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Sharp Stories in Short Forms: Gerri Brightwell’s Flash Fiction

Kat Reichert, CLA Public Information Office
December 5, 2025
cla-pio@alaska.edu

As an acclaimed writer and longtime mentor to emerging storytellers at UAF, Professor Gerri Brightwell has built a career defined by clarity of craft and a deep understanding of what drives a compelling narrative. Her fiction has reached audiences far beyond Alaska, earning recognition for its sharp detail and emotional resonance.

This year, Brightwell celebrates the publication of two works of flash fiction: “Devil’s Teeth” in Litro Magazine and “Carried Away,” which appeared in The Phare’s Summer 2025 issue.

Flash fiction, Brightwell notes, often begins for her with a lingering detail or striking image. “Often my ideas for flash fiction come from something I've read or heard about that sticks with me, but that doesn't accumulate the sort of weight a longer story would need.” Some of these inspirations become her “regime stories,” very short pieces exploring oppressive or authoritarian systems. She is drawn to the unsettling dynamics within them, where “so much power is concentrated into so few hands. No wonder they often produce such grotesque behaviour.”

"Carried Away" emerged from one of those small but unforgettable historical details. In Brightwell’s hands, it becomes a compact but emotionally charged story that leaves space for readers to feel the weight of what is carried, lost, or left unsaid. It invites readers to sit with its tension long after the final line.

"Devil’s Teeth" grew from a different spark: an image from an Ian Frazier travel book about Siberia. Brightwell recalls its long path to completion. “‘Devil's Teeth’ is a piece that I started, then shelved, started again, then shelved, again,” she says. “It really needed me to come at it in a different way, to focus more on the fisherman himself.” She explains that she always knew it would end with “that image of the fisherman using his coat as a sail,” but the story only found its shape when she uncovered the man’s inner stakes: “his thoughts about what he was going to lose if he didn't make it home.”

The emotional clarity of those moments and the way Brightwell compresses them into such small spaces is part of what makes her flash fiction so distinctive. The pieces remain sharp, distilled, and quietly powerful.

That attention to precision is something Brightwell brings to her teaching as well. In graduate writing workshops and undergraduate fiction, novel writing, world literature, and women’s literature courses, she guides students toward a deeper understanding of how craft creates meaning. “Spending my time as a teacher, looking at students' work, has given me insights into how and why certain techniques produce certain effects in a way I'd never have gained otherwise,” she says. “Writing is all about causes and effects!”

Her approach is both rigorous and deeply encouraging. “I'm also my students' cheerleader, showing them what about their work is wonderful so that they believe in it as much as I do.” When mentoring students in flash fiction, she urges them to borrow a poet’s sensibility, “to be concise without losing the sparkle of fine images and sensory details.”

Brightwell also sees the study of literature and writing as part of a broader foundation for navigating the world, shaping not only how students think, but how they participate in their communities and understand themselves. For her, the work of the classroom stretches far beyond technique; it’s about nurturing curiosity, expanding perspective, and preparing students for lives defined by engagement and reflection. That belief underpins her commitment to the liberal arts. “The supposed weakness of a liberal arts education is that it isn't job training. In fact, that is its greatest strength,” she reflects. “The liberal arts train you for life.” A liberal arts education, she emphasizes, cultivates the ability “to think critically, to express yourself clearly, to engage with the world around you,” and ultimately “to live life more richly.”

It’s a vision reflected not only in her teaching but in her creative work, where close attention and deep engagement with human experience shape every story. In these newest publications, Brightwell demonstrates once again how the shortest stories can carry remarkable depth. Through precise language and emotional resonance, she creates work that sparks and smolders with readers long after it ends.