Flashbulb is a celebration of ephemera.
Flashbulb is a series of limited edition publications made available to preorder for one week only, alongside a preview that disappears day by day.
At the end of the week, we print the number of preorders taken. The work never goes to general sale.
If you were there, you have a beautiful, temporary thing.
If you weren’t, there will be other Flashbulbs, but those that are gone are gone forever.
“What do you do when your physician says ‘Given your symptoms, we can assume you have COVID-19.’ I pulled out a black Sharpie and drew lines through books. I moved through forests of words hunting for meaning beyond my self, beyond my body.”
“I spent my recovery with my daughter, and the erasures. I felt afraid, and wrote lines through everything but the words that hurt. When I started recovering, I sought out beauty and inked everything else. Apparently, you can find whatever you’re looking for in erasure, just like life. What will I choose to see, emphasize, and remember today? That is the most basic act of authorship: our thoughts and experiences, our days and our nights.”
Endless Bowls of Sky was the end result of this work, a full length book of erasure poetry written in response to and to cope with the author contracting COVID-19, sold with a custom postcard from the author and a studio quality download of her reading the eponymous piece recorded by Avila Santo.
Dr. Amy Shimshon-Santo is a writer and educator from Dogtown, a place that no longer exists. She has been nominated for a Best of the Net, a Pushcart Prize, and recognised on the national Honour Roll for service learning.
You can find an interview about Endless Bowls of Sky with Capsule Stories here, and more information about Amy Shimshon-Santo here.