Author: Chelsea

I’ve known this for a little while now, but was waiting for the official announcement before posting… I was named a runner up in the Gertrude Press fiction chapbook contest for my manuscript GRAB THE SHARPEST BLADE!

I’ve decided to shelve this manuscript, which is sad because it made the finalist list in three different contests. After a full year of submissions, it didn’t make sense to continue sending it out. I’m hoping, however, that one day these stories will appear in a full-length collection instead.

I just returned from a two-week residency at The Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia. I had my own small cabin where I was able to think, read, and write, and it was absolutely invaluable. I also had the opportunity to meet and commune with some incredible writers and artists. I’m so grateful for the time and space. You can view photos from my time there on my Instagram account.

As the editor of a literary magazine, one of my favorite tasks is to nominate published pieces for awards. I announced the nominations for Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize anthology this weekend, and I’m so incredibly proud of these writers and their work. Links to their pieces, along with the nominees for Best of the Net and Best Microfiction, are all available on the magazine’s awards page.

I’m incredibly honored to be a finalist in this year’s chapbook contest through Gazing Grain Press. GG is a feminist press staffed by alumni of the George Mason University writing program. You can learn more about their mission here, and you can read the contest announcement here.

Leah Angstman chose my story “Hotbox” for this week’s Indie Lit Round-Up. The other pieces are by folks like Kristen Arnett and Tanaya Winder. I’m so proud to be featured in The Coil and to be included with these great writers!

This was a great week for me. I found out a few days ago that I’ve been granted a two-week writing residency at The Hambidge Center. I’m so incredibly grateful and excited that I’ll be given this quiet, concentrated time to create art. My fellowship is still several months away, but I’m sure I’ll be posting more about it afterward.

I’ll be participating in a flash fiction retreat this summer, run by Nancy Stohlman and Kathy Fish. I had a great conversation with Stohlman, and it’s featured this week on the retreat’s blog. Check it out!

I was lucky enough to snag an interview with Rebecca Makkai about her forthcoming novel, The Great Believers, which is due out June 19th. This is my first appearance in The Rumpus, and I’m incredibly grateful to Makkai for talking with me and to editors Ian MacAllen and Elon Green for placing the piece.

From the introduction: “Rebecca Makkai’s third novel, The Great Believers, travels between 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, following a group of friends impacted by the AIDS crisis. The main characters, Yale and Fiona, confront the disease and its impact on their friends and family, as they struggle to make the best of their own lives. With its themes of reconciliation and redemption, and its focus on subjects such as activism and access to healthcare, the book feels spookily relevant in the age of Trump…”

You can read the full interview here.

I have a new piece of flash fiction called “Hotbox” up today in the online journal New World Writing. It’s another broken-hearted teen story, a subject for which I have quite an affinity. This story has had a tough and circuitous route to seeing an audience. It was accepted this past winter by a dream journal of mine, which ended up closing its doors while the story was still in queue to be published. I put it back out on the market, getting several rejections before finally finding this wonderful home. I’m hugely grateful to the NWW editors, and am so happy people will get a chance to read this piece.

Jules Archer made my weekend by including “Berta” in her favorite flash fictions of March. Jules is an incredibly talented writer, so it means a lot to me that she liked my work. Plus, the other pieces are by amazing people like Cathy Ulrich, Jonathan Cardew, Elisabeth Ingram Wallace, and Sharon Boyle. You can see her post and links to all the pieces here.