Desire Lines

Application summary

"Desire Lines" is a flash fiction novella that explores desire lines: shortcuts that pay little heed to established paths, trodden over time by animal and human feet. Desire Lines is made up of short stories that can be read either together, as one cohesive narrative, or separately, as individual and numinous pieces. They deal with encounters between people, explorations of place and evocations of memory, following an unnamed protagonist as she spatially and emotionally navigates a year following a break-up. Collectively, the flash fiction pieces explore attraction to place and people. Like geographical desire lines, the strands of narrative undermine expectations of temporal linearity and are informed by queerness. My intention is to use the time of the residency to complete a full draft of the novella (up to 40,000 words). Another key goal and a focal undertaking of my time at the residency would be to clarify the structure and narrative arc of the novella. I intend to use existing notes and stories and combine these with new flash fiction pieces written at the Saari Residency.