The Quirks of the Slush Pile, P1

Ah, Wednesday. We meet again. As you probably know, I’ve been a first-reader for Waylines Magazine for several months now. Long enough to see some negative patterns in the submissions. Today I’d like to cover one of those negative aspects, and though this might be a discussion that’s a little rough on the ego, I

Happy May 29th

Hope everyone that celebrated had a nice holiday weekend. I spent Memorial day doing yard work and getting covered in ticks–yes, ticks. Not cool! I know quite a few people with birthdays today, so happy b-day to all the May 29th babies out there. I do have some short story news–I actually got an acceptance

Campbellian Pre-Reading Anthology and Penumbra

Now that I’ve got a completed contract in hand, I feel free to announce that my story, “Ol’ Soapy’s Revenge” will be appearing in the Lost themed issue of Penumbra coming out in April.  It’s a humor piece that I’m quite tickled to have accepted.  Funny is hard, in my opinion, and when I write

Updates on Submitomancy and The Submissions Grinder

These are the two Duotrope alternatives I introduced a few weeks ago.  That post is here if you’d like to familiarize yourself with it. Sadly, we’ve lost Submitomancy before its launch.  Its Indiegogo campaign was unsuccessful, meaning they did not receive the funding they needed to get off the ground. Though Submitomancy frequently posted aesthetically

Being SMART With Your Goals

Ok, I might be a little late here.  A goal-oriented post usually belongs at the beginning of January, not at the end.  But… I want to discuss setting real goals vs. setting non-goals.  You’d be amazed (or, perhaps not) at how many writers I’ve seen this month declare non-goals for 2013.  Non-goals don’t help anyone,

Duotrope and Alternatives

By now, if you’re at all involved in the short story community, you’ve heard that Duotrope is going paid. That’s fantastic.  Nothing wrong with someone who provides a service getting paid for said service.  Everyone’s got mouths to feed and bills to pay, and no one should be expected to provide a service at a

Spec-Fic Editor News

Oh no, blog post, you snuck up on me this week. Luckily, the industry has given me two tasty links to pass along today.  We have editors a-changin’. First is the lovely Ann Vandermeer.  She has recently joined the team at Tor.com. Story here. Secondly–and this one I have mixed feelings about– Stanley Schmidt is

What Kind of Stories does Writers of the Future buy?

Recently, over on the WotF Forum, there’s been a lot of submit-o-mancy.  What does the new coordinating judge want? I think the greater question is, what does the contest want?  Yes, David Farland is master of the gate, he opens and closes the door, but then there are four more judges to please before you

Best Submissions Week Ever! P2

So, did you figure it out?  Two SFWA qualifying sales in one week!  Yahoo!  Still living off the high. Getting to some copyedits for my Mirror Shards sale now.  Belive it or not, that’s pretty exciting for me, too. And I hear finalist calls have already gone out for WotF q2!  Congrats, all! Had any

Best Submissions Week Ever!

Without any ado: I won second place in Writers of the Future!  I won’t be able to reply for a while, but if you leave a comment, thank you in advance! And big congrats to Stephen Sottong who won third, and a major rip-roaring congrats to Tina Smith who ran away with first! Here’s the