Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Friday, 3 October 2025

“Flash Fusion” (Dahlia Press, 2024)

Flash and interviews involving 24 South Asian writers, most of them supplying 3 pieces. All the stories have been previously published – in Craft, Smokelong Quarterly, Flash Boulevard, Wigleaf, etc. Consequently there are many good stories.

There's much variety too. Here's the start of "Acorns of memories" by Shome Dasgupta - "A bitten moon looked over him as he licked acorns in search of his sister. There was dew and the palate of dirt with each lick brought a memory, each lick so painful, so wonderful, so magical, every acorn that touched his tongue became of pebbles as if planted in a riverbed before history existed". In contrast, some of the other pieces look like scaled down short stories with a predictably happy ending.

The Q&A sections are sometimes revealing. For example Sumitra Singham writes "If I'm struggling with a title, then I know I haven't understood the core of the story".

My favourite writer is Anita Goveas.

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