The best of Brevity Twenty groundbreaking years of flash nonfiction

Review by Booklist Review

Since its founding in 1997, Brevity literary magazine has made the flash nonfiction genre accessible for fans, writers, and educators. With timely evolution, Brevity showed readers the power of concision. This book presents the best 84 of their published pieces. One indelible essay is a compiled list of attacks against transgender murder victims. Another is the account of one twin giving his disabled twin brother a shower. There's a 2013 essay from Jia Tolentino about her experience teaching grade school in Kyrgystan, and a 2011 Roxane Gay essay about family, trauma, and physical distance. These micro essays explore a diversity of perspectives: one examines a teenager's understanding of her Navajo heritage. Another cracks open the power of voice and silence for a Somali immigrant. A third is a mock resume from a Black professional outlining the credentials of her "success" wearing a natural hairstyle in the predominantly white workplace. Every essay proves that length is no indicator of depth, and that, over twenty years in, Brevity is relevant and necessary.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this marvelous, diverse anthology, Brevity editors Moore and Bossiere collect the literary journal's best nonfiction pieces, none longer than 750 words. Readers will find some familiar names, including Roxane Gay and Jia Tolentino, but also gems from lesser-known writers. They include poets such as Diane Seuss, whose entry comprises a single run-on sentence capturing a parent's fury and fatigue while dealing with a child's drug addiction, and Lori Jakiela, who recalls a conversation in which her terminally ill mother argued with her about the fate of Lori's soul while teaching her to make a nut-roll. Elsewhere, book reviewer Julie Hakim Azzam writes poignantly of Palestine as "a phantom limb that continues to send pain signals through the nerves." Among the fiction writers, Patricia Park reflects on Americans' and North and South Koreans' differing beauty standards, and Torrey Peters crafts a powerful found essay out of violent details from a 2014 report on transgender murder victims. Closing out the book, Bossiere and Moore include a list of additional recommended reading. This collection will be an asset to writing teachers and students, and a joy to essay fans. (Nov.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Moore founded Brevity, an online magazine dedicated to flash nonfiction of 750 words or fewer, in 1997. After 20 successful years publishing groundbreaking work by both established (Brian Doyle, Roxane Gay) and new writers, Moore (Crafting the Personal Essay) and Zoë Bossiere (essayist, managing editor, Brevity) have selected 84 of 800 submitted essays to represent the best of Brevity. In these pieces, every word counts, and the variety of voice, subject, and technique is astonishing. There is Sonya Huber's "The Lunch Lady and Her Three-Headed Dog" in which a woman comes to terms with her jiggly arms. A daughter copes with her mother's memory loss in Rebecca McClanahan's sweetly sad "The Birthday Place." And Robert Root's gasp-worthy "Place" is about finding yourself by losing yourself. The collection includes an alternate table of contents and resources for teachers keyed to The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction. VERDICT There is something for everybody here, and since the writings are short, it is a perfect companion for moments of waiting. Because all of Brevity's essays, and some additional resources, are free online, the anthology makes a useful tool for both teaching flash nonfiction and learning how to write it.--Stefanie Hollmichel, Univ. of St. Thomas Law Lib., Minneapolis

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