So you submitted your work to a magazine or agent or publisher, and now the long, long wait begins. Every day, you check your e-mail (maybe multiple times) or dash to answer the phone. The time drags out, passing so slowly it feels like it’ll take forever for that editor to get back to you….
Month: June 2018
Pearls In the Sand
If you’ve ever seen natural pearls, you know their beauty. The tale of how pearls are formed is common lore. A tiny irritant—say, a grain of sand—intrudes into the shell of a mollusk and begins to damage the delicate tissues inside. To protect itself, the animal secretes layer after layer of luminous nacre to coat…
Gifts: Book 1 of the Annals of the Western Shore
By Ursula K. Le Guin HMH Books for Young Readers, ISBN: 978-0152051242 Paperback, 304 pages. © 2006 In the Uplands, where families pass on Gifts through their bloodlines, Houses are known by what their heirs can do. Some can move heavy objects without touching them. Even buildings. Even hills. Others can strike blindness or take…
How Writing Will Make You Question Everything
(or “Please Ignore My Browser History”) I’ve heard it said that a good exercise for writers is to ask “What if.” What if a team of scientists went to Mars and one of them got accidentally left behind? What if a white journalist in 1960 Mississippi decided to write an expose on the treatment of…
Help for Guatemala
For my readers who’d like to help those affected by Fuego in Guatemala, in-country associates of a trusted friend have set up a GoFundMe page where you can donate. Financial assets are easiest, since the things their displaced compatriots need most are difficult or impossible to ship, much less deliver to those who need them…
Rejection, Continued
I mentioned a few posts ago the rejection of my short story “Upshot” due to its use of Spanish words instead of using a language native to isolated Guatemalans. I went on to describe how I had sent forth queries intended to draw on resources among my friends new and old for Mayan replacements. Now…
Kindred
By Octavia Butler Beacon Press, ISBN: 978-0807083698 Paperback, 264 pages. © 2003 Dana and her husband, Kevin, are unpacking boxes in their new home the first time she is called away. A wave of nausea and dizziness are her only warnings before the world around her fades to black and reforms into an unfamiliar scene….