Four new stories inside!
What was published in the last few months
It’s been a while, but I have returned with a slew of new content for you, published across August and October! I’m going to reverse order and start with the most recent and work my way backwards.
The Complications of a Sunburst - Retreat West October Monthly Micro Competition
Read time: <1 minute (100 words)
Every month, Retreat West runs a competition with a prompt and seven days to write exactly 100 words. This month, the prompt was “SUN” and, while I didn’t place in the top three, I did make the top ten shortlist, which earned myself a seat on their site, joining my other pieces with them: How to Carry Countries Inside of You, As Above So Below, and The Year of Solitude
Never Have I Ever - Five on the Fifth
Read time: <12 minutes (1,500 words)
I originally wrote this piece for a Taco Bell Quarterly submission call where every piece must include a reference to the chain and it’s been looking for a home ever since. It’s about high school friendships and mourning the loss of naivete that comes with growing up, moments, sometimes, that happen all at once rather than gradually. Also, can we all take a second to appreciate how gorgeous the cover art is for this issue from Irina Tall Novikova?!
As Seen Here: Woman Preserved in Iron - Does It Have Pockets?
Read time: <10 minutes (1,000 words)
I’ve been getting very into magic realism recently and this is another favorite of mine that I produced this year. As the editor said on BlueSky of the work “A richly textured, multilayered, lush meditation on womanhood.”
Art Below by Andala Studios
Read time: <5 minutes (500 words)
HAD does pop-up submission calls with limited submission seats that fill up in a few minutes. It’s been a dream of mine to be published with them and earn a “skull” and, before the most recent submission call for female experiences, I’d managed to rack up seven rejections from them for various pieces that ended up in loving homes with Pithead Chapel, Idle Ink, and Typishly. This piece started out as a poem and then morphed into a failed experiment that used the end of each sentence as the beginning of the next. Even in it’s current form, it aggregated it’s own list of rejections (too surreal, too quirky, not enough plot). I’m honored to have it be the reason I’ve received my first skull.
My favorite reads from the past three months
Short Form: Water Resistant but Not Flame Retardant by Eliot Li
Eliot Li is a writer I started following in the Twitter-sphere years ago and have since continued to follow since I’ve moved to BlueSky. His prose is specific, sharp, and, often, full of loss tinged with humor. He really understands how to get emotions down on a page in their most singular form. Check out his piece Water Resistant but Not Flame Retardant in the first issue of the new ezine -ette review. The ending is just delicious.
Non-fiction: American Prometheus by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin
For fans of Erik Larson and those who want the gritty details behind the recent Christopher Nolan film, I highly recommend the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The work does a fantastic job of diving into JRs background while also giving the movie’s supporting characters of Jean Tatlock and Kitty Oppenheimer lives outside of the famous man.
Fiction: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
A modern retelling of David Copperfield puts readers at the center of an opioid crisis in Appalachia. With the recent focus on the opioid epidemic in media from TV shows Painkillers, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Dope Sick, and the damning nonfiction account from Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain, Kingsolver joins these creative voices and gives us one of the most realistic, thoughtful, and heartrending depictions of addiction and survival I’ve read to date. It stuck with me for weeks after I finished it. You can also read my own piece I wrote based on Empire of Pain in Club Plum’s horror issue titled Perspective.
The look-ahead
November Publications
The coming months are all about collaborations. I’ve got two upcoming with Ice Breaker Lit and Interstellar Zine that I co-wrote with different writing partners, including poet and grad student, Mahailey Oliver. Additionally, the creative nonfiction piece, Your Only Save, that I read at Salem Lit Festival (image below) will be published with Five Minute Lit.
Other things of note:
My writing partner R. Tim Morris and I had a long-form (>5,000 words) piece It’s A Long Way To Go To Get Nowhere make the finalist list for Owl Canyon Press’ Hackathon and will be published in print in 2024. I very much insist you buy his recent novella, The Reasons We Had To Meet, out now with Emerge Literary Journal. You might even see my blurb on the back cover.
Outside of that, I’ll be participating in an After-Glow SmokeLong writing intensive next week so hoping to get past my recent bout of writer’s block in the process. Wish me luck!
Until next time. Happy reading!