On Writing

I got a notice the other day that an online journal was open for submissions. I went to my folder of unpublished stories and found one that I had written almost two years ago that I hadn't looked at since. It was kind of long for most publications (almost 8000 words), but it was a good concept: a failing marriage, symbolized by the destruction of an historic building to make way for a banal office plaza, and hope symbolized by the potential of a lottery ticket. I reread the s

For those of you who've been following, I've been thinking a lot about the publishing side of writing. Actually, that's not accurate. Writing is one thing, but publishing is quite another. I mentioned last time that I was frustrated by the fact that so many literary journals restrict the size of the submissions they'll accept. The overwhelming majority of them accept flash fiction, a term new to me until recently. Duotrope, my go-to platform for tracking my submissions, helps

The more I look at possible venues for my stories, the more conscious I am of genres - and what "sells." I use two different platforms to screen possible publishers and to keep track of what I've submitted, and where. The site Duotrope has been especially useful. They list literally thousands of journals and magazines, both online and print, as well as agents who might be open to reading works by unknown authors. It also provides tools to help you screen magazines for suitabi

Just yesterday, I got a text message that read, "Uncle, I suddenly realized I haven't messaged you in a while, so I thought I'd say hello."

A young friend, a student, asked me if I were still writing. I told her that I was, though I haven't published anything in about a year. Although I published Are You Okay? I refuse to do the vanity press sort of thing. The book is just a convenience for me and my readers. I don't have to paste links to all these magazines' web addresses into emails. And even if readers do take the trouble to track them down, it's often hard to find a specific story. These journals update th

This past spring, I had an idea for a story. I've been working on a series of short stories set on the coast of Maine during the summer....

That's the message on a poster I have on the wall of my classroom. I put it up several years ago when I was teaching underclassmen. I...

My mother was an Indiana farm girl. She lived in many places, including Daytona, Florida, New York City, Georgia, and New England, but I...

It isn't easy for me to write. I doubt that I'm the only writer to learn that it can be extremely difficult, especially if you're new to...

I started writing short fiction two years ago, after retiring from teaching. A couple of qualifications here: First, I've written short...