“Election Day” has been accepted

Well, the drought of 2021 has ended; one of my short stories has been accepted for publication in Down in the Dirt.

I wrote the story “Election Day” based on my experience volunteering at the last two elections in my community. (I’m scheduled for the general election in November too. I’m becoming a junkie.) While the incident I wrote into the story didn’t happen, I had discussed the possibility of it with our site supervisor at the time, and she confirmed that such things do happen. Nor is it an especially atypical incident in modern America; I just framed it into an election day.

The acceptance letter I received is nearly a thousand words long and goes into some detail about the various ways they will publish the story (online later this week, in the v190 bound edition in December, possibly in a collection next year). Curiously, aside from my name in the salutation, there was no personalized information, not even the title of my story, in the acceptance letter.

This acceptance came quickly. I had only submitted to the journal four days before. (While this isn’t the fastest acceptance I received — that one came in a few hours — it is the first of this year.) I am on staycation this week, and I had risen from a four-hour nap (I’d ridden the 26-mile route on the trail that morning) to find the acceptance email.

This is also one of the fastest written stories I have done: two weeks from start to submission. Re-reading it now, there are a few things I would tinker with but I think the story stands well as it is.

I’ll publish the link when it comes online.

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Tags: Down in the Dirt, election day

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