It's out!

Issue 29 of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet is out now! Including, among other awesomeness, a short story by me right there on page 20.

You can get paper copies or ebooks at the website for Small Beer Press and LCRW.

The Truth of the Slush Pile

A recent article by David Cameron published by The Review Review poses an intriguing concept: the writer took a story printed in The New Yorker, supposedly THE magazine when it comes to literary short fiction, and submitted it to other magazines as part of an experiment to see if the story was empirically "good."

That is, would all the other magazines jump to accept the cream of the crop story on their desk?

Answer: not a one.

It should be noted that not a single one of those Top Tier or Second Tier literary magazines sent him a rejection saying this was already published in the biggest magazine in the country, who do you think you're trying to fool?

Not a one.

What does this say about literary magazine publishing? Three things:

1. People who buy into the idea that there is a TOP magazine for short fiction are buying into a myth. There is no empirical standard for a "good story." 
2. Not everyone who reads fiction reads the same magazines. But we should have already known this, otherwise there wouldn't be more magazines published each month than any person could possibly have time to read. 
3. Making it to the top of the slush pile is one part good craft, one part interesting story, one part dumb luck.

"Slush sucks," Cameron says. It's a good summation. In my editorial experience, it's all about hitting the right editor on the right day with a story they're going to want to fight for. If yours is the third ornithologist with marital issues story they've seen that day, they're not going to cut you any slack. If they've just lost a family member, your piece on death that starts crass and ends poignantly isn't going to be read all the way through. There's a lot about the slush pile and the editor that you can't control or even predict.

Although the bigger the magazine or anthology I worked on, it mattered that a story ended up with the right editor eventually, but it almost mattered more that it first was shuffled to the right slush reader who read it on the right day while in the right mood and found themselves so taken with the story that they wanted to fight their editor and the other slushers to see the story got printed. When I've slushed for larger operations, I've found stories that I've passed up to the lead editor because they were good enough for a second read, or because they were my editor's "thing" even though I didn't particularly care for it. I've also passed stories on up with the note You're going to publish this one! It wasn't a threat. It was a promise. And it came true.

How do you find the right slusher? The one who's going to write the note that says publish this, who then campaigns for your story at the editorial meeting? You don't find her. At every magazine I've worked on, stories were assigned randomly to slushers.

But this is the mechanics of the slush pile, not the truth. 

The truth is that catching the right editor on the right day when she's in the right mood doesn't even touch on the fact that what each of us considers a "good short story" differs. It's not empirical. If it was, there would be only one magazine in the country and we would all read it and slobber with love over each word it printed.

Bridging gaps and weaving worlds

Today I'm the writer of the guest post for Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine. Read here to see me make the obvious connection between Rumpelstiltskin and starting a small press.

Meanwhile, writer and blogger Elizabeth Twist is visiting World Weaver Press. her guest post tackles the genre of horror and whether or not it's really a genre or something more pervasive. Her article may just have you rethinking how  you define "horror."

Northville Review call for submissions: YouTube

In addition to my April A to Z blogging challenge, I'd like to share the following from Northville Review:

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/jNQXAC9IVRwFirst video uploaded to YouTube: April 23, 2005

YouTube: The planet’s third most visited website, where the averageuser spends 15 minutes per day, every day. Where memes live, andnaivete dies. And, at last...the subject of The Northville Review’sSummer 2012 issue!

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT:
-- Look for “Summer 2012” on our Submishmash page. It’s toward the bottom.-- Send us a story, a poem, an essay that is somehow related to anembeddable YouTube video.-- “Somehow related to” is deliberately very open-ended. If youretrofit a video to something you’ve already completed, that’s betweenyou and your deity.-- “Embeddable YouTube video” is not open-ended. Click “Share” andthen “Embed” to make sure the video is embeddable. Submissions withoutthis will be rejected.-- Include a link to the YouTube video and a bio in your cover letter.-- Work selected for publication will run underneath the correspondingembedded video.-- PLEASE NOTE: If your submission is accepted and your video goesdead on YouTube before the publication date, so does your work. Choosewisely. Tip: It’s probably not a good idea to send anything relatedto Prince.

DEADLINE: June 30. This is NOT a top secret project. Feel free tospread the word.

QUESTIONS? northvillereview@gmail.com or whatever social media works for you.

Themed calls for submissions

Three interesting markets to make note of on this Thursday. Three markets that are riddles to me -- ones I hope you can solve by finding work to send them even if I can't.

Mistress of the Macabre, to be published by Dark Moon Books, is looking for horror stories -- the kind that actually scare you -- written by women for an all-female authored anthology. 1500-6000 words. Pays $20 + contributor's copy. Deadline: June 30. More info. 

I absolutely love the title Mistress of the Macabre -- say it aloud a few times and I'm sure you'll soon be agreeing with me. You just can't say it more than once without an attitude. So much fun.

While I write a lot of creepy little stories, I can't say I've got anything that I'd call truly scary -- mostly scary how bad the writing is. . . . But then again, how scary can I be if I'm quoting Love Actually to prove my chill factor?

Bibliotheca Fantastica, themed anthology from Dagan Books wants "stories having to do with lost, rare, weird, or imaginary books, or any aspect of book history or book culture, past, present, future, or uchronic. Any genre. Although the fantastical is not essential per se, stories should evoke a sense of the fantastic, the unknown, the weird, wonder, terror, mystery, pulp, and/or adventure, etc." Under 10,000 words. Pays $0.02/word. Deadline: March 31. More info.

Every time I look at the Bibliotheca Fantastica call for submissions I kick myself; I have a fabulous premise that fits in these guidelines but no plot with which to make it a story!

Fairy Tale Review, Yellow Issue. Fairy Tale Review is a magazine producing one issue per year featuring work which entangles itself in the folkloric. Of recent, they've been working with guest editors who shape the issue and theme of the single issue that they work on. The last issue's theme was "lost children. This year the theme and the issue title are the same thing: yellow. Poetry, fiction, essays, drama, creative nonfiction, comics, illustration. I believe this market is non-paying but I could be wrong. Deadline: May 31. More info and the editor's take on how "yellow" is a theme.

I'm completely stumped on how to take that from the abstract to fiction or poetry that relates to the folkloric. The editor's description that she's interested in writing that worships and dements yellow. We would like you to knock on yellow’s door and invite her out to play, somehow did not make a light bulb or even a pen light go on over my head.

Market Monday

Looking for places to submit short fiction? Particularly if you're working in the vein of fantasy, science fiction, horror and that unclassifiable "weird fiction" realm? Then check out the following markets and calls for submissions.

Mirror Dance (nonpaying market) is a free online magazine of fantasy in all its sub-genres, including magic realism, urban fantasy or contemporary fantasy, sword & sorcery, fantasy-of-manners, and stories with mythological or folkloric themes. They're looking for poetry ASAP to fill their next issue, but are set on fiction. They write:

All the fiction slots for our Winter 2011 all-flash issue are full, but we are still looking for poetry, especially narrative poems and pieces that blur the lines between poetry and prose. All non-theme submissions will be considered for Spring 2012. Please mention in your cover letter for which issue you’d like us to consider your story or poem, if you have a preference.

Mslexia publishes only female writers. They're seeking submissions for Issue 53 on the theme "In the year 2212…" Deadline: 28 November. They write:

Two hundred years hence, will we be teleporting or living in caves? In peaceful eco-cities or war-scarred refugee colonies on a distant planet? Cast your imaginative spotlight into the future and tell us what you see. Please send up to 4 poems (of up to 40 lines each) or up to 2 short stories (of up to 2,200 words each).

Dagan Books: Bibliotheca Fantastica Anthology seeks submissions for a themed anthology sent between December 15 and March 31. Stories up to 10,000 words--I'm excited that they're willing to look at longer shorts(!) What they want:

Stories having to do with lost, rare, weird, or imaginary books, or any aspect of book history or book culture, past, present, future, or uchronic. Any genre. Although the fantastical is not essential per se, stories should evoke a sense of the fantastic, the unknown, the weird, wonder, terror, mystery, pulp, and/or adventure, etc.

Wicked East Press: Witch's Brew ($5 flat rate payment) seeking stories of witches by December 31 for anthology. (They do lots of anthologies, check out this page to see what those themes are.) Ideally in the 3,500- 7,000 word range. What they're looking for:

Creepy, crawly stories that celebrate the various aspects of witch’s and their livelihoods. Most all genres acceptable, as long as the story fits the anthology theme. This is a collection of stories to be enjoyed by everyone, please keep excessive cussing and sex out unless integral to your character.

The boy who cried wolf

Realms of Fantasy is closing ... again. Supposedly.  Pardon me if I don't believe that they're actually closing this time.  Twice before they've delivered their swansong performances. Then, post-swansong, someone has leaped in from offstage and saved the magazine with a giant cash infusion.

Of course both times that happened, the new publishers didn't change enough about the publishing model to make the magazine viable. In its current format, it bleeds money. Sure, they can say in their swansongs that there are "not enough" subscribers, but a different magazine with a different owner would have changed the model and made the current number of subscribers be "enough" to keep that model open.

Anyway, they've cried wolf twice before. If this time really is when the wolf comes for them, I can't say anyone will know -- we'll all still be waiting for the announcement that they're coming back.

Friday: Link love + life

A quick hello to those of you who've arrived at Speak Coffee to Me via Rachel Harrie's Blog Campaign! If you've not yet joined, you have til the end of the month to do so here.  The rest of this post is relevant writing links, irrelevant links, an a few snips of news from life at large.

Ann Vandemeer steps down as editor of Weird Tales, releasing a formal announcement earlier this week.   Vandemeer has edited the magazine for several years now along with multiple anthologies. She's won a Hugo for her editing work and while there's only a handful of powerhouse sf/f editors out there, there's even fewer female editors -- so why is she stepping down?  Because Weird Tales has been bought by someone who wants to edit it himself. Okay, fine I guess. You buy a cool toy you want to play with it. I understand. And hey, if you've got lots of money and you want to run your own magazine, why not buy the longest running speculative magazine in North America? Guess it sure as heck beats starting from scratch. Vandemeer is magnanimous in her open announcement of resignation, but she makes it pretty clear that she didn't want to leave ... makes me wonder if she's feeling terribly magnanimous on the inside. Maybe under the new guy's direction the covers will get less eerie; the Ann Vandemeer covered always skeeved me out.

Best coffee jewelry EVER! 

Recently, while encountering a problem for an e small appliance I found my new favorite for instruction in a long list of don'ts: CAUTION: do not incinerate. Thanks. Because I generally burn all electronic devices I purchase rather than, you know, use them.

I totally want moo.com to hire me. For what, I'm not quite certain. But I would be awesome  as a Moo employee. I love the ethic, I love the product, I love the face which Moo presents to the world. I'm a creative thinker and doer (though I have no design education beyond a bunch of high school art classes and a couple college art classes which I really should have taken pass/fail). I'm a college writing teacher and that means I engage constantly in critical assessment and redrawn definition -- if my audience is confused the first time, I reach outside the box for a wacky-pants means of making understanding. Okay, admittedly, that may not be synonymous with "teacher" to everyone, but it is in my world. Love the visual and tactile and the world of words. People who have no artistic talent look at what I can do and tell me I should be an artist; people who make their livings doing art look at what I can do and pat me on the head: I know my limitations. I have basic web design skills; this means I can't build you a new look from scratch, but I  speak the language of those who could. I'm a good organizer. When I have a task and a deadline, I see it through to the end.

Did I just pitch myself on my blog where no one with a job to offer will ever likely read it? Oh yes, I did.

Newborn mammals are cute no matter what they are: sloths!

I bought the cats "indoor cat food" which differentiates itself from the regular stuff by the same brand as having 10% fewer calories and more hairball-fighting fiber. I mixed it with the remains of their old food, as per food-changing-instructions, and they managed to eat ALL the old food and leave the new stuff. Picky bitches. Actually, I'm more amazed that they could isolate individual kibbles than put out at their eating habits.

On Facebook this week, people realized how many friends they had who lived on the east coast as status messages regarding the earthquake flooded personal news streams.  Meanwhile, Californian's snickered ... but they may have gotten snobby too fast. Because when an earthquake hits the East Coast unexpectedly, it's not the physical destruction that you have to worry about, it's the naked men with knives.

I'm reading Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke for the first time ever -- and I'm loving it! (no spoilers, plz! I still have another 100 pages to go) Clarke has such great, simple prose. As a writer, I'm totally in love with his style! That's not to say his sentences are all short, blunt, and uncomplicated. Not at all. The sentences themselves are often complicated in construction, and the man knew how to use a semicolon. But they stay clean and unadorned with poetic quirks that could trip up the reader, especially as Clarke is describing some mentally complicated situations such as explaining all the different ways of orienting and reorienting one's sense of "down" in a low gravity situation. That sort of imagining and reimagining of space had me thinking that this narrative would make a great film using today's technology and a sense of space and inversion akin to that we saw in Inception. And lo and behold! IMDB.com says there's a Rendezvous with Rama film due out in 2013! ... and apparently Morgan Freeman, of all people, is pushing for the project to happen/finish.

Post Secret is coming out with an APP this September!

I wrote several secrets and sent them in years ago to Post Secret. They didn't make the website or books (as far as I know). I wrote a few more -- real secrets this time not just the "barely a secret" items I had first sent).  But I never sent them.  I kept them in my apartment. And then I moved them. And now, I don't know where they are. I wish I knew. Because I would send them. Their absence both scares and excites me.

Edited to add: oh and if you were following from last weeks' linklove+life post, know that the foot is slowly getting better. I'm still annoyed by it, at times and it lets me know if I stress it out with too much walking, but it is much, much better.

Perseverance, part one

There are many forms of perseverance needed in the writing game.  And one of them is to keep submitting our work to new editors.

I, apparently, have an unusually thick skin when it comes to submissions and rejections.  But here's what I know: C.L. Moore submitted her first short story, "Shambleau" -- the first short story she had ever written -- to Weird Tales in 1933.  It was her favorite magazine.  They accepted it, and subsequently published almost all of her early fiction.  Moore, in a candid essay in the back of a 1960s edition of her collected early stories, said that if the Weird Tales editor hadn't accepted her story on the first try, she probably would have stopped writing.

I'm not C.L. Moore.  You're not C.L. Moore.

And I don't say that meanly -- Moore's work is intriguing but there's a reason she occupies an important space in the history of science fiction and not in the literary importance of the genre.

I say I am no C.L. Moore because I have sent out one story.  And it was rejected.  And I did not stop there.  I sent it out again.  And again.  And again.  And, on at least two occasions, I'd given up on a story or poem and then had an editor contract the work.  I am no C.L. Moore because if the editor doesn't accept the story on the first try, I don't stop trying.

And that is why I encourage everyone reading this and hoping to make it as a writer to not be C.L. Moore.

Last summer, I was encouraged to make 100 submissions.  Be they short fiction or novel queries, I was to complete 100 of them.  It was suggested that 100 was a reasonable goal; that if you set your sights for 100 it was a high enough number that you would be in the mental game for the long haul while also likely to achieve some sort of publication before reaching the 100th submission.

The next day I was asked to give a goal for the upcoming year, so I said 100 submissions in a year! Meaning: I want to be published by this time next year!


That's when I made this little chart on the outside of a file folder and tacked it to the wall over my desk.  100 Submissions by July 15, 2011 it says.  The white area is a 10 x 10 grid to which I affix a star (or a hello kitty sticker) every time I send a story out on submission.

Below is a manila envelope for the rejection slips.  Seems practical.  Don't be depressed by rejection slips.  It's like being depressed by dog poop.  You own the dog.  You enjoy the dog.  You have this bond, this friendship.  It will, at some point, poop.  You can't be a practical person and a dog owner if you are depressed by poop.  Likewise, you can't be a practical person and a writer if you are depressed by rejection slips.

If you haven't already noticed, it's June and my chart has a lot of white spaces on it yet.  There are only 15 stars (save you the trouble of counting).  But I'm proud of those 15.  And there will be more before July 15.  Progress is progress -- progress is perseverance -- and I love my chart.  I also love the square that I colored in yellow in the top row.  Yellow background means the submission got published.

This chart hits several motivating factors for me: it's prominently placed so that I see it every day, it's colorful, fun, and it is interactive.  If not sparkly star stickers, what motivates you to keep going?

Rapunzel based fiction contest

Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine is running a Rapunzel themed contest starting tomorrow, April 1, and ending April 8.  The story or poem must be under 2,000 words but can be any variation of "the maiden in the tower" tale type.

The contest coincides with the release of the first issue of the second volume of Enchanted Conversation: the Rumpelstiltskin themed issue which featured my epistolary short story "Garbage-to-Gold Spindle--On Sale Now!"

And in case you're like my mother and think that "on sale now" means you can go buy the issue, don't reach for your wallet just yet. The issue is free! But my story is about a mail order company -- and yes, they're running some sales.

Short story published today!

Appearing today in Enchanted Conversation's Rumpelstiltskin issue, is my short story!

Titled "Garbage-to-Gold Spindle! On Sale Now!" the story is a humorous bout of correspondence from a mail order catalog to one Mr. Stiltskin.  At only 1,800 words, it makes for a quick read.

Actually, brevity is the name of the game for this issue of Enchanted Conversations.  None of the ten pieces published in the issue are longer than 2,000 words.

Reading over the issue, I have to say that I was impressed with the poetry (which I approached with unnecessary skepticism as I've often seen folk lore meet poetry in unflattering ways).  Particularly impressive was the quiet and soulful poem "Other End of the Tale" by Gerri Leen.    I was also impressed by another quiet and thoughtful tale, the opening short story "Little Rattle Belly" by Mae Empson.  There's even a nonfiction essay on spinning and the history of linen toward the end of the issue, "Straw Into Gold," written by Elizabeth Creith. Also enchanting was the final story of the magazine, "The Duchess's Boy," by Louise Quenneville, wherein a gnomish duchess wisely states, "I know about making bargains with humans, and they are not to be trusted to keep their end of the agreement.

A Case for Contests

In January 2009, I read an article in Poets & Writers titled "A Case for Contests." And Jacob M. Appel's succinct points and optimistic attitude have stuck with me. (read the rest of this post over at the Third Coast magazine blog)

Third Coast Magazine Wants You!

And we want your submissions!

The 2011 Third Coast Fiction & Poetry Contests have extended their submissions!!!

New postmark Deadline: January 15, 2010

Fiction Prize: $1,000 & Publication

Poetry Prize: $1,000 & Publication

Reading fee of $15 also gives you a year subscription (at $1 less than usual).

Please pass on word of this great opportunity to support a literary magazine, get a discounted subscription, and submit to a much smaller pool of writers than in the normal slush pile!

Final Judges

  

Fiction: Brad Watson     

Brad Watson, born in Meridian, Mississippi, on July 24, 1955, published his first work, a collection of short stories called Last Days of the Dog-Men, and won a Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A new book, a novella and stories titled Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives, will be published by W.W. Norton (also the publishers of his first two books) in March 2010. These stories have been published in The Oxford American, The Yalobusha Review, Greensboro Review, Idaho Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.

Poetry: Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1966. She earned an M.A. in poetry from Hollins University and M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Massachusetts. Her first collection of poetry, Domestic Work (2000), was selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet and won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. Trethewey's honors include the Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. She is Professor of English at Emory University where she holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry.

Story published in SWINK today!

"The Apology" was published today by SWINK online magazine as part of it's Dead Letter Office.

Finally, the piece I wrote and performed as part of my senior thesis project has found a home.  (Read now)

And ... it's back!

Realms of Fantasy Magazine has once again been saved from the brink of destruction.  (My previous post on the subject here.) This is beginning to feel a bit like one of those Bugs Bunny spoofs of Hamlet where he's dead, then he's back to deliver more instructions, then he's dying again, then there's more speech to be made, then he's really dead ... except he has one last line to deliver.

Good news ElizabethTwist! That subscription you ordered won't be canceled!  They're switching owners without a break in production.  Although you can still get the December issue free as a PDF off their website.

I was recently reading the introductory material in a Best of anthology that spoke of Realms as one of the "big four" fantasy magazine.  This was a new distinction for me but I can see where they're coming from.  The "big three" of speculative writing are Analog, Asimov's, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.  But Analog and Asimovs slant toward sci-fi, though they do occasionally publish things I would consider fantasy.  So if you want to look at the top fantasy magazines, you really need to broaden out to Realms which might publish science fantasy but not science fiction.

Realms of Fantasy Closes

The fiction fantasy magazine Realms of Fantasy announced that they are closing for a second, and probably final time. A few years ago, the struggling magazine announced it was shutting down only to be bought by another publisher who hoped to turn the magazine around. They only missed one issue -- which says a lot about the character and dedication of their editorial staff. But Realms, a full-sized glossy magazine with interior illustrations as well as cover artwork, needed to change drastically if it was to keep going in a recession, and sadly, Realms changed only slightly.

You can read the publisher's farewell, the editor's farewell, and the farewell from the founder and fiction editor, all online at rofmag.com

On Air

There’s been a blog hiatus for Speak Coffee. It’s only been about five days so … so maybe you haven’t noticed. A girl can only hope. It’s been partially due to deadlines, partially due to some sort of sinus bug that I first thought was just a tidal wave of allergies. Anyway, thanks to some finished submissions, some naps, and some colossal decongestants I’m back. Lit Magazine Giveaway, still going!

So. I was watching TV and a preview for the new Robin Hood with Russel Crow came on. I didn't get a good look at the woman's face in the movie but her voice really struck me. Looking it up I found the voice belonged to Cate Blanchett. That woman could read a software user agreement to me and I'd listen to the whole damn thing.

That's when I decided that if I had my choice of anyone in the world to read my stories aloud, I would choose Cate Blanchett.

This is something that’s been on the brain lately because a friend of mine told me that I read my stories well. I –- like everyone else alive –- prefer a celebrity's voice over my own. Or maybe I’ve been thinking about it because I discovered PodCastle and I’ve been listening to short stories online.

I’ve been a long time NPR lover … an NPR junkie? Maybe. I was at one point. Point being that I adore their audio essays. (And if I someday write/perform one I would be so excited. Life goal excited. Talk about it in my Christmas cards excited.)

So when I discovered PodCastle I was really happy. PodCastle produces audio recordings of actors reading fantasy stories which you can listen to on demand online or download to a portable device. There was something about PodCastle story 101 "Kristen, with Caprice," that put me in mind of the kind of fiction I'd hear on NPR.

I'm sure there has to be at least one person out there scratching his head about how I got from NPR to fantasy fiction. The answer to the head scratching is that this fantasy isn't swords and dwarves. PodCastle -- and just about every other respected fantasy venue -- produces some really amazing fantasy fiction that's best described as "realism gone astray."

I point this out because there's a feeling out there (particularly one I've picked up in the academic world) that all things fantasy or science fiction are elves and space opera. And -- while I occasionally enjoy a good elf or space opera -- that's just not how the genre, or the market is right now. Of course, this would be better known if everyone just listened to PodCastle.

PodCastle also has sister sites, the science fiction Escape Pod and the horror PseudoPod.

So, if you could choose anyone to read your stories aloud who would it be? The obvious choices are the most memorable voices known to man: Sean Connery and James Earl Jones. Obviously, Cate Blanchett ranks at the top of my dream-recording list. In my mind, while I’m writing, she’s already narrating almost everything I write. So, who would it be for you?

Book Giveaway!

Journals love it when you've read the journal before submitting your story.  It's better all around because you're more likely to know what the magazine does and doesn't publish and so you don't waste your time, or theirs, sending your gritty urban story to a place that really only likes lyrical pieces influenced by nature.

This is where I come in.  I'm swimming in literary journal back copies, and I plan to share the wealth with a lucky follower chosen at random.  The winner will get a boxed assortment of journal back copies (all from within the past four years) mailed to your door!  Or, to be more specific, any door in the United States specified by the winner.  I'll even let you request titles if I have them.

How to enter:

1. Become a follower of the blog. (See the sidebar)
2. Leave a comment to this blog post with the title of your favorite short story and (if you remember) where you read it (physically or the name of the journal/collection, etc).
3. (optional) Post and/or Tweet about my contest and leave a link to your blog and/or twitter feed in your comment.

That's it! I'll contact the winner on May 17 (14 days from the posting of this contest) for their US mailing address.

(picture is a sample of the magazines lying around my apartment, not necessarily the prize package ... though I suppose it could be if you wanted)

To get things started I'll tell you some of my favorite short stories and my memories of reading them.

The short story that has perhaps stuck with me the longest is "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin. We read it in Ms. Hall's 11th Grade English and it left something in me that I don't think any other story had left with me before. It's the same feeling that tells me I need to know what's going on in the world even if I'm not a world player, and I need to do my part even if my part won't have a noticeable effect.

"Where Are You Going Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates wins my award for creepiest damn story ever. Poe has nothing on this woman. This story gave me nightmares and I was 21 when I read it and I really shouldn't have been getting nightmares from fiction at that point. Then a few months later my father got all nostalgic and wanted to go to an A&W drive in and he couldn't figure out why I was all sorts of creeped out.

One of my favorite fun stories (because this list needs some fun right about now) is "Two Twenty Two" by Baird Harper that I first read in the Mid-American Review -- an issue that is in the mix for the contest if you're interested. There's a certain teenage irreverence to "Two Twenty Two" which reminds me of Joe Meno's Hairstyles of the Damned.

There was also "Cake" by Patrick Tobin which I first read in Best American Non-Required Reading, because -- duh -- the term non-required totally peaked my interest and well cake, who doesn't like cake? What I remember of the story was that I was in love with the author's use of numbered lists within the story.

I was lying on a blanket on the green lawn of Kenyon College one June when I first read "Boar Taint" by Bonnie Jo Campbell in an issue of The Kenyon Review. I started to read it because her contributor's note said she was from Michigan and I was like hey, I'm from Michigan too! I kept reading because the female character had grown up in Ann Arbor -- me too! -- but I finished reading with a whoa. It's a deceptively big story, and it would eventually anchor the end of her collection American Salvage.

Then there's "Remembrance Is Something Like a House," by Will Ludwigsen. I came across this story in the Interfictions 2 anthology and it remains the only short story to ever make me cry, it's that moving. (Recorded as a podcast here.)

I started this list thinking I'd write down just two stories ... but obviously I got carried away. Let me know your favorite short story (or poem! b/c we're equal opportunity here at Speak Coffee)!

Around the Web

I may or may not have mentioned on this blog that I'm also working on the Third Coast magazine blog. I am very excited to have our latest feature up and running (at last!): literary guest bloggers!

Our first guest blogger is Erin Fitzgerald who writes the blog "Rarely Likable" and edits the Northville Review. She's written a lovely post for Third Coast about how (and where) to jump in to the world of literary magazines. It's chockablock with links to databases, sites and services for writers looking to learn and publish -- some of which I'd never heard of! (Very thorough.) Below Erin's guest blog entry is also a review of her short fiction.

I'm in contact with other writers/bloggers about future entries but, by all means, let me know if you have a nomination or suggestion.

The other nice thing that is going on over on the Third Coast blog is a series of monthly post by one of our fiction interns Nathan Norton. He's writing about some of the pitfalls of writing that he sees while reading slush and how writers can avoid them.

TIBAL: (No) Simultaneous Submissions

The "Things I've Been Asked Lately" series of posts (TIBAL) is exactly what it sounds like. People ask me questions in real life, on the blog, or on the forums I follow and I endeavor to do my best to answer them. This is, of course, all IMHO.

What should I do when I find a market that says "no simultaneous submissions"?

I'm later getting around to this post than I thought I'd be but I did not forget about it! Last month I got into a discussion with a writer who was frustrated because her story had been tied up in a "no simultaneous submissions" market for the past four months. I'd be frustrated if I were her, too.

First off, the phrase "no simultaneous submissions" is one used by literary magazines and it means that if you submit your story to them then they don't want you to submit the story to any other magazine while they're deciding whether to accept or reject it.

Having your would-be partner demand an exclusive relationship right out of the gate is a bit daunting. Especially when you're trying to make your first sale. The good news is that very few markets make such strenuous demands.

Is it really a strenuous demand? Yes. I read in a Poets&Writers profile of an up and coming writer whose first story was rejected from forty markets before it was finally published. Last spring I had a member of faculty tell me that a story of mine was ready to send out and I "wasn't to change a thing until it's been rejected fifty times." A overheard a fellow student in my program congratulating another on his recent publication -- it was reject sixty-two times before the acceptance came and then twice more even though he'd withdrawn it from those markets. When you consider that stories are being rejected between 40 and 70 times before they find homes and should you only submit a story to one market at a time and each market takes 3-4 months to respond ... you're looking at your story getting published ten years after you begin the submission process (and that's the optimistic numbers).

For the most part, the only markets demanding you get exclusive are well respected, highly funded, highly ranked journals with long histories and name recognition in their favor. They're the kind of journals that get so many submissions in a year that they're only open for a few months anyway. My theory is that they ask for no simultaneous submissions to thin the herd. Their rate of rejection is already high, but if they can convince writers to not send them everything they've ever written then they're saving everyone a lot of heart ache and frustration.

Now, the big question: do you ignore the "no simultaneous submissions" request?

Ploughshares is one of those good reputation journals who says "no sim subs" and if you state in your cover letter that the story has been submitted elsewhere your story will be returned to you unread. And yet I've heard from those associated with the journal (when speaking as writers giving advice to other writers) to ignore the "no sim subs" request.

I've heard of people getting snarky letters when they withdraw work that was simultaneously submitted on the down low. And while I suppose that could damage your relationship with a magazine I have doubts that they're keeping blacklists.

So my answer is that there's no easy answer. It's all up to you same as it was before. Do you have a relationship with a magazine that you don't want to jeopardize? Do you really want to be published by one specific journal and are willing to wait? Are you absolutely unwilling to wait? Odds are that the "no sim sub" market will reject you anyway. Odds are that every submission you send out will come back as a rejection.

The advice that's been given to me by people better versed in the industry than I am has been to ignore the request. And my personal take on it is that any market that is going to hold your story for over a hundred days doesn't deserve the ability to command an exclusive relationship.