these worn bodies: flash fiction

In this richly imagined and unconventionally told debut collection, Avitus B. Carle turns tradition on its head, discarding and reframing antiquated portraits of women and girls as damsels, princesses, and homemakers relegated to lives of cleaning and baking and waiting in towers to be rescued or to receive a truly forced first kiss. Instead, Carle’s characters face the world head-on in unique, bold, and unexpected ways.

Avitus B(uckhaulter) Carle’s short fiction and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in The Commuter, The Rumpus, Waxwing, JMWW, Shondaland, and Moon City Review, among other publications. Her work wasselected for 2023 Wigleaf Top 50, the 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology, the 2022 Best of the Net anthology, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, PEN/O. Henry Prize, and the Best Microfictions anthology. She received her MA in English-Creative Writing from West Chester University and an MFA in Fiction from the Naslund-Mann School of Creative Writing. She lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she writes when not observing the lives of groundhogs, deer, foxes, and birds. Find her online at avitusbcarle.com.