Interview

My first interview is up! And it's a bit...well... here.

Unlikely Story Journal published an issue of terrible flash fiction in April. I wrote Why, Ethan, Why?!?!? :( mostly on a lunch break at work, and it turned out it was just about the worst anyone could do. I always knew I had potential.

Then they decided to send us terrible interview questions. I sent them some terrible answers. You know, like you do.

"I Imagine Myself as Rath Ducha" at Flash Fiction Online

"I Imagine Myself as Rath Ducha" is in this month's issue of Flash Fiction Online. I love this publication--they're a breeze to work with, and there's even art specific to my story! This is my second time publishing with them, and my first story there, "Zombie March," is probably still my most-commented on work and one of my personal favorites.

This particular story, like many of mine, was started by a themed issue that I never submitted to. In this case, I was looking at The First Line Literary Journal and got inspired. I've never published with them, but I do love their open-ended prompts!

Oh, Dear

Now the world knows what my rough drafts look like...

"After Closing" at Enchanted Spark

Melinda Moore, a fellow writer of short fantasy, maintains an active blog and website called Enchanted Spark. As part of the site, she runs a short story contest every two months called the "Photo Flare Contest." She posts photos, and submitted stories must incorporate the photos or be inspired by them. In February, she added a flash contest running concurrently, and I won it! "After Closing," my winning story, is a light piece about gremlins living an an amusement park. Check it out!

Melinda hosts weekly check-ins on her blog for writers wishing to report their word-count and commiserate with or inspire each other. She's upbeat, friendly, and has been just as easy-going and positive behind the scenes as she is in her public posts.

"Gray Ebenezer" in Penumbra's March Issue

This month my story, "Gray Ebenezer" was published as part of Penumbra eZine's March issue. I'm very excited about this publication. I love the story, of course. I love the art they chose for the magazine cover--and I got the cover spot! I had no idea I was going to, and I'm over the moon about it.

As an added bonus, I share the table of contents of this issue with Michael Haynes, one of my writing role models and the editor of Kazka Press's 713 flash contest. His 2012 and 2013 year-end reviews on his blog have provided a lot of inspiration for me. I'm hoping at the end of this year I'll have something similar to post!

Penumbra also asked me to to a guest post on their blog. "A Moment in Heaven with Brynn MacNab" describes my version of a special heaven for writers--and my first ever guest blog post!

Penumbra has been a dream to work with, and I sincerely hope this is the first of many publications with them.

"Three Nights" at Kazka Press

My story "Three Nights" is live today at Kazka Press! This is my third publication with them, and on each occasion both Michael Haynes, the editor, and L. Lambert Lawson, the publisher, have been delightfully easy to work with. They also put out, in my opinion, a consistently good publication. I've just started reading this month's other stories, and am thoroughly enjoying them so far.

"Three Nights" was written in direct response to Kazka's theme for February--Dreams. The monthly contest has a 1,000 word limit, and it was quite a challenge to write a dream-centered story that worked (avoiding the dreaded "it was all a dream" ending) while coming in under that limit. I started as the narrator does, with the image of the house in the woods. I hope you enjoy it.

12/6/14 Note: This website is no longer available; Kazka Press stopped publishing several months ago.

"Rob Lithim Used to be Two People" at Daily Science Fiction

Today my story, "Rob Lithim Used to be Two People" went out to Daily Science Fiction's e-mail list. (It won't go live on their site for another week, but I'll post a link when it does. Linked!)

This story is one of my personal favorites. I wrote it years ago, during one of those times when I was not really submitting things. I remember revisiting it a few times, though at this point I couldn't say how substantive each of those revisions was.

I intended "Rob Lithim" initially as a sequel to a longer work, possibly full-length, a more conventional quest story involving a group of friends in a world where superpowers are common. But the sequel just interested me so much more than the original story that I hared off and haven't finished the quest story yet--and of course, now we all know how it ends.

This is my second story published by Daily Science Fiction. ("The Left Side of Your Lover's Broken Face" appeared there in May of 2013.) I hope to see many more. Daily Science Fiction is among my favorite markets, both to read and to write for. Their slush process is clean, concise, and reasonably-paced, and that same efficient professionalism has in my experience continued through publication and payment.