Grace Pulliam, EIC of the online journal Openwork Magazine, published a creative nonfiction piece of mine called "Night of the 3-D Creature" today.
She sent me by far and away the best acceptance letter I've ever received. Just know that it made my day.
The piece is beautifully featured there now, and I would love if you went and read it. And read as much as you'd like while there. Openwork is doing it the right way. Reward them with your readership.
Here's my piece:
There's a journal that has blown my mind for its vision and design and, most of all, its content. A Thin Slice of Anxiety is not only a beautifully - I mean beautifully - designed journal but also full of great fiction, poetry, interviews, and other features. It's a well thought out mix that has something for every reader.
Editor, publisher, and founder Cody Sexton's note from the editor is remarkably humble for all he's put into the journal.
Yesterday he published three of my poems - "Another Cure for Boredom," "Sad Love," and "I Want to Be Like Shirley." I'd love if you'd read the journal and my pieces. And let Cody know what a good job he's doing.
But check out all the good pieces there at Stymie, and thanks again, Erik!
So Joe Young's online journal Everyone Quarterly just put out a second issue focusing on architecture. It's a beautiful issue and has a great lineup. I have a story in there called "In a Meditation" and my friend Barrett Warner has a memoir piece called "I Had Been Feeding Leeches for a Month." Joe really has put together a fantastic journal. Go read it.
I've been putting in several hours a day writing just like every day. It's the same thing all of us do. Work, work, work, and keeping working. Make sentences, tell stories, build something memorable with our craft. All the things we all know.
So work.
I received a submission today from a writer who stated in his bio that he had had more than fifty pieces published. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. The website he linked to for himself only had an About page. I'm not trying to be a prick. Really, I'm not. If he's working hard every day to improve then I'm all for that. If he's not it's his business. But I rejected his story.
Cliché. Worn out language. You have to get rid of that immediately before phrases become sentences and they breed and before you know it every paragraph is generally something somebody else said before you.
In his first paragraph there were four of these - an ill-fitting suit, beads of sweat dancing, broken dreams, and the other I can't remember.
He could have sent me something shitty, something from his bottom drawer, something he knew wasn't good hoping I would just publish it because I can't help but to publish any and all submissions sent my way. I don't know. And I just don't know. I only thought I'd mention this. I wanted to write him and offer some feedback but couldn't figure out a way to do it without seeming like a prick. So I'm sharing it here because I had to get rid of it from my mind.
Sometimes this place is a dump station. I'm sorry about that.
I have a new story at Vending Machine Press. It's called "Quietning Man" and I have Mike Lafontaine to thank for it appearing for people to read.
A little background on this one, something I've not really done before outside of an interview question. About two months ago I started to notice that my thinking was different than most of the people I'm around from day to day. Not better, not smarter, not anything like that. Just different, whereas others seemed to have at least some kind of consensus among each other. When I gave advice (advice I would absolutely take myself) I could tell they thought the idea monumentally absurd or just fantasy all together.
After a time, I started to believe that I should just be quiet. There was no reason to waste my breath. And let me make clear, I did not feel that I was above anyone's thinking.
The ending, when the children come into play, is nothing more than my lifelong fear of destroying my kids in some way I never saw coming. It's in a lot of my stuff.
Read the story HERE.
