Well, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't share a story I recently got published in Bartleby Snopes magazine. Plus, aside from sharing my hard work, I can enlighten you a little on the writing process and where I got the idea. My inspiration came from two sources: (1) "Bright Sided" by Barbara Ehrenreich and (2) my accidental visit to a National Speakers Association meeting in a hotel. A lot of...

Apalachee Review is a very nice literary journal. So nice, in fact, that I've bookmarked it in a folder I use to randomly pick a lit journal to buy. This folder contains many journals I haven't gotten around to buying, but I really do have the best of intentions. So until the little coins in my pocketbook sprout into full-fledged dollar trees, I'll have to settle for the great stuff they have on t...

I recently had something published in Jersey Devil Press (you can find it here!), and while I've visited the site from time to time to check out the stories, a recent email had me heading back for a fresh look. Surprise, surprise, I found something to share. Tends to happen when I start wandering around these magical tubes we call the Internet. On a completely unrelated note, I'm reading Grypho...

I received word that one of my short stories will appear in Bartleby Snopes at the beginning of February and so I thought it might be nice to share something from that site. I've been reading their stories of the month for quite some time, but I read the entire January issue and, hard as it was, picked one that I thought deserved some extra time. Really, this was a tough decision. They're all qual...

Sometimes I read a short story that has such a fantastic narrative voice that it literally inspires me to go over to my typewriter(!) and try writing something similar. No, I don't want to steal Kate Horsely's voice shining through in her short story. I just want to borrow it, use it, and then clean it before returning it with the receipt. From "One Dentist, Many Frogs" by Kate Horsely:   ...

While my Internet was on the fritz, I tried to take myself back to an era pre-Facebook and found myself to be completely and utterly bored. Not necessarily because I had nothing to do (I just downloaded a new book on my Kindle), but it turns out a great deal of my time is spent researching stuff for short stories, reading fiction online and submitting stories to literary journals.  So I'm glad...

Instead of promoting the Coachella Review's fiction contest winner (Erika Brumett, which you can read here), I thought it might be nice to share a story from that same issue that I thought was pretty darned great, to say the least. That isn't to say Brumett's winner isn't great--it is! You should read it!--but let's face it: the winner gets all the publicity, and she certainly doesn't need a shout...

... Formerly the Mississippi Review Online. Ah, it's always nice to see the bigger literary journals dip their toes into the Internets. I think there should be a rule: literary journals should evolve technologically at a faster pace than President George W. Bush. That means if George W. Bush sets up a blog, every literary journal in the country should already have one set up. If George W. Bush sta...

One of the few nice things about Facebook is that you can become friends with editors and their literary magazines, which can occasionally lead to some interesting conversations (if the editor chooses to talk to you, of course) as well as fascinating links. Like this one. Who knew Flavorwire was putting together a list of online literary journals and ranking them? Not I. Why would I? I'm not Go...

I know, it's been a couple weeks, and I promise that won't happen again. Now that I'm teaching, I'm in the process of constantly adjusting my schedule depending on how many students show up to class. On top of that, I've been sending out queries to dozens and dozens of agents for the new book. On top of that, I'm sifting through a mound of rejection letters ... slowly, slowly sifting through those...