A Long Absence

Things have gotten complicated... FaceBook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, etcetera, etcetera. Truth be told, the only social media I engage with is FaceBook, and even then, it's not uncommon for several weeks go by without a new post from me. I just barely have a functioning LinkedIn presence and, while I have accounts with Pinterest and Flickr, months go by before I even think about logging in. Sort of like my blog, here. I meant to stay current, to add quick entries as things happened (and things DID happen on the publishing front), but it's been a year since my last post, so it clearly didn't go as intended. Okay, confession over.

Publishing news:

Two photos of mine "Keeler - Population 50" and " Chive Seed Pods in Yellow-Violet" appeared in the Summer 2015 issue of Apeiron Review. I was really thrilled to get the news! You can view them here: link, pages 59 and 66, respectively.

My short story "Prison-Orange Bandolinos" appeared in the Spring 2015 issue of r.kv.r.y. quarterly literary journal. You can read it here: story link. I love this journal and really admire the editor-in-chief, Mary Akers for lots of reasons, not the least of which is her writing. I feel honored to be included.

I won't make any promises about frequent posts, long absences, or summer being right around the corner. But I can say that I've recently dusted off my camera again, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

Two Acceptances

I'm very pleased to report that I have not one, but two (!), acceptances to share - one in fiction and one in photography. My short story "Prison-Orange Bandolinos" has been accepted by Rkvry Literary Journal. Two photos - "Juluchuca Homestead" and "Metallic Sunrise" - have been accepted by Marathon Literary Review. I'm super excited!

Saving Lola

The latest edition of The Summerset Review is out and includes my story "Saving Lola." I'm thrilled to be included! You can view it here.

Saving Lola

It saddens me to realize that I've not added an entry here since last December, but the truth is that my life has been extraordinarily difficult over the past 6 months, all to do with a personal situation I'm not yet ready to talk about here. But I will one day, hopefully sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, I have some good news to share... my story "Saving Lola" has been accepted by The Summerset Review. I am thrilled, thrilled, thrilled! This is a long story (nearly 7500 words) and some of my writer friends gently suggested that I find a way to cut it down to the more acceptable 5000 word range. But I held fast (some might label it stubbornness) that the length was needed and earned; I believed in the story and am pleased beyond words that Joe Levens at The Summerset Review agreed with my vision. "Saving Lola" will go live in their next edition due out in June. Woo-hoo!

An Interesting Read:

Last night I finished Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. My non-reading friends were impressed at its length (529 pages) and couldn't imagine devoting the time to something so long. Then again, they don't read (I can't imagine a life without books!). I was drawn to this book because of the hints given on reincarnation, that the main character dies and is reborn again and again. In the strictest sense this is exactly what happens, but my take isn't that it's reincarnation, rather, it's an exploration into parallel universes.

To my mind, reincarnation is when a person lives a life as, say, a man who works in a machine shop, gets married and has three kids. He dies at the ripe old age of 81 and then, at his next incarnation, he experiences a life where he's an accountant with a gambling addiction, or a woman at the turn of the century. Different family, different circumstances, different body. What happens in Life After Life, though, is that we see how Ursula Todd's life would've turned out if B had happened instead of A, if G and H happen instead of A, etc. We see how all the different choices play out; if one were to take the path on the right instead of the path on the left. It's a very interesting experiment.

I did have some trouble getting into the narrative, though, and almost bailed not once but twice. It was around the 100 page mark before I really felt engaged - a long time to expect the reader to hang on. Part of this, for me, might be that I don't usually go for historical fiction. But some of the most interesting story lines and character experiences occurred during the bombings of WWII, both from the perspective of London and Germany. The other part was that seemingly all the rules were broken: multiple POVs within the same chapter and sometimes within the same paragraph. This, in particular, was hard for me to get past. I'm glad I stuck with it... I found that it grew on me, that I came to really know Ursula Todd and all her many sides/lives.

Curves

I'm thrilled to share the news that my story "Curves" has been accepted for publication by Hawai'i Pacific Review. It went live today; you can view it here. I'm honored to be included.

Great read:

I read a couple of terrific stories in the latest issue (Volume 13, Spring 2013) of The Los Angeles Review:

* "Landfall" by Robert P. Kaye - This is wonderfully understated so that it sneaks up on you, grabs hold in a powerful way. I admire the ability to take a world news event and make it relatable.

* "Losing the Title" by David Elliot - This is told in a second person POV, and I, as a rule, don't care for this POV. But, holy cow, this is magnificently rendered. Powerful. Mesmerizing.

* "Confounding Variables" by Rachael Warecki - This is smart and clever and well-crafted.

Picture Window

Received my contributor's copies last week of Santa Fe Literary Review. My story "Picture Window" appears in the latest issue. Woo-hoo!

Great read:

I finished When She Woke yesterday, the 2nd novel by Hillary Jordan, and I LOVED it. It falls under the fantasy genre though, to my mind, it's a perfect blend of literary and fantasy - the kind of novel I aspire to write. The night before last afforded me the rarest of occasions: the opportunity to read uninterrupted. No chores to be done, no meals to be made, no one to talk to. I had the house to myself and so I plucked When She Woke from its spot among the stacks of books on my nightstand and picked up where I'd left off. I had barely gotten into it the night before, just 50 pages or so, enough to be thoroughly intrigued. So I read. And read. The hours slipped by unnoticed as I tumbled into the world of Hannah, a woman who lived in a society where crimes were punished via the injection of a virus that turned your skin yellow or orange or green or red. She was a Red. When my husband came home at 1 AM, I was still up, reading. When he insisted that the bedside lamp be extinguished so he could sleep, I retreated to the kitchen and made some toast with jam, and continued reading. I read at the kitchen counter, my eyes burning, until 3 AM. The next morning, yesterday, I woke and tried to go about my morning, but my mind was on the story. So I succumbed. After my shower, I slipped back into bed, my hair wrapped in a towel, and read. Less than an hour later I was finished.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.... it was excellent on every level. I highly recommend it.

Great read:

I've just finished Kristin Cashore's Graceling and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was very Game-of-Thrones-esque, which is probably why it appealed to me. Don't let the YA label fool you or dissuade you from picking up this book - I didn't find it simplistic or too vanilla at all. In fact, on this lazy day in April, with raindrops splattering against the windows, and a fuzzy throw snugged around my legs to ward off the stubborn hold of winter, it was the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

I haven't updated my reading list, here, but I've been busy reading nonetheless. Unfortunately, most of my forays into the genre world were more ho-hum than not:

* Red Mist by Patricia Cornwell
* The Drop by Michael Connelly
* The Litigators by John Grisham
* The First Prophet by Kay Hooper

Of these, the only one I really enjoyed was The Drop.

On the literary front, I read a fantastic story published in One Story: E. B. Lyndon's "Goodbye, Bear."

Good read:

I've just finished Malcolm R. Campbell's The Sun Singer and I really enjoyed it. It's the story of Robert Adams, a high school-aged boy, and his gift of precognitive dreams. Although he foresees the tragic death of his best friend's sister, he's unable to prevent it and so he shoves his ability aside, refusing to engage it. When his grandfather dies unexpectedly, Robert resurrects his gifts in order to complete a task left undone by his beloved grandfather. The story has parallel universes, portals, synchronicity, and magic -- all deliciously woven together.

The book's back cover contains this label: Contemporary Mythic Adventure. I quite agree.

Although I really enjoyed the story, I feel like I have to say a few words about the beginning chapter. I found it awkward, choppy, amateurish, filled with grammatical errors, and full of one-dimensional characters (of which only two get filled out by story's end). There's also this weird script/layout that occurs on page one and shows up periodically throughout the book, where the prose divides into two columns and the text on the left continues in the standard typeface while the text in the right column is italicized. The intent, I believe, is to showcase, simultaneously, two opposing thoughts/reactions of/by one character to a given situation. The result, in my opinion, is so confusing and odd that it does more harm than good. The whole of this chapter was so off-putting that had the story not gotten pretty quickly to the good stuff, i.e., parallel universe, I would've abandoned the read. And speaking of the "good stuff," I found that although the lack of proof reading was still evident (thought instead of though, then instead of than, etc.), there wasn't any of the awkwardness in phrasing or abrupt switching from one speaker to the next that characterized much of the opening chapter. It was very smooth and very engaging, which makes me think Mr. Campbell was really in his element while composing this part of the story. The downside is that it highlights just how disintegrated the opening chapter is with the rest of the book; it makes it feel like an afterthought.

Great read:

I've just finished Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind and I really, really enjoyed it.

First, though, I feel like I ought to get some credit toward my Goodreads 2013 reading challenge for reading a 722 page novel (yes! 722 pages!), that instead of 1 book, it should count as at least 2, maybe even 3. I'm kidding. Sort of.

The 722 pages go by quickly. This is fantasy, and the fact that I enjoy fantasy is only a recent revelation to me (see my discovery, here). The world Mr. Rothfuss creates is amazing -- rich and believable and all encompassing. The likeability of the protagonist Kvothe (pronounced "Quothe") is astounding as well: we root for him and believe in him. And the scene where he ends up on his own is one of the best I've had to pleasure to read. It was haunting; utterly surprising and shocking, it and its immediate aftermath has stayed with me.

I have only 2 small quibbles with this story. The first is when it switches from the present time and assumes a "let me tell you what happened" tone. This is how the entire story is told, actually, where Kvothe recounts his life's events to Chronicler, who is busy copying the oral into written form. And, really, Rothfuss does such a marvelous job in drawing us into young Kvothe's world that we very quickly switch gears and are absorbed into the unfolding scene and story. My reaction stems from the intrigue that surrounds the older Kvothe and his situation at the book's beginning, that I didn't want to leave it to start over as it were. My slight irritation was short-lived, though.

My other quibble has to do with the ending. It feels like it just sort of ends. On the one hand, the story was already 722 pages long, so, really, it was time! On the other hand, I wanted a bit more of something... resolution, closure. Instead, it feels very open-ended, very much like a pause, and I'm guessing that the 2nd in the series, The Wise Man's Fear will pick up seamlessly where this one leaves off. But this just stopping, if you will, left me slightly unsatisfied and is only a very small notch against a fantastically fabulous read.

Great read:

I finished Anne Leigh Parrish's collection All The Roads That Lead From Home at the end of December, right before the new year started. And what a way to end the year. I loved these stories. Quiet, honest, powerful. They all have a low key sort of quality to them that is deceptive... the characters and their stories wind their way around your heart and through your mind, staying with you long after you've put the book down. Immensely satisfying.

Counting Proper

My short story Counting Proper is live at Blue Lake Review. It appeared originally in the May 2009 issue of Bryant Literary Review.

Happy New Year!

Disappointing Read

The title of this post should be flat out didn't like it because that's more honest. But since this is my first ever post about a book I didn't like, or, let's be real -- I didn't even finish -- I'm taking a gentler approach. The book? Jo Walton's Among Others. The premise is intriguing (from the inside book cover):

"Raised by a half mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. When her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled--and her twin sister dead."

Sounds exciting, doesn't it? A little magic, fairy spirits, a spell gone bad, hints at sci-fi. Who WOULDN'T by intrigued? The reality is that I had to invoke my daughter's 50-page rule and even then I made it only to page 75 before giving up. The magic? The fairies? We get only the briefest of glimpses of either of these by the 75-page point. Seventy-five pages! And the hints at sci-fi? That comes only via the myriad references to SF book authors, titles, and characters, and I found the constant bombardment irritating. Maybe the intent was to add context? Not sure, but I found my eyes glazing over at every mention. The real disappointment for me was that nothing happens (at least not in the initial 75 pages), rather it's a LOT of plowing through uninteresting family history with brief references to things that happened off the page. Even these references are approached sort of sideways -- more of a by-the-way the twin sister is dead rather than a scene that shows us what happened. Maybe some of these things are played out or come together further in, but I just couldn't make myself keep reading. For me, reading is supposed to be pleasurable, not frustrating.

Two Acceptances

I received an acceptance from Santa Fe Literary Review for a short story of mine and I'm THRILLED. This particular story started as a rather brutal scene between a father and mother as witnessed by the young son. I'd initially wanted that scene to stand on its own but couldn't seem to make it work. So I went at it a different way, backing up, going forward, filling in the blanks while trying to keep it short. It comes in at just under 1500 words. I'm SO pleased that it found a home, and the warm acceptance email from the editor made my day. "Picture Window" will be in the next issue, which comes out in June 2013.

I received an acceptance last month from the editor at Blue Lake Review for my short story "Counting Proper." This story was originally published in May 2009 by Bryant Literary Review, and it's still one of my favorites. Every time I reread it, I'm instantly drawn to the place in my mind's eye from which these characters emerged: my neighborhood during the short time I lived in Wheaton, Illinois as a teenager. I'm THRILLED that this story has found a second life. It will appear in the January 2013 issue.

Two Reads: One Great, One Not-So-Great

I'm a detail person. Ask anyone. When my husband needs something followed up on, he asks me. When my sister needs the details ironed out on places we'll visit for our next star trails photo outing, she asks me to investigate and map it all out. So imagine my surprise when I visited the library a few weeks ago to check out Lois Lowry's The Giver and was directed to the juvenile section. The juvenile section! How had this distinction escaped me? The book had popped up on my radar repeatedly over the last few months and I knew it had won an award of some kind (only later did I discover that it was the Newbery Medal, an award given to an author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.) I'm sure my face sported a slightly chagrined expression as I walked into the children's section and hunted for the book. I felt out of place... my children are grown and it's been YEARS since I stepped foot in the brightly lit children's department with cushy seating and walls festooned with construction paper cutouts. After locating the book, I tugged it from its snug spot among all the other kid's books and quickly retreated back upstairs to the adult section.

Even though I was fully informed now, I found the first few chapters were more of a struggle to get through than I wanted. It wasn't that they were difficult in the normal sense, it was that they were too simplistic. And although I was a tad bored, I could hardly place the blame at the author's feet... it was written for children, after all.

It picked up for me around halfway through. I LOVED the concept: a little sci-fi-ish, a little other worldly... right up my alley. I can't say that I loved the ending, though, for a children's book, it was perfect. But, really, it was just getting started. I wanted to see what was going to happen next. It was too much about the struggle of getting away, the journey of leaving and not enough about what made it so interesting in the first place. I'd give it a three out of five stars.


I also read Veronica Roth's Divergent. Also a little sci-fi-ish, a little other worldly, but this was a GREAT read. I loved it. And it was terrific for all the right reasons: complex characters, intricate storyline, engaging prose. This also won an award (although I didn't realize that until after I'd finished the book) -- Goodreads Choice Award: Favorite Book of 2011. Pretty cool bragging rights, I'd say.

My daughter recommended this book something like six months ago and I'm really glad I took her advice. The characters got under my skin and I stayed up long into the night reading. I enjoyed it so much that I bought a copy for my dad! He and I like some of the same authors, and although he doesn't read sci-fi as a rule, this is enough of a hybrid that I'm hoping he'll give it a try and like it as much as I did.

I'd give it five out of five stars. And more good news: I hear there's a sequel out now.