beestung, in conjunction with their upcoming Pleasure Issue, is excited to present the workshop, “First Sentence, First Paragraph, First Page, a Flash Fiction Workshop.” This event will take place on May 24th, 2026 from 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM ET via Zoom. This workshop will center flash fiction technique and finesse, led by beestung contributor and guest editor Christian M. Ivey.
A good start is essential for flash fiction but what keeps the reader going to the next page? In this brief workshop participants will examine text, identify techniques, and implement them. Participants will read, select first sentences, paragraphs, and pages to identify what makes it successful. This will be followed by a writing exercise to enact what has been discussed over the workshop. Open to all genders.
Christian M. Ivey (he/they) is a black non-binary writer, editor, and art director from the eastside of Pontiac, Michigan, who works to interrogate the mundane to illuminate how blackness is overdetermined by social death through a triangulation of Lacanian psychoanalysis, queer theory, and Afro-pessimism. They are the Digital Communications Specialist for the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley and Co-Fiction & Art Editor for Anathema Magazine: Spec from the Margins. He has also guest-edited issue No. 28 of FIYAH Literary Magazine, themed on Belonging; HEXAGON SF MYRIAD Zine on kinship; and The Pleasure Issue of beestung. Christian’s work has been supported by Hurtson/Wright Foundation for Black Writers, Voodoonauts, The Watering Hole, Obsidian Foundation, Tin House, Sundress Academy for the Arts, PREE Studio, Under the Volcano, and more. You can read their work in or forthcoming: Baffling Magazine, beestung , Black Youth Project, and Cosmic Horror Monthly. They are on all socials @ageedubb.
The cost to attend this online workshop is $10. Limited scholarships are available. Please email christianmivey@gmail.com for more details.
