Hamthology Is Here!
Dystopia from the Rock – A “Rock”ing Success!
The latest anthology offering from Engen Books, Dystopia from the Rock, is now available. You can find it on Amazon (Amazon.ca here in Canada) and it has already achieved best-selling status in sci-fi rankings. My story in this anthology, “Cash Grab,” is my second appearance in a “…from the Rock” anthology – I also have a story in Chillers from the Rock, “Territory” – and I have submitted to their latest call (fingers crossed.) Engen has been a strong supporter of genre writers in Atlantic Canada and their anthologies feature a variety of authors, both new and established. I highly recommend checking out this book, with all its local charm and flare, and their other offerings as well.
But don’t just take my word (I’m biased, of course.) Here’s an objective review that also supports what I’ve been saying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrSwIjnJLFI&t=9s
Getting a Good Start
I gave my writing a bit of a rest last year – limited editing efforts, only a few short stories completed and a half-hearted commitment to submitting at least 100 times during the year. I had some success, but my work life intruded upon my home life and I used that as an excuse to let things slide a little.
Thankfully, a Facebook writers group I belong to has introduced a monthly writing goal thread that will help us all keep on track and I find it motivating. I’m off to a good start, with some heavy duty editing and three short story submissions today to begin my January submission blitz. Tomorrow I’ll get some more writing and editing in as well as more submissions. I’ve also come across a publisher looking to reprint or republish novels that offers some real potential for my now out-of-print series. I’d love to see Fervor and Masters & Renegades in print again, and maybe I’ll get to publish the unpublished books in both series.
In the meantime, I’m going to celebrate my newest release. “Fish Story” makes an appearance in Issue #6 of the Gathering Storm Magazine available online here, or in print here. Once again, they have fabulous cover art, formatting and interior illustrations. The are a top-notch publication specializing in dark, quirky fiction and poetry. I’m working on another short for their next call for submissions.
I’ll try to follow-up on my progress over the next few weeks. Wish me luck.
Catch-Up in June
A post has been a long time in coming (sorry), but I have been well and truly busy. I’ve been working at setting a blog up for my pseudonym as well as prepping a couple of between blitz submissions, juggling proofing and marketing requests and participating in the voting process for one of my writer’s associations. It’s also gardening season, jugger season and I’ve been spending a lot of time with my daughter lately. So yeah – I’m busy.
That being said, the last few weeks have been pleasantly rife with story acceptances, payments, cover reveals and ToC announcements – so I have to play catch-up on those (or, at least the ones I’m allowed to talk about now.)
Compostela – Tesseracts 20 – containing my sci-fi short story “Better” is now available for pre-order here . Tesseracts is one of my “writer’s bucket list” achievements, so it’s a big deal for me. I’m sharing pages with some pretty impressive people.
Clockwork Canada, the Exile Editions steampunk anthology containing my short story “The Curlicue Seahorse” is on the ballot for the 2017 Aurora Awards, in the category of Best Related Work.
I have a new free read available too. My flash fiction, Pure Mime, has been published by Body Parts Magazine.
And you can also find me listed on two ToC announcements. The first is from Digital Fiction Publishing. My short story “Octavia” will be included in their all-female writer horror reprint anthology, “Killing It Softly 2” .
The second can be found on the blog for Mackenzie Publishing . Their “Two Eyes Open” horror anthology will include my period horror short, “Soul Cakes.” I’ve shared the lovely and intriguing cover above.
I’ll have more announcements coming soon as my last submission blitz proved to be quite successful. And I just finished a horror short for a themed anthology invite that I can’t discuss just yet. We’ll see how that goes.
I hope everybody’s year has been as exciting as mine has been so far. Now its off to work on some edits…
Spring Blitz 2017 – Catch-Up Day
Between parenting issues (which included helping my daughter with overdue homework) and other “priority items”, I missed a couple of days worth of submissions, so today I had to play catch up. I’ve now used up my reserve call for submission options so I’ll have to dig up a few more. I’m lucky enough to have multiple sources for calls that I can tap into, which makes finding ones I can match my existing stories to that much easier. I am getting closer to the bottom of my “available” list though. Unless I find more calls accepting reprints or a few more rejections come in, and/or I finish up the two shorts I’m working on. I’m going to have to start looking through older submissions that have gone a year or more without a response. Occasionally, they don’t send one and leave your story in submission limbo.
I’ll have some extra time over the long weekend. We’ll see what I manage to accomplish.
Spring Blitz 2017 – New Release
Another two submissions have gone out, one micro-fiction and one flash, and both creepy horror tales. I had another story I wanted to submit, but the venue I was considering doesn’t reopen for submissions until tomorrow, so it will have to wait. This particular story has been rejected 12 times already, but I feel it is a strong story, as it has had four “maybe”s that turned into “no”s and some decent praise from some pro-rate editors, despite no acceptance. So I’ll press on and perhaps it will find a home some day.
Another of my stories has just been released by Crimson Streets. Not only have they published “Amnesty” but they accepted a follow up story involving the same character. I have another story in mind if ever they decide they want a third.
Back to hunting out more calls for submissions – I still have three weeks of submissions ahead of me.
Spring Blitz 2017 – A Recipe for Writing
Today’s submission, to a venue I’ve had some success with before, demanded a recipe along with the submission. They were looking for old family favourites or the like – ones that could be tied to the story in some way. Not having old family favourites just hanging around my house for the sharing, I found a way to tie in one of my own creations that my family seems to enjoy. I don’t know if that particular recipe will improve or lessen my chances for an acceptance, but I figured it was worth a try.
The other submission I sent was to a venue I had tried a couple of times before with no success, but I don’t give up easily. I’ve had some stories rejected multiple times before finding a home. In some cases, it’s not a matter of “fixing” a rejected story but of seeking out a better fit.
23 more submissions still to go, but I have plenty of stories ready to go and potential calls on the radar.
Spring Blitz 2017 – Plan B
I recently came across a call for submissions I was hoping to submit to with an existing story I had that matched the theme, but it meant waiting for a rejection from a prior submission. I did get a response back, but not the rejection I had been expecting. So along with a story sale, I was left with now having to resort to Plan B … write a new story. I’m about 1,000 words in, but I have a solid story concept, so I expect I’ll finish it over the next couple of days.
I did submit a couple of reprints since my last post, to a new venue for me. I haven’t had a lot of luck with reprint submissions, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed, and my eyes open for other opportunities.
Spring Blitz 2017 – Where’s the Warm Weather?
Supposedly, April and May this year are going to be warmer than average. So far, the snow on the ground says “no.” It also says “no” to playing jugger outside and today marked our last day playing in the gym for the winter season.
So no warm weather for us just yet, although apparently my family in France are enjoying a toasty 27 degrees Celsius this week.
“Sigh”
Trying my best to ignore the snow/freezing rain, I continue with my blitz. Another story out, this time to a British call for submissions for a horror anthology.
More later…
Spring Blitz 2017 – A Storm’s a Coming
And so begins my April 2017 submission blitz.
I’m returning to my blog after a much needed hiatus. I started off this blitz with a submission of a strange story to an offbeat literary journal. I’ve had some luck with these in the past, my fiction sometimes blurring the line between “literary” and “genre”. In fact, a new publication for this month, my short story, “A Distaste for Dust” falls into this category. It’s dark and strange, but only sort of horror. It is making an appearance this April in Issue #2 of the Gathering Storm Magazine (https://www.gatheringstormmagazine.com/copy-of-volume-1-issue-1), a venue that seeks submissions based on a few inspiring themes for each issue. I’ve already written three stories as a result of these themes, and I’m happy to have the editors select one of those three for publication out of hundreds of submissions.
I have more coming out this April and I’ll advise you as it happens. There’s plenty of excitement in store for 2017 and even more, I hope, after this blitz.
