I was so happy earlier this week to learn Kathy Fish made the finalist list for the 2017 Best of the Net. As editor for the journal Lost Balloon, I published her story “Terminals” in the spring of 2017, and nominated her for Best of the Net this past fall. I’m so grateful to Kathy for contributing this wonderful piece to the magazine, and so incredibly thrilled the people at Sundress Publications decided to recognize her! You can see the list of finalists here and read “Terminals” here!

I received my contributor copy of Passages North Issue 39 last night! My story “A Thousand Butterflies” is about a young woman who is nursing her sick husband while trying to hold onto a crappy telemarketing job. I’m proud of this story, and feel so honored to be in this great journal. It doesn’t look like it’s on sale quite yet, but I will post another update when it’s available to the public. In the meantime, you can view the table of contents for the issue here.

Gold Line Press announced their winners and finalists for their chapbook contests yesterday, and I was named as a finalist for their Fiction Chapbook Contest. Gold Line is affiliated with the creative writing program at the University of Southern California, and the contest judges included Danzy Senna, Maggie Nelson, and Safiya Sinclair. I feel incredibly honored to have been chosen as a finalist.

Contests like this are always hard because I, for one, was so happy to have made it to the final five. At the same time, when you find out you didn’t win, that means that particular chance at publication is now no longer available, and that’s really the ultimate goal, right? A book! So you’re happy for the winner but also somewhat sad for yourself. The editors for this particular competition let me know I was a finalist in early December, which was amazing. I so appreciated the early heads up. I told a close friend of mine I had a Schrodinger’s Chapbook that whole time, that it felt like the book was both published and dead at the same time. So in a lot of ways, this is somewhat heartbreaking good news. It’s also something all writers go through. I’ve done a lot of research on small presses who publish chaps, so I’m hoping this little baby finds a good home very soon!

 

First publication of 2018! I have a new piece called “Tether” up today in JMWW Journal, about illness and big personalities. I’m incredibly grateful to the staff there for giving it a great home, and for working with me on edits. I hope you’ll check it out!

I received a thrilling email last night. The editors of Glimmer Train read and enjoyed my submission to their most recent Very Short Fiction award, and decided to include it on the list of honorable mentions for the contest. This journal is an institution in the writing world, and I’m so happy to have Linda and Susan take notice of my work.

 

Issue 7 of the online literary magazine (b)OINK went live yesterday, and includes my surreal micro “Grab the Sharpest Blade” about fruit and cutting and getting shit done. This piece originated in one of Kathy Fish’s workshops. I can’t fully remember the exercise, but for me writing this piece was about word play and expressing emotion rather than an idea.

I was a finalist for (b)OINK magazine’s very first flash fiction contest, judged by Kathy Fish! Being named as a finalist is a strange feeling. You’re so close, yet so far away. At the same time, however, the winning stories are truly lovely. I’m happy to have been introduced to these three new writers, and to have been considered their peers in some way. I’ll have a different story published in (b)OINK later on this month. It’s one of the strangest things I’ve written so I’m glad it found a great home.

I have a very short story in the new issue of The Nottingham Review, an online journal based in the U.K. My publication resume has gone International! Please check out “Ramen for Breakfast” in Issue 8.