The Official Bio:
Gay Degani has been lucky enough to receive honors for her work both in short and long fiction, including winning the 11th Glass Woman Prize, winner of a Women on Writing Winter Competition, finalist for the Bosque Fiction Prize, as well as Pushcart and Best Small Fictions nominations. She’s published a full-length short story collection, Rattle of Want, (Pure Slush Press, 2015) and a suspense novel, What Came Before * (Truth Serum Press, 2016). An eight-story chapbook, Pomegranate Stories (Prometheus’ Forge) came out in 2010.
Between You and Me:
My story “Collision” placed second in the Atlantic Monthly Writing Contest for High School Students when I was a senior. The irony was the student editor didn’t want it in the school publication, Analecta. Thank goodness the creative-writing teacher, Mrs. Hawkins, believed in the story!
I followed this surprising honor with a twenty-five-year or so hiatus from the typewriter, turning my attention to college, career, and family. There were starts and stutters over the years. I published only one story, “Hawaiian Hairdo” in Thema. I began again when my kids grew up, working on a novel and writing six screenplays. I finally published a 1000-word piece in 2007, “One Question,” at Every Day Fiction, my very first flash online. Thank goodness for EDF. Camille Gooderham Campbell helped me gain confidence by publishing several pieces and becoming a staunch supporter of my work. At her request, I put together Flash Fiction Chronicles, an online craft ezine which can now be found in abbreviated form on Facebook.
I also had the honor of working at Smokelong Quarterly as art director and reader for a couple of years, an experience I owe to the generosity of Tara Laskowski who published my story “Complicit” and to both Randall Brown and Kathy Fish who I met through Zoetrope and who helped me learn how to write better flash. What’s that old saying, we stand on the shoulders of those who guide us? They are my giant triad and I will be ever grateful.
You can find these titles by Gay Degani on Amazon.com.
- What Came Before, “What Came Before is a remarkable achievement – a smart, fast-paced mystery that asks important questions about identity, family, and race.” — Clifford Garstang, winner of the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Fiction for “What the Zhang Boys Know”
- Rattle of Want, “Award-winning author, Gay Degani, kills it again with this new collection. The stories in Rattle of Want are by turns smart, tender, dark, and always compelling.” — Kathy Fish, writer & teacher. Matter Press has recently released a collection of flash fiction, Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018, by Ms. Fish.
- Pomegranate Stories, “Gay Degani writes characters so real you’re sure you’ve met them somewhere. Her plots and situations are equally realistic with just enough theatrical tension to keep the reader hooked.” — Susan Tepper, an award-winning author, Tepper has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and once for a Pulitzer Prize for the novel. ‘Let’s Talk.’
- Landmarked for Murder, “Leaving Slackerland,” Nikki Hyland, slacker, becomes an unwilling detective when she discovers a body under the Eagle Rock landmark. (Sisters-in-Crime/LA anthology, edited by Harley Jane Kozak, Michael Mallory, and Nathan Walpow)
- Last Resort, “Highland Park Hit,” When Fanchon Landry, called “Fig” arrives at her cousin’s Clovis renovated house in an LA suburb, she finds more than stainless steel appliances and white kitchen cabinets. She walks in on murder.(Sisters-in-Crime/LA anthology, edited by Matt Coyle, Patricia Smiley, and Mary Marks with an introduction by Michael Connelly)
- New Micro, Exceptionally Short Fiction, “Abbreviated Glossary” in a collection of flash fictions by edited by James Thomas and Richard
For a list of other stories in print by Gay Degani, click here.
For a list of stories on line by Gay Degani, click here.
*What Came Before was first published as an online serial by Every Day Novels in 2014.
Gay Degani 