August Publications

August has been pretty good to me. I found out earlier in the month that my story "Moon Noir" will be published in an upcoming issue of the Criminal Class Press. You can check them out and all their previous issues at the link. 

It's a dark story (like most from the collection) broken up into three sections: the point of view of the kidnapper, the point of view of the kidnapped, and the point of view of the moon. While there is an underlying violence to the story, I don't know that I would actually call it violent. It's definitely hinted at, however.

Yesterday, I had the good fortune of hearing about two more publication opportunities within hours of each other. This had never happened before. One or two in a month has been (thus far) a rarity for me, but two in one day? I'm still reeling a bit, but it's emboldened me to seriously carve out some time and do nothing but focus more than I have already.

Yesterday morning, the good folks over at Crack the Spine Magazine let me know that they really enjoyed my piece called "Puzzle Peace," about a shut-in of a woman who ends up receiving mysterious packages full of pictures and words every day. She starts plastering these images all over her house until one day...well, you'll just have to check it out. Things get a little strange as they are wont to do in my fictional worlds.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I heard from Bonnie at Penduline Press that they wanted to publish a shorter piece called "Sympathetic Magic." I don't remember where I originally heard the phrase, but I remembered loving the explanation behind it when I looked it up. From the Wikipedia page:

"If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. The former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not." – Sir James Frazer from The Golden Bough

Something about this phrase rang true for me and I instantly saw it as a way to tell the story of a family (from the matriarch down to the son and his wife, down to their daughter, so on) by focusing not on the people or their actions, but instead focusing on the objects with which they surrounded themselves (clothing, jewelry) or placed importance on (books, photographs). I was really happy with the outcome and I'm glad to hear the folks at Penduline were as well.

So...August has been good to me thus far. These pieces may not see actual publication for a bit, but they're forthcoming. Until then, you keep writing and I'll do the same.


(31,677)