"Sister Winter" in The Colored Lens

My week six Clarion West story "Sister Winter" is out in the Summer 2014 issue of The Colored Lens. 

You can get the issue here.

I'm very excited that this story has a great home. This is the last story I wrote at Clarion West, and I left Seattle with the sense that I had finally written a story I loved and would love sharing.

It is a story about three sisters, an Alaska-like place, and the things that have to change inside a person in order for them to grow up.

I want to send my thanks to my Clarion West classmates, administrators and all-around writer-wranglers Neile Graham and Les Howle, and all of my Clarion West instructors. Special thanks go to S.L. Gilbow who pushed me to write better stories and to Alisa Alering who encouraged me in the submission process.

And many heartfelt thanks to The Colored Lens readers and editors for their hard work and a beautiful issue!

Booth 5 in The Review Review

Over at The Review Review, Josh Magill gives an overview of Booth in "A Midwestern Journal Goes Beyond Our Failings to Bring Amazement."

My story "Libration" gets a paragraph, and the review gives a good sense of the experience of reading the issue.

Running across the review in the weekly newsletter was a nice bump to get me through Wednesday. And hey, if you sub to literary magazines and haven't subscribed to their newsletter yet, you're missing out on a really lovely, funny missive full of lit mag news. Go! Sign-up!

Mason's Road Summer 2013 Literary Award

Many thanks to the lovely writers and editors at Mason's Road for choosing my short story, "Helpline," as the winner of their Summer 2013 Literary Award.

The staff at Mason's Road have been a pleasure to work with, and I'm honored to have my work appear in this publication.

I'm pretty fond of this story. It has a Star Trek enthusiast as the protagonist, characters who make it their life's work to help others, and a more satisfying ending than some of my other stories.

One of the best parts of winning a contest is that you get really wonderful feedback from the contest judge. This year Michael C. White judged the contest, and these were his kind comments:

As the story went on, it assumed a striking depth of both feeling and gravitas. The simple voice of the narrator became complex, and the story's narrative pivoted at the precise moment it had to, so that the heft of the story and of the narrator's voice and past unified to create a really compelling story. The narrator does, in the truest sense, become sagely, and he offers that hard-won wisdom both to this client and to his colleague. The story ends as both revelation and reaffirmation, of what humans can learn and can affirm. A really fine story!

If you'd like to read the full story, it's up on the Mason's Road website here.

And if you have a short story that is looking for a home, consider sending your work to Mason's Road. They're open for submissions from August 26th - October 20th, 2013. There's no fee for submissions unless you'd like to enter your story for consideration for their Winter 2013 Literary Award. They have a very modest contest entry fee of $10 and the winner receives publication and a $500 prize. I've had a wonderful experience with the editors and wholeheartedly recommend the journal.

"Libration" Published at Booth Online

My short story "Libration" is now available to read on the Booth website. This is a wonderful journal and I'm very proud to have my story appear online as well as in the print version of Issue 5. 

Check out all of the amazing writing in their archives, while you're there! 

Publication in Booth

Last week I received my contributor's copies for Booth Journal, Issue 5. It is a gorgeous publication, with amazing artwork inside and out. 

The interior flaps list the contributors, and I'm in some wonderful company.

Throughout the issue there are comics by Kelly Clancy. I love the way she tells stories through sequential art,  and look forward to reading her Xeric Award winning book Soldiers of God. 

If you're looking for a good literary journal to submit to, the staff of Booth are professional and communicate throughout the publication process. I always felt like my story was in caring hands, and that the journal would be a good home for my work.

I just didn't realize how damn beautiful the final product would be, or how much I would love the rest of the writing in the issue.

TOC: Missing Links and Secret Histories

L. Timmel Duchamp recently emailed the table of contents for the upcoming anthology Missing Links and Secret Histories. I'm excited to have one of my stories included, and can't wait to see how so many excellent authors worked with the concept of a secret history for a literary character. Timmi gave us permission to share the TOC, so here it is! 

Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries Lost, Suppressed, or Misplaced in Time

ed. L. Timmel Duchamp

1.  Kristin King: Mystery of the Missing Mothers

2.  Nisi Shawl: The Five Petals of Thought

3.   Jeremy Sim: Thaddeus P. Reeder

4.   Nick Tramdack: The Gimmerton Theory

5.   Alisa Alering: Madeline Usher Usher

6.   Mark Rich: Maisie and Amomma

7.   John J. Coyne: The Kurtz-Moreau Syndicate

8.   Mark Rich: Dejah Thoris

9.   Anna Tambour: Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard

10. Alex Dally MacFarlane: Gerayis (or Gedayis)

11. Kristin King: The Galadriel Apocrypha

12. Mari Ness: The Godmother

13. Mari Ness: Marmalette

14. Mari Ness: Palatina

15. Catherine Krahe: The Blacksmith

16. Jenni Moody: Peter Rabbit

17. Anne Toole: Secrets of Flatland

18. Jeremy Sim: Sanyo TM-300 Home-Use Time Machine

19. L. Timmel Duchamp: Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett

20. Anna Tambour: God

21. Lucy Sussex: La Cucaracha Rules

Publication: Review in Antipodes

My review of Amanda Curtin's short story collection Inherited appears in the December 2012 issue of Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/ New Zealand Literature.

Curtin's book is lovely, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the intersection of imagined and real pasts.

I'm looking forward to reading this issue of Antipodes. It's full of fiction and poetry in addition to the reviews and critical essays.

Publication: "Traffic Jam" in SpringGun

My flash fiction piece, "Traffic Jam" appears in the latest issue of SpringGun.

This was one of those wonderful stories to write, where you hear a voice in your head and the story comes out already able to walk forward. Originally it was several hundred words longer, and paring it down to fit within flash magazine guidelines (under 1000 words) made the story much stronger.

Open publication - Free publishing - More digital poetry

Clarion West Class of 2011: Publications and Sales, 2012

This has been a wonderful year for my Clarion West class. Here's a highlight of some of the big moments for my classmates, with a list of publications following.

Book Publication!

Corinne Duyvis sold her first book! Here's the announcement: "Corinne Duyvis’s debut OTHERBOUND, where a seventeen-year-old boy finds that every time he closes his eyes, he is drawn into the body of a mute servant girl from another world — a world that is growing increasingly more dangerous, and where many things are not as they seem, to Maggie Lehrman at Amulet, by Ammi-Joan Paquette at Erin Murphy Literary Agency (World English)."

Writers of the Future Amazingness!

2011 Westies also did stellar work in the Writers of the Future Contest. Nick Tramdack, Mark Pantoja, and Alisa Alering were all finalists, with Alisa Alering going on to win the 4th Quarter! She'll be at the Writers of the Future workshop in LA with Nina Kiriki Hoffman this year, and is eligible for the grand prize. I'll be watching the stream of the awards ceremony and cheering her on.

Editorial Prowess!

David Rees-Thomas co-founded Waylines: Speculative Fiction and Film. He and co-founder Darryl Knickrehm ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the magazine, and the first issue will be out in January 2013.

Anthology Power!

One of the instructors at Clarion West is almost always an editor. Our wonderful editor in residence was L. Timmel Duchamp of Aqueduct Press. During her week of teaching, she gave us all a call for submission to a new anthology she was editing and encouraged us to submit. The concept is really interesting, one that I think my fellow English composition teachers would like: it is a collection of the untold stories behind famous characters, presented in a Wikipedia-like format. All in all, stories by seven of the Clarion West class of 2011 will appear in this anthology: Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries Lost, Suppressed, or Misplaced in Time. Cheers to Jeremy, Anne, Jenni (me!), Alisa, John, Cassie and Nick!

Here's a list of publications and other writing credits that have been sold or published in 2012. Check out these great stories! 

Alisa Alering

• "Keith Crust's Lucky Numbers." Flash Fiction Online. Forthcoming 2013. 

• "Madeline Usher Usher." Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries Lost, Suppressed, or Misplaced in Time. Ed. L. Timmel Duchamp. Aqueduct Press. Forthcoming. 

• First Prize, 2nd Quarter, Writers of the Future. 2012. 
• Finalist, 2nd Quarter. Writers of the Future. 2012.

• "Delicious." Every Day Fiction. 14 May 2012. 

Corinne Duyvis

• Otherbound. YA novel to be published by Amulet Press in 2014. 
• Represented by Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency
• Goodreads page
• Blog posts: "That Time I Sold a Book" and "The Timeline of That Book Deal Thing"
• Interview at Query Tracker

S.L. Gilbow

• "Alarms." Lightspeed Magazine. March 2012. 
• Author Spotlight 

Eliza Hirsch

• "A Map of the Heart." (Con)viction anthology. Forthcoming February 2013. 

• "A Dancer for Aonou." Kaleidotrope. Summer 2012. 

Cassie Krahe

• "Walking Home." Daily Science Fiction. Forthcoming. 
• Clarion West Submission Story

Jenni Moody

• "Traffic Jam." SpringGun. Issue 7. Forthcoming. 

• "Peter Rabbit." Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries Lost, Suppressed, or Misplaced in Time. Ed. L. Timmel Duchamp. Aqueduct Press. Forthcoming.

Jack Nicholls

• "Running Wild." Aurealis, Issue 54, September 2012.  
• Clarion West Week 3 Story

• "The Statues of Melbourne." Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Issue 56, 2012.
• Clarion West Submission Story

• "The Tale of the Aggrieved Astrologer." Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Issue #101. August 9th, 2012.
• Clarion West Week 6 story

Mark Pantoja

• "The End." Tales of World War Z: Fan Fiction and Stories of the Zombie Apocalypse. 4 July 2012. 
• Clarion West Week 2 Story

• "A Darker Cycle." Nihilist SF. Issue 1. 26 November 2012. 
• Blog post about the process of revising this story
• Clarion West Week 6 Story

• "Houses." Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast. 8 September 2012. 
• Clarion West Week 4 Story

• "Buck." Writers of the Future Finalist, 2nd Quarter. 2012. 
• Clarion West Week 5 Story

David Rees-Thomas

• Co-founder and Fiction Editor, Waylines: Speculative Fiction and Film
• Kickstarter project
• "Waylines Magazine: An Inside Look." Blog feature by Alisa Alering. 

Maria Romasco-Moore

• "The Great Loneliness." Unstuck. Issue 2. December 2012.
• Clarion West Submission Story

Jeremy Sim

• "Fleep." Waylines Magazine. Forthcoming. 
• Clarion West Week 5 Story

Anne Toole

• "The Red Bandit." The Digital Wall. 2012
• Reprint of "Night in the Library." Originally published in Crossed Genres. Issue # 3. February 2009.

Nick Tramdack

• "Ligne Claire." Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Issue 57. 2012.
• Clarion West Week 1 Story

• "Triple Bind." New Myths. Issue 20. September 2012.

• "Legend of the Secret Masterpiece." Shanghai Steam: A Steampunk Wuxia Anthology. 2012.
• Clarion West Week 6 story

• "The Comeback." Phantasmacore. 27 April 2012. 

• Finalist, 4th Quarter, Writers of the Future, 2011. 
• Clarion West Week 2 Story

• "Cold Embrace." Ray Gun Revival. Issue 14, Vol.2. 2012. 
• Clarion West Week 4 Story

Alberto Yanez

• "Driving for Peanuts." Toasted Cake. Episode 23. 3 Jun 2012. 
• Text version available here on Alberto's website. 

• "Recognizing Gabe: un cuento de hadas." Strange Horizons. 16 Jan 2012. 
• Audio version at PodCastle, Episode 235. Read by Brian Lieberman. 23 Nov. 2012. 
• Clarion West Week 5 Story

Congrats to all of my Clarion West classmates on a great year of writing! 

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.