Flash Fiction as Superpower:
A Marginalized Voice Finds Freedom with

Riham Adly

OPEN MIC Featured Author

Thursday, August 25, 2022

7-8:30 p.m. EST

FROM OUR PRODUCER & HOST
KELLY DUMAR

(she/her) Boston based poet, playwright, daily blogger, and leader of creative writing organizations—in person and online—for 30 years. Kelly's philosophy about teaching and coaching is simple: Your stories are not only meaningful, they are beautiful, and they deserve to be written, crafted and shared.

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Writing flash fiction, Riham Adly says, offers the possibility of showcasing an entire lifetime in moments. Riham has won awards and many publications for her flash. It’s a form that she believes offers the most accessibility to delivering emotions. “It’s a cross between the traditional short story and the poem, enjoying great flexibility and concision— however contradictory that might seem—that allows the writer to save time while still capitalizing on quality and depth of content.”

We look forward to featuring Riham reading from her newly published collection of flash, Love is Make-Believe, this Thursday night, August 25, 2022, at 7:00 p.m. EST, as well as a Q&A, followed by our monthly OPEN MIC. It will actually be Wednesday morning for Riham, who will be joining us from Egypt.

Writing flash fiction in English while living in Egypt is the way Riham has found freedom from feeling helpless and victimized in a culture that marginalizes women’s voices. Love is Make-Believe, she says, “is a testament of pain and injustice that either I personally went through and that of my ancestors and contemporary sisters. It is the book of my marginalized voice.”

Indeed, in a review by Idle Ink, Love is Make-Believe is described as a powerful offering “with refreshingly strong female characters who demonstrate that it is possible to push against the restraints which have been placed upon them. Female readers will be galvanized, male readers will be awakened.”

Riham says that writing flash has allowed her to transcend the limits of a religious culture that tries to silence women. “I’ve learned a long time ago that in my culture, the more a woman speaks, the less she’s heard. Economy is key. Through this form I’ve discovered how to self-express concisely without resorting to the drama or flourish-y add on other forms have room to entertain.” In fact, writing flash, Riham says, is how she found her superpower—“Wasn’t writing, speaking up, and getting those stories out a kind of a superpower? It took me a while to realize that I wasn’t helpless.”

On Thursday night, Riham will read her flash fiction, and I will have the chance to ask her some questions about her writing and her process in publishing Love is Make-Believe. Riham also teaches workshops in writing flash, so I’ll ask her about that too.

We know her as Riham, but her writer friends in Egypt know her by another name. “My writer friends call me Rose, friends I got to know through winning the MAKAN AWARD, a local writing contest in Egypt. Roses are a symbol of love, and sensuality, but also a reminder of change. A bud blooms beautifully, only to lose its petals and shrivel into the earth. Its scent meanders through memory like the sweet surmise of a soliloquy spoken in the darkest of silences.”

We look forward to hearing Riham share her flash fiction with us as she breaks the darkness of silence.

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See you then!
Kelly

All OPEN MIC events are FREE to attend and OPEN TO ALL, but you do need to register through Eventbrite here.

The Journal of Expressive Writing OPEN MIC is produced and hosted by Kelly DuMar.

Read about our upcoming featured authors on our OPEN MIC page.

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About the Editor:
Jennifer A. Minotti (she/her) is a Writer-in-Residence at the Center for Women's Health and Human Rights at Suffolk University. For the past 25 years, she has dedicated her professional life toward working for the betterment of society. For 17 years, Jen worked at Education Development Center (EDC)—a global non-profit working to improve education, health, and economic opportunities worldwide—in a variety of technology, research, writing, and leadership roles.