Panel: Flash Fiction — How to Create More with Less

Learn how to write compelling stories in 1,000 words or less. This panel explores the craft of flash fiction, including what to include, what to leave out and how the form differs from traditional short stories. Moderated by Lenore Weiss, the discussion features Sabina Khan-Ibarra, Swetha Amit and Jesus Francisco Sierra, who will share techniques, insights and approaches to writing flash. Curated by Nina Schuyler.

Lenore Weiss lives in Oakland, California and is a member of The Writers Grotto. She serves as the Associate Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Editor for Mud Season Review. Lenore recently won the Magpie Magazine Clark Closser Memorial Literature Award in Nonfiction. Her environmental novel Pulp into Paper and poetry collection, Video Game Pointers were both published in 2024. Alexandria Quarterly Press published her prize-winning flash fiction chapbook, Holding on to the Fringes of Love in 2018. Prior poetry collections form a trilogy about love, loss, and being mortal. 

Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a Pashtun American writer based in Northern California. She holds an MFA from SFSU and is a fellow of the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and VONA. Her work has appeared in Anomaly Literary, SWWIM, Rising Phoenix and iO Literary Journal. She was shortlisted for the SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction and has received recognition from CRAFT and other journals. She teaches creative writing at The Writers Grotto, Litquake, and San Diego Writers, Ink, and serves as Director of Rooted & Written, a tuition-free conference and fellowship for BIPOC writers.

Swetha Amit earned her MFA from the University of San Francisco and is an active member of the Writers Grotto, where she chairs the Literary Salon series. She has authored a memoir and three chapbooks. Her stories have appeared in Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, McNeese Boudin, Gone Lawn and others. Her works have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fiction. A Rooted and Written fellow in 2024, and Vona fellow in 2025, 

Jesus Francisco Sierra is a Cuban writer who immigrated to San Francisco and grew up in San Francisco’s Mission District. His work has appeared in Zyzzyva, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Common, Alta, Gulf Stream Literary Journal, Solstice Literary Magazine, The Caribbean Writer and The Acentos Review, among others. His short story collection At Times of Loss and Other Cuban Stories was a finalist for the 2023 Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize and also in the Eastover Press 2025 Debut Collection contest. He is the recipient of the 2025 San Francisco Literary Foundation’s award for Fiction and also in 2025 was awarded first place for commentary by the San Francisco Press Club for his essay “A Brief Spanish History of San Francisco”.

This program is part of Grotto Nights at the Library, a reading series presented in partnership with the Writers Grotto that features conversations with local authors across genres.

The Writers Grotto is a community of working writers and narrative artists who connect in physical and virtual space, pooling their talents to support each other, mentor and teach others, and engage the wider world. The Grotto fosters a literary culture that is generous in spirit and deeply inclusive, elevating writers of all backgrounds. 

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