Hi all –

Just thought I’d update you all on my various submissions, starting with the most recent.

“Shipbreaker” is with Interzone as of 01 May 2007. Jetse has had some nice things to say about my previous submissions to IZ, and though he’s politely declined on both occasions I’ve subsequently been able to sell the stories elsewhere.

“Gagiid” has been returned to the Missouri Review today after a rewrite request last month. They felt the story was a bit flabby in the midsection (not unlike its author I might add) and asked for a few other small changes. I hope they like what I’ve done. The Missouri Review is a well-regarded literary magazine and I’d be thrilled to be published there. The story can best be described as ‘magic realism’, and since the fantastical element is slight, and as it came out so “literary”, my friend Trent suggested I try a literary market, rather than the genre magazines.

“The Hushed Voice” is with the anthology Holy Horrors (since 12 Feb 2007).

“The Great Hymn of the Aten” is with Intergalactic Medicine Show (also since 12 Feb 2007).

And “The Festival of Toxcatl” is awaiting the reopening of Paradox on 01 June. The editor at Paradox had some very kind words about my last submission there and asked me to submit more when they reopened their reading period. Happy to oblige 🙂

Other than that, I’ve sold almost everything else that’s done–an unexpectedly nice situation to be in. I have two stories–“Endorphins Anonymous” and “Waiting for the Iceman”–which are complete but that I’ve pulled from circulation pending revisions. I decided I wasn’t happy with them after all.

I have a special project to work on for most of this summer (for pay!) so I don’t know that I’ll get a lot of new writing done before the trip to the Writers of the Future week (I also have some homework to do before then–read at least one book by those judges who I’ve never read. Happily, I’ve read at least one book by almost all of them, but there are a lot of judges so I have five or six people I’ve missed…until now!)

My summer projects will be this “special project” and hopefully some serious rewrites/revisions to the ten (!) stories I have in finished drafts but which remain unpolished. A couple I’ve had waiting for more than a year–it will be interesting to see how (or if) my style and skill have improved in that time. I have a feeling my writing has become more concise since I wrote many of these early stories (though you’d never know it from my blog…)

– S.