My story “The Kick” appeared in the September 2018 edition of Aethlon, a publication that took a few of my running-related stories. Sadly, the journal is now defunct, which is a shame since there aren’t many lit mags that are focused on sport-related stories. This was a print-only journal, so there isn’t a link I can give you. Sorry.
This one is unique among my stories because it is written in 2nd person narration. A man is watching his friend’s last moments, reflecting (projecting, actually) on how running had been important in his life and how he had never achieved the fabled “runner’s high.” (A genuine thing. I’ve felt it once or twice in my distant running past.) As the man approaches the final finish line of his life, he announces that he’s finally felt the high that had eluded him for so long.
“The Kick” is just a few words over one-thousand, so it was perhaps the shortest published story I’d had at the time.
This is one of my occasional participations in David Abram’s Sunday Sentence project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”
“At a quarter to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning in upstate New York, I was attacked and almost killed by a young man with a knife just after I came out on stage at the amphitheater in Chautauqua to talk about the importance of keeping writers safe from harm.”
My story “Coelacanths in the Dark Deep” will appear in the Fall 2026 issue of Welter Magazine. This story with the odd-sounding title is a first-person account, an actual letter written by one friend to another, that discusses the fading art of letter writing. The writer muses that writing in cursive is becoming like cuneiform or hieroglyphics. Soon most people will not be able to read it and so it will become a kind of code shared by certain few. He goes on to say that those who practice this are becoming living fossils, much like the “living fossil” coelacanths that swim about in the Indian Ocean.
I’d had this story idea in my head for more than a decade, trying to figure out how to write it since it was about writing itself. And I wondered what I could say about it that would be at least a little substantial. But then the notion that writing in cursive is becoming a lost ability and how it can be like a secret code came to me, and the story flowed from that. I submitted it to Welter Magazine in a call they had for stories on the theme of connection through writing, art, and creative expression.
Welter Magazine was founded in 1965 by students and faculty at the University of Baltimore, so it’s been thrashing for more than sixty years. I’m pleased and honored to be included in such an established publication.
This is one of my occasional participations in David Abram’s Sunday Sentence project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”
“Paris was where, twenty-one years ago, when he was just young enough to sustain the fantasy of self-invention, he had lived for an interlude.”
My story “Squirrelly Man” is now online at Lit Shark Magazine, Issue 11. You can read it at this link. (Scroll down to the Read Issue 11 Now link on the page and then scroll to page 93 where my story begins. I recommend the one-page spread choice for ease on the eyes.). I had submitted to a themed call for works about being misunderstood, stigmatized, or villainized. My character, Squirrelly Man, is certainly misunderstood. Curiously, this is the first time I’ve had a story in a publication that has provided a trigger warning about some of the content. My story touches lightly on mental illness, but apparently there are some troubling subjects in the issue, and I will read it to see what’s there.
“Squirrelly Man” is one of a series of stories I’m occasionally writing about life in a suburban subdivision called Green Hills. Among these are my published stories “Motet,” “What has been will be again,” and “The Enormous Earbuds.” Another story in the cycle, “The Halverson Lights,” is coming out soon. I have a vague idea of writing enuf of these to accumulate into a collection.
Lit Shark Issue 11 will be available in a print version soon. I intend to buy myself a copy to put on my shelf with other physical pubs that have accepted my work.
Step into the strange this coming Saturday evening when I will host a table at the Nightmare Market sponsored by Midwest Book Beat (the same folks who sponsored the Nerd Fest). This is an evening event, from 5:00 to 9:00. The weather forecast looks like we’ll have an ideal Fall day.
Along with book vendors — I’ll be representing Graveside Press and Water Dragon Publishing, as well as selling copies of my own two novels — will be other local authors, crafters, and artists. There also will be interactive activities and even a spooky scavenger hunt. The first ten visitors will receive a free tote bag that will be handy for carrying all of the spooky stuff that will be available.
The Story Loft is at 10605 East Winner Road in Independence, Missouri. I hope I see you there.
This is one of my occasional participations in David Abram’s Sunday Sentence project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”
“To be sane in an insane world is to feel insane every day.”
Source: “Oklahoma” in The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie
I’m told that fall is the time when literary magazines and publishers open their submission windows more widely. That may be true, but throughout the year I am able to find opportunities, so I guess fall is just more of the same for me.
I have a half dozen completed short stories and a couple of completed novels that I’ve been shopping around. I’ve been doing this for years, but I’ve decided that I need to get more diligent about it. I need to get my stuff in greater circulation to increase the chances of acceptance and publication. In the past month I have made 15 submissions to publications and publishers. Overall, I currently have 31 pending submission out in the world. (The longest has been out there 259 days, and I think it’s about time to give up on it. UPDATE: I just tried to change the status of that submission in the tracker, and it wouldn’t let me, saying I should wait 365 days. This publication is notoriously slow in responding, so I guess I’ll leave it as Pending.) Of that 31 number, nine are for novels. The remainder are short stories, and a handful of those are already-published pieces that I’ve sent to places that take reprints.
It’s not unrealistic to think that I could submit at least one work each day. That would require me to find enuf likely markets to send them to, and I always imagine I’ve exhausted the opportunities, but then I come upon a new one, or a submission window finally opens, and I send something.
Of course, with more submissions come more rejections. But I long ago decided that they aren’t rejections; they’re credentials!
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The picture at the top of this page is of some buckeyes I collected from one of the trees I planted years ago in front of my cabin. I have two plantings of these, each at a front corner of the cabin. I can’t remember when I did this (tho I’m sure I’ve written it down somewhere) but the plants had to grow for I think six years before they came out with flowers, and a few more years before they produced buckeyes.
What is different about my plantings is that these are red flowering buckeyes. Most have a creamy white flower. I had bought these at a reasonable price from a mail-order nursery in Missouri. They were tiny plants in pots and I planted and fenced them so they had some hope of surviving the marauding deer. That worked and I’ve long wanted to plant more, but that nursery is apparently out of business. I asked at one well-stocked nursery where I live (in suburbia) and they said they do carry these red-flowering buckeye in the spring. The price, of course, was eye-watering and I passed on that.
But now that my two plantings are bearing fruit, I’ve begun collecting the buckeyes with the fanciful hope that I can germinate some of them and encourage their growth in pots at home. Then maybe I can plant them around the cabin next fall. I need to stratify them for a few months before I plant them. Basically, this involves mimicking a winter on the ground for the buckeyes by putting them in my refrigerator for a few months. So I’m trying that. Next time I go to my cabin, I intend to collect a few more husks and get the buckeyes from them to increase my chances.
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It’s currently Banned Books Week here in the U.S. Given the state of the nation, reading is both a recreation and a form of resistance to the forces of darkness. Get yourself a banned book and give it a read. (Every librarian in the world will help you make a selection!)
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Somehow I read 6 books in September. Several of these were in the 300-400 page range. One I finished in a day. I’m currently reading The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie, and given his past with censorship, I hope it qualifies for Banned Books Week.
This is one of my occasional participations in David Abram’s Sunday Sentence project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”
“The great events of eight decades had managed to occur without any effort on his part to help them along.”
Source: “In the South” in The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie
This is one of my occasional participations in David Abram’s Sunday Sentence project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”
“Here was the terrible truth had hadn’t wanted to see: he was on his own.”
