Back at AWP, which seems forever ago now, I was going through the bookfair and came upon F(r)iction, a lit mag that caught my interest like none others all weekend. If they select your story, they will find an illustrator to fully illustrate your story. The magazine looks like a graphic novel. It’s amazing. Unfortunately the exciting news isn’t that I’ve been accepted there (though my story has been submitted).

F(r)iction also has an online contest they do twice a year called Dually Noted where they have a singular prompt that people write on each week and each week they publish a winner. The stories have to be less than 500 words. The prompt this round is “god sends out a resignation letter”. I don’t have a ton of experience writing flash, but I thought “why not?” and wrote a story. And they picked it!

A Divine Appointment is about Heavenly HR worker Winston and a particularly bad day at HR HQ. It’s a quick read, so I’ll let you see what happens.

Now for other updates.

This week I had my last class this semester for my MFA. The class was all about POV. You all know the basics of what first, second, and third are, and perhaps you’ve heard of collective and omniscient and objective. It’s all that and more. Infinite possibilities as my professor Sheila O’Conner says.

The end of class is nice in that I’ll get some more free time to write, both on projects and on this blog, but is sad for a couple of reasons. One, no more weekly meeting with fun classmates. Two, Sheila is retiring.

I had her for Novel Class as well as POV, and she’s just super smart and insightful and it’s going to be perpetually drearier on campus without her. 

With class done, I’ve decided this summer to focus on short fictions. To get some publications under my belt. I’ve only submitted off and on the last couple years as I’ve written things for class or been inspired, and a 2/20 acceptance rate isn’t the worst. But there are grants and fellowships out there that care about publications, so I’ll be working on that.

On Sunday I submitted a fantasy origin story of sorts for a character I’m planning an eight-book arc for. Today I started outlining a sci-fi romance with a hint of espionage. Next on the docket after that will be re-tooling a literary fiction short I wrote a few years back now that I’ve got some more tools in my belt. One every other week might be too optimistic, but any goal is better than no goal.

Before I sign off, if there are any writing subjects, or not writing for that matter, that you’d like me to talk about, feel free to let me know. The level of expertise may vary, but I’ll try to engage in whatever way I can.

I hope you enjoyed the story above.

Until next time.

PS: Because it’s cute… our new puppy.