One For the Win Column

I’m not going to bury the lead here, Friday shortly after publishing my weekly update on my writing and submission activities, I received a congratulations email in my inbox from Raconteur Press informing me that they have accepted my story “Half-Baked Curses” for inclusion in their upcoming anthology, “The Muse Within.”

This is exciting news because I really enjoy the work Raconteur Press is doing. I loved their Mad Science anthology, and being included in one of their collections gives me a great excuse to pick up more of their books.

I’ve been paid previously for non-fiction in the CrossFit Journal and had unpaid fiction and non-fiction pieces published in Wingless Dreamer and Now Public, but this was my first time receiving an author’s contract, which felt very official.

It is also my first time working with an editor. Shari knows how to butter a writer up. She was generous with her compliments while deftly pointing out egregious errors and oversights for me to clean up in order to strengthen my story. What a remarkable skill she possesses. A good editor is writer’s best friend.

I still have 10 more stories out for consideration, including one I submitted for consideration in another Raconteur Press anthology. Tuesday, I submitted my comedy-horror Happy Bris-Day to Screaming Scorpion Press. I had to include a disclaimer in the cover letter in case my humour was misinterpreted. You never can tell these days. I think Ari Shaffer or Seth Rogan could print gold with this story. Maybe if you know them, send them my way. I know Seth Rogan’s family, but don’t imagine they want folks trying to push manuscripts through them.

This past week I have been writing Winter Ghost, a ghost story set in the Karelian Isthmus during Finland’s Winter War with Russia. So, while I spent last week lampooning the Jewish half of my heritage, this week I honoured the Finnish half in a story inspired by true events written for the upcoming Raconteur Press anthology Wyrd Warfare 3.

In addition to Winter Ghost, my main project for this week, I am doing some edits on That Bites and Reanimating Hitler, two short stories that I wrote last year which fit the criteria for other upcoming anthologies.

And today I published Venom in Her Kiss on Substack. This is the first short story I wrote that was inspired by a writing prompt: “Wasps.” It was ultimately rejected, but having never before written to prompts, word counts, or deadlines, I was surprised that I enjoyed both the process and the outcome. It is the first time I discovered that those annoying little writing prompts can act like a grain of sand that gets into the clamshell of my storytelling mind. These are the irritants necessary to keep the pearl factory producing.

https://brainsoupfic.substack.com/p/the-venom-in-her-kiss