‘Being the Murdered Actress’
— Reneé Bibby
You are the dead actress … but you are also the living actress. You are the chum in the water that will stir the world into a frenzy of adoration. In Cathy Ulrich’s flash fiction, ‘Being the Murdered Actress,’ the dead actress is slowly supplanted by the living actress as sly critique of modern fame: the sheer avarice of the system, willing to chew up one young woman after another and the women willing to pay the price of fame by yielding parts of themselves, bit by bit, until they are molded into the shape of exactly what came before. Ulrich’s story is spooky, maximizing the intimacy of the second person to indict the reader, as well. We are all of us, caught up in the dire cycle of adulation—willing to consume the next delectable actress that comes before us.