Nothing to Declare: A Guide to the Flash Sequence
EDITORS
Robert Alexander, Eric Braun, and Debra Marquart
A ground-breaking anthology of cross-genre work with a unique focus—the flash sequence, defined as an “accumulation of two or more prose pieces, with each segment not to exceed 500 words”—Nothing to Declare brings together over fifty of America’s most compelling writers with their own vision of the flash sequence, including linked prose poems, narrative sequences, lyrical essays, koans, fairy tales, and epistolary addresses.
Reviews
Nothing to Declare is a rich tapestry of voices from some of the best contemporary writers who have chosen to both create and champion ‘hybrid forms.’ Within these prose poems, lyric essays, flash fictions, and other close, elbow-rubbing cousins, so much is explored, transformed, contemplated, revealed and, most important, accomplished—linguistic eloquence, bold narratives, unbounded energy, compelling and often odd characters traversing equally compelling and often odd landscapes. A heartfelt thanks to Mr. Alexander, Mr. Braun, and Ms. Marquart for envisioning and delivering Nothing to Declare.
— Mary A. Koncel, author of You Can Tell the Horse Anything
Looks like we have us a brave new narrative genre on our hands, the flash sequence, and if Nothing to Declare is any indication, the genre is both protean and bountiful. These innovative and fearless narratives combine the art of the glimpse with the craft of the gaze. They are what Virginia Woolf would have called little miraculous illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. Buy this book, savor it. You’ll be tempted to read it straight through, but you’ll also want to stop after each piece and consider what just shook you and rattled your mind. A reader’s happiest dilemma.
— John Dufresne, author of I Don’t Like Where This Is Going
Nothing to Declare: A Guide to the Flash Sequence reads like the world of our dreams, except we don’t want to awaken from these imaginings: so unexpected, so revelatory, such exquisite prose (and poetry). These ‘sequences,’ as the editors choose to call them, may be undefinable, but they are certainly not indescribable. I describe them as hypnotic, startling, and alive.
— Dinty W. Moore, author of Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals
An important addition to the burgeoning exploration of brief prose and flash fiction. The editors, in Nothing to Declare, have gathered an abundance of rich, fragmented, carefully crafted moments that carry import on their own, but woven together create a new kind of fervent energy.
— Tara L. Masih, editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction
A Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University, Debra Marquart teaches in ISU’s interdisciplinary MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment. Marquart served as the Poet Laureate of the State of Iowa from 2019 to 2024. She also teaches in the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.
Marquart is the Senior Editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment. A memoirist, poet, and performing musician, Marquart is the author of eight books including an environmental memoir of place, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere and a collection of poems, Small Buried Things: Poems.
Marquart’s short story collection, The Hunger Bone: Rock & Roll Stories drew on her experiences as a former road musician. A singer/songwriter, she continues to perform solo and with her jazz-poetry performance project, The Bone People, with whom she has recorded two CDs.
Marquart’s work has been featured on NPR and the BBC and has received over 50 grants and awards including an NEA Fellowship, a PEN USA Creative Nonfiction Award, a New York Times Editors’ Choice commendation, and Elle Magazine’s Elle Lettres Award. In 2021, Marquart was awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Marquart’s most recent books are The Night We Landed on the Moon: Essays Between Exile & Belonging (2021) and Gratitude with Dogs Under Stars: New & Collected Poems (2023).
Robert Alexander (1949 - 2023) received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, and worked for many years as a freelance editor. From 1993 to 2001, he was a contributing editor at New Rivers Press, serving for the final two years as New Rivers’ creative director. Alexander is the founding editor of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series at White Pine Press. He authored several collections of prose poetry and two historical books.