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Weird and Wonderful Flash: Hermeneutic Chaos Journal

20 Mar

It’s Market Monday and I’m advocating Chaos.

Last week Hermeneutic Chaos Journal published its March issue, and I’m lucky enough to be included. I discovered HCJ in one of the Best Small Fictions collections, and immediately fell in love with their voice. I have only twice read stories at a magazine and concluded that my work is an obvious match—the first time with the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, then with HCJ. In both cases I thought of a particular story immediately that might be right for the magazine, and in both cases the editor said yes to that submission within two days. Lightning should strike only once, really, so I now must accept that this particular brand of serendipity will never happen for me again, which makes my publication at HCJ especially sweet. Would you like to join me, there?

Do I like what they publish? Very much indeed. I’ve already highlighted a story from HCJ on a Fiction Friday, and I’ve got another HCJ flash I want to revel in some Fiction Friday coming in the next few months. In the meantime, here’s Sara Barač’s spare and evocative “Former Yugoslavia, Former You” from the current issue, and Jennifer Maritza McCauley’s sad, quiet “The Girl We Forgot” from Issue Sixteen.

Do they do justice to the published work? I love the art at the top of HCJ’s homepage, and each piece chosen to grace an issue page. So that—the arresting images and colors—grab me first. When I click on the link to a story, I get a soft, spacious white page with the story laid out simply, a minimalist presentation that lets the work speak for itself. As a bonus, any author who’s willing provides an audio file to accompany the story, so you can close your eyes and be read to, if you like. I’d never been asked to provide a reading of a published story before, and I enjoyed doing it. I don’t know why more online magazines don’t take advantage of what the Web allows.

Do their guidelines speak to me? They had me at this: “We admire all forms of experimental, hybrid and avant-garde literature, collaborative writings, visual and graphic outpourings – anything that literature is capable of.” That’s speaking MY language for sure, but the proof is in the reading. As it happens, I connect with, enjoy, and admire the work published here, and that’s the proof. I also appreciate being able to submit up to three pieces of prose at once (up to a total of 3K words).

So maybe invite a little literary chaos into your life and send a story or three their way? Let me know if you get published at HCJ so I can congratulate you!

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My Published Stories

11 Dec

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This image best represents the way I feel when a magazine accepts a story. The chance to share my work with people who would never otherwise see it… well. That’s a gift.

I’ve finally created a page here at Daily Shorty noting the title and first line or two of each published story, as well as the name of the publication that put me in print. When the full story is available online, I’ve linked to it.

Now back to the writing trenches….

Practice Grace AND Confidence

7 Dec

Writers! It only now occurs to me that practicing grace is an act of self-confidence. As writers who spend so much time alone with our words, we need a lot of both.

Fellow Maine writer Karen Maffeo Creamer blogs today about how to be graceful in response to one of the many small (and large) cuts we writers suffer.* Her story reminded me of a cut I once received—a very slight one, yet it felt like a shiv to the kidney.

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If I had the confidence my Willa finds between her toes, I’d be set for life.

Newly minted MFAers are told to expect a good two years before publication. I was ecstatic when nine months after graduation, a highly respected literary magazine accepted my story (but I would pay the rest of my time-dues and then some, before fate smiled again). I shrieked and threw my hands up when I saw the e-mail, then ran outside to my husband’s waiting car—by coincidence, he was on his way to pick me up for something when I got the acceptance—shouting as I bounded down the outside stairs of our apartment building, at first alarming the poor husband. That high lasted for weeks, and that publication was an extremely important piece of early validation. Which made the knife months later hurt that much more.

“Your piece came so close,” the gentle rejection read. “Unfortunately, it’s just not quite right for us.” They wished me luck with the story and invited me to submit again. And by “they” I mean the very same magazine, and by “the story” I mean the very same story that had in fact been published already and was living in its colorful, shiny, pristine package on one of my book shelves. Yep. The same story was both accepted and rejected, both published and gently pushed away, by editors at the same publication.

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She doesn’t exactly embody grace, but I can’t post a pic of Willa and NOT one of my Tillie.

A more confident me would have laughed, felt embarrassed for the magazine’s overworked staff, and notified them of the mistake in hopes they would discover what went wrong with their review process before doing something like this to another author. The me of the time signed into the magazine’s submissions log to stare at the title of my published story with a big fat “Declined” next to it.

I would like to say that this bothered me only for a couple of days. I would like to say I never signed into that database again to stare at “Declined.” I would like to be an accomplished pianist, a retired prima ballerina, and a singer known best for my a capella performances.

Fortunately, I am lately bored by my own reflections on why I take things on the chin when I don’t have to, why I can’t laugh at the Universe’s jokes—the same story, the same magazine, “just not quite right” while it sits on my shelf—so rather than spraying more words about this incident, I will instead appreciate Karen’s reminder that Grace is the writer’s friend, and Confidence is properly measured by the good work we do, not by the one person who said No to it… OR the one who said Yes.
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*Karen’s doing an author talk and book signing in York on Tuesday, December 13, so please drop by if you’re in the area, details here.

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Love from Mid-American Review

17 Jun

MARcover35_1.inddMany thanks to Mid-American Review, first for publishing in their beautiful anniversary issue my micro fiction “Three Things”–written during my Daily Shorty year and submitted to MAR’s 2014 Fineline competition–and second for giving me a shout-out from their website with an author interview. I used to do interviews like this with authors when I was an editor at Hunger Mountain, so it was fun to be on the other side. What a great, great magazine, and what an honor to be a part of it.

But enough about me! Enjoy from MAR’s archives this stunning micro by Anika L. Eide, 2013 Fineline editor’s choice, “Some Parents.” I love the surrealism of this piece, especially as delivered in what I would call a sort of deadpan tone of voice. Here’s the first sentence to get you hooked: We are granted only so many lies before we become liars. Ahh, yes. You just know this is going to be good….

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Prompt Power and Objectivity Fail

24 May

I just realized that all five of the shorties I have published so far have two things in common. (1) I wrote each one with the use of a writing prompt. The prompts I used included a photo, a paragraph I had written and stored in my idea file, and three paintings. The shorties are “Her Postcards” from September 18, “Reflections” from October 17, “High Water” from December 5, “Vanilla” from January 17, and “Imaginary i” from January 19.

Honeymoon Bay SunsetInterested in writing prompts? I often used a “Picture of the Day” at Wikimedia Commons for inspiration. Here’s one for you, if you’d like to stop right now and let it inspire a story. Go!

(2) Despite my understanding throughout my Daily Shorty year that the challenge was about process, and my insistence that the Inner Critic must be banned during the drafting phase, I habitually (and reflexively) commented in story posts when I considered a story a “keeper.” So under the “What the hell do I know” file: I made no such comment about any of these five shorties. Apparently I was underwhelmed when I first wrote them and only discovered their worth later, when I selected them for submissions. Good to be reminded that initial judgments should always be questioned.

Photo of Honeymoon Bay, Freycinet Peninsula, Tasmania, Australia, by JJ Harrison 7/2009.