San Jose writers likely already know the lovely Lita Kurth, local writer, teacher and co-creator of the fabulous Flash Fiction Forum. We were delighted to produce her work last summer at Cafe Stritch (if you haven’t seen it yet, you need to watch Melinda Marks’ reading of “Bride”), and are excited to perform her comic piece, “Compassion: The Essence of Nursing,” January 6 at New Year Nouveau.

Lita (MFA Pacific Lutheran University) has had work published in Fjords Review, Brain,Child, Main Street Rag, Tikkun, NewVerseNews, Blast Furnace, ellipsis…literature and art, Compose, Redux, Raven Chronicles, Tattoo Highway, Composite Arts, Verbatim Poetry, the Santa Clara Review, Gyroscope Review, Vermont Literary Review, DNA, and others.

Her CNF, “Pivot,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her CNF “This is the Way We Wash the Clothes,” presented at the Working Class Studies conference, 2012, won the 2014 Diana Woods Memorial Award (summer-fall 2014) and appeared in Lunchticket 2014. She contributes to Tikkun.org/tikkundaily, TheReviewReview.net, and classism.org.

In 2013, she co-founded the Flash Fiction Forum, a reading series in San Jose. Learn more about her in this recent profile in the San Jose Metro.

Upcoming projects:

Upcoming on January 13^th  is another Flash Fiction Forum, 7 PM Works Gallery in wonderful downtown San Jose!

I also teach private multi-genre workshops and online four-week flash fiction courses–learn more at Lita Kurth Writing Workshops.

What inspired you to participate in Play On Words?

I loved the idea as soon as I heard about it. Such fun to see another creative person bring a piece to life that I’ve written.

 Which writers or performers inspire you? 

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce. Just kidding, sort of. My inspirations are too numerous to list but a sampling includes the Rachel Field poetry of childhood, Robert Louis Stevenson, Tolstory, Flaubert, Irish writer Jamie O’Neill, E. Annie Proulx, and Zadie Smith.