshit Lit titled “Mosquito” and “What They Left in Their Apartment.”
I like to write weird stories, as evidenced in my piece “Mosquito” which is written from the perspective of a–you guessed it!– mosquito. Sometimes they have a speculative, surrealist element to them, and sometimes they’re pretty realistic; however, in all of them, I like to explore people with weird tendencies, or people who may not normally be written about.
Community Involvement
I thrive by engaging with the community, whether this be the broader (national, international) flash fiction/writing community or the local writing scene. One of the ways I do this is I run a local reading series called Read Herring. It takes place every third Wednesday of the month, and we host three local authors and play interactive games with the audience. I am also a reader for the online flash fiction magazine Fractured Literary, where I read submissions and help make editorial decisions.
I also like to participate in writing workshops (virtual and in-person). Workshops are a great way to meet other writers, get the creative juices flowing, and produce work with the aid of a workshop leader. I try to attend about 3-5 a year. I also attend local literary readings and events, like author readings and book launches.
What’s Next?
I’m currently working on putting together a book-length collection of flash fiction. The collection will be at least 100 pages and have ~25-30 pieces. In order to compile this collection, I am writing individual flash fiction pieces and sending them out for publication. I will spend most of the grant period writing this collection–right now I have about 17 pieces. I have one weekend workshop planned, and I will be attending a flash fiction writing retreat in Colorado in August. At this workshop and retreat, I will work on writing and revising my individual pieces.
