I just got a piece of terrific news. My story “Working Out Our Salvation” was picked up by Weird Tales!

Which is interesting because I didn’t send it to Weird Tales, I sent it to Fantasy Magazine. I submitted it right before they switched to e-subs and I think it got misfiled in the shift. They asked me to resend via email, which I did. They read it, liked it, but editor Sean Wallace said it might be better suited for Weird Tales, which is also published by Wildside. The editors for WT apparently liked it too, and the rest is history.

This is a special sale for me. When I first decided I wanted to get serious about writing, I went to Borders and bought some magazines to looking at markets. The two mags I liked the most were F&SF and Weird Tales. I told myself that I would feel like I’d finally “made it” when (or if) I ever broke into those markets. Here it is, just about three years later and I’ve broken into both. Today I still feel lightyears away from having “made it” (whatever that actually means) but goddamn, it feels good to having achieved something I thought seemed nearly impossible three years ago. It makes other goals—like selling a novel—seem not so impossible.

The story itself has gone through more changes than Proteus. It started as third-person/past tense, switched to first person told from five different viewpoints, and ended as third-person/present tense. It’s also expanded and contracted in word count during this time, but it ended up on the shorter side—2200 words. This also marks the first story I’ve sold that was written 100% after Clarion.

Current Mood: Ecstatic |