Looking Back on a Year of Writing

The VerisimiliToad eager to start writing on the first day of Clarion West 2011.

This has been a great personal year of writing. A large part of this is due to attending Clarion West this past summer. The workshop gave me energy, insight, and friendship with 17 of the most talented writers I have ever met.

As for publications and acceptances, I had one short story accepted at a small literary journal. I'm very excited, because this short story is one I worked very hard to complete. My mentor, Gerri Brightwell, guided me through the revision process, continually asking questions that made me dig deeper into my character and his motivations. I've written many pages in my life, but I consider "In Miniature" to be my first real short story, where the characters, the plot, and all of those other little pieces came together to make a whole. It will be published in 2012 in the River Oak Review.

My friends from Clarion West have had a great year, full of professional sales and prestigious awards. I'm continually learning from them, and also just having a wonderful time reading their stories.

Here's to a great year of learning, making friends, and writing! I know 2012 will be just as grand. :)

Corinne Duyvis

• "The Applause of Others." Fish. Dagan Books. 2012. 
• "Eight." Strange Horizons. 14 November 2011. 
• "Rule of Threes." Crossed Genres. 2011. 
• Interviewed by QueryTracker.net: "An Interview with Corinne Duyvis: A QueryTracker Success Story." 

S.L. Gilbow

• "Alarms." Lightspeed Magazine. 2012. 
• "The Old Terrologist's Tale." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. May/ June 2011. 

Sarah Hirsch

• "A Dancer for Aonou." Kaleidotrope. 2012. 
• "The Nightmare Eater." The Colored Lens. December 2011. 

Cassie Krahe

• "20+ Inches of Gorgeous Virgin Blonde Hair." Little Village. December 2011. Issue #109. [Non-fiction article about selling her hair to raise money for Clarion West.]

Jei D. Marcade

• Interviewed by Nisi Shawl about "The Anarchist's Wife", Jei's submission story to Clarion West, in "The Steampunk That Dare Not Speak Its Name." Tor.com. October 5, 2011. 

Jenni Moody

• "In Miniature." River Oak Review. 2012. 

Jack Nicholls

• Katherine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction Award, 2011.

Mark Pantoja

• "Houses." Lightspeed. Issue #18. November 2011. 
• Will also appear in the anthology Robots: The Recent A.I. Eds. Rich Horton & Sean Wallace. Prime Books. 2012. 
• Author Spotlight in Lightspeed
• Mark's blog post about his process for writing this story. 

David Rees-Thomas

• Reads "Kavar the Rat" by Thomas Owens, Pseudopod, Episode #249
• Reads "Still Small Voice" by Ben Burgis, Podcastle, Episode #181

Maria Romasco-Moore

• "Fisheye." Fish. Dagan Books. 2012.

Jeremy Sim

• Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship, 2011. 

Anne Toole

• "The Red Bandit." The Digital Wall. 2012. 
• Reprint of "Night in the Library". Originally published in Crossed Genres, February 2009. Issue #3. 
• "Accidents Happen" and "The Voices" for Me2. 2011. 

Nick Tramdack

•  "The Smile", Three-Lobed Burning Eye, Issue #21.
• "In the Zone." Eschatology. August 17, 2011. 
• "Tale from a Save Point." Schlock Magazine. June 11, 2011.