An Interview with Suz Korb

Suz Korb won the first flash fiction contest hosted at Short Story and Flash Fiction Society on September 19th, 2014. She is the author of 19 novels, short stories, and collections. You can find more of her writing or buy her books on Amazon!

1. How did you start writing short stories?
After I had written my first 3 novels I wrote my first short story for an anthology I put together. When my short story from that anthology was published on its own it was very well received and so I wrote a sequel. From there I wrote more short stories and have been doing so, between novel writing, ever since.

2. You clearly love writing dark comedy. Would you consider writing drama too, or do you think there is drama hiding underneath dark comedy anyway?

Great question! There is definitely darkness underlying my comedy. I love laughs, but when story telling the adventure always leads to dark emotions and struggles.

3. Do you create your characters based on:
a) People you know
b) Yourself
c) Imagination
d) All the above

My imagination, which stems from my experiences.

4. Which of your short stories was the most challenging to write and which was the most pleasant to write and why?

The Girl With Three Heads was the most challenging because it was the first short story I’d written. At the time it was tricky for me to squash down novel length prose into short fiction. I did short story assignments which improved my work so that I was soon able to create stories with a beginning, middle and an end, in less than 50 words! My shortest story ever is published on the Boston Literary Magazine website.

The most pleasant story I wrote was Dumped. I had fun writing that and made myself laugh. HAHA. <– See 😉

5. Do you let characters, or plot decide the development of your short story?

Characters! If any of my plots don’t stem from character experience and personality, then it’s a superficial experience for readers. If you want to SEE plot that happens, watch a film. If you want to share in what a character is feeling and experiencing, read one of my stories! 🙂

Thank you, Suz, for your great story! Congratulations again, and we’re happy to feature your interview here on the site. You can read more of Suz’s work on her blog.

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