Monday Morning Chat at Fictionaut: Susan chats with ME!

I'm so excited that Susan Tepper likes my story "Something about LA" enough to invite me to chat about the story and my process in writing it.  If you get a chance today or sometime this week, hop on over to the Fictionaut site and find out what we talked about.

Monday Chat with Gay Degani

Read the story here: Something about LA

What's Up at Every Day Fiction this Month

January’s Table of Contents

Jan 1	David Bright	HTML
Jan 2	William Doonan	Visions of Sugarplums: One Elf’s Descent Into Madness
Jan 3	Tony Burnett	Big Sweet Life
Jan 4	Milo James Fowler	Stone in the Sky and Bread Below
Jan 5	Elaine Olund	A Winter Break
Jan 6	Scott W Younkin	Heed the Sailor’s Tale
Jan 7	Dan Allen	Knock-Knock
Jan 8	Lydia S Gray	In Return
Jan 9	JC Piech	Imaginary Cowboys
Jan 10	Christopher Owen	Deepsleep
Jan 11	Joanna Bressler	The Shadow Woman
Jan 12	April Grey	Doing Time
Jan 13	Richard Ferri	Making Do
Jan 14	Cezarija Abartis	The Golden Rule
Jan 15	Allison Nast	Dear Baby
Jan 16	Wayne Scheer	Late Night Heroics
Jan 17	Dan Purdue	Just Jeff
Jan 18	Gustavo Bondoni	Christopher’s Retreat
Jan 19	Laura Crowe	Glass Ceiling
Jan 20	Ted Lietz	The Truth about Truth
Jan 21	A. E. Decker	The Quest
Jan 22	Michelle Ann King	There You Are, My Love
Jan 23	Jonathan Pinnock	Rôle-Play
Jan 24	Ben Carey	The Smell Of Things To Come
Jan 25	Gerald Warfield	Stonehenge in His Garden
Jan 26	Thomas Ecclestone	Grunt The Underling
Jan 27	Michael A Rose	Candy Sales Are Through the Roof
Jan 28	Jason Michelsen	Circus
Jan 29	Andy Leigh de Fonseca	Survival
Jan 30	Andrew Waters	Flame
Jan 31	Joyce Chng	Birth Story

EDP To Launch Every Day Novels

This is exciting news.  Every Day Publishing, the "power" behind Every Day Fiction and Every Day Poets has come up with a terrific new concept: Every Day Novels and they've recently announced that the Every Day Novel website for their first Every Day Novel, Lifting Up Veronica by K.C. Ball, is now live.

Lifting Up Veronica follows Michael Kovac, a sociologist from Ohio State University, as he travels to rural West Virginia in the summer of 1960 to shoot footage for a documentary during a week-long tent meeting at a Signs Followers church — a Christian sect best known for their practice of handling venomous snakes and participating in other potentially deadly practices…

Many of you already know K. C. for her many stories published at Every Day Fiction or from 10Flash, the genre flash site she found ed a couple of years ago. She has also written articles for Flash Fiction Chronicles and poems for Every Day Poets.  K.C. Ball lives in Seattle, Washington. She became an addict of the written word as a child in Ohio and began writing fiction full-time four years ago. Her short fiction has appeared in print and online; she has won the Writers of the Future award and graduated from Clarion West. Lifting Up Veronica is her first novel.

EDP has a launch promotion up right now (20% off the subscription price) but that won’t last long, so anyone who wants to benefit from that shouldn’t wait. More information about the Every Day Novels concept can be found here: http://everydaynovels.com/about/

Link to to Lifting Up Veronica:

http://everydaynovels.com/liftingupveronica/

"Wounded Moon"

Just read a review of Tim Johnston's Short Story America Anthology--a very nice one BTW--and was thrilled to see the main character of my story "Wounded Moon" mentioned!  So thrilling to me so I had to share.

"Days laters, I’m still thinking about Mason, the shattered survivor in “Wounded Moon,” by Gay Degani. And Elaine, the disoriented middle-aged mother who sees her former self in her son’s rebellious girlfriend (“This Is Not My Beautiful Life,” by Ted McLoof). I’m haunted by the old woman, Irene, slowly slipping down the dark hallway of Alzheimer’s – where the same memory keeps changing shape (“Disengaged” by Jen Knox) – and the old man, Fergus, whose spite-filled fantasies keep him alive (“Fergus” by Laury A. Egan)."

--Margaret Evans, editor of the Low Country Weekly

Here's the link:  A Comeback Story 

Semper Fidelis: Always Faithful

During WWII, my parents were Marines. My father was a Lieutenant who served as a pilot instructor, my mother was a sergeant in the motor pool at El Toro in California.  They met on my mother's 21st birthday in a bar in Laguna Beach.  He was from Iowa, she from Louisiana. They fell in love and when my father shipped out to the Pacific, they got married.   They survived the war and moved close to my mother's hometown so my dad could get his Masters' degree in Economics at Tulane. They lived in Iowa too before moving to California in the mid-50's.They had two daughters and remained together until my father's death in 1983.

On this day of remembrance and thanksgiving, I honor my parents and all veterans who have served our country. Let those of us who are kept safe because of the sacrifice of others, continue to strive to be better people so we can have a stronger, more humane and ethical country. Let's put greed behind us, selfishness too, honor achievement and hard work, and move toward something good.  Let us talk and plan without thought of what we personally benefit, but rather how everyone can benefit. Then perhaps when those men and women who die for us will not die in vain.

Semper Fidelis: Always Faithful

EDF's October Calendar

I'm running a little behind this month, but here's theCalendar for October at Every Day Fiction.

October’s Table of Contents

10/1	Nicole Dunaway	Choices
10/2	M. Howalt	Focal Point
10/3	Len Hazell	Odin and Mr. Whitstuble
10/4	Sam Pelelo-Ray	Club
10/5	John Eric Vona	There Are Those Who Have the Stars…
10/6	Wayne Scheer	Just Drinks with Friends
10/7	Kaolin Imago Fire	Minimum Wage Fantasy
10/8	Sean Gibbons	Lights Like Stars
10/9	Barbara Mountjoy	Personally
10/10	Shamus Maxwell	Mank the Over-Sensitive
10/11	Shawna Mayer	Next
10/12	Erlynda Jacqui Chan	To Fly
10/13	Christopher Owen	Annie’s Book
10/14	Andrew Waters	Dancer’s Choice
10/15	Johann Thorsson	Seasons of Change
10/16	JC Piech	That Woman
10/17	Paul A. Freeman	Gifted
10/18	Sylvia Hiven	Dali Girl
10/19	Ryan Harvey	Foolish Mortals
10/20	Wanda Wande	Origami
10/21	Mark English	Giant Leap
10/22	Paula Cappa	The Nature of Sisters
10/23	James C.G. Shirk	All I Ever Was
10/24	Peter Tupper	Worn-Out Monsters
10/25	Aaron Polson	The Long Walk to Never
10/26	Brandon Nolta	All Those Things We Never Find
10/27	Oonah V Joslin	Hidden Communication
10/28	J. Chris Lawrence	The Widow’s Tale
10/29	Hector McCrillis	Scarecrow Sam
10/30	Lindsay Morgan Lockhart	Count to a Thousand
10/31	Gretchen Bassier	Lady Gaga’s Revenge

Pomegranate Stories is now available as an eBook at Amazon.com for only 99 cents.  If you prefer, the paperback edition is also available for $9.99. This is a chapbook of eight stories constructed around the relationships between mothers and daughters.


From Annie Clarkson's review of Pomegranate for the short review:

Pomegranate Stories is a brief glimpse into Gay Degani’s short fiction, and I want to read more. Her writing in this collection is visceral, has punch and explores the lives of characters that are not experiencing the easiest lives or relationships. There is some beautiful imagery and description and a very insightful approach to dialogue. 

Here are some comments posted about the paperback edition of Pomegranate Stories at Amazon:

...by the end you wish there were twenty more stories to read. The stories are inspiring, thought provoking, emotional, and a pleasure to read. --John Towler

Gay Degani has a stunning voice, gripping and charged, and loaded with such authentic realism, that her literary stories borderline nonfiction horrors.  --Erin Cole

Gay is a wonder at laying bare a fictional life and reminding you so much of your heart is in that character. She is a master at cutting to the quick of emotions and then layering them with humanity.  --Kevin Shamel

The stories in 'Pomegranate' convince you Gay Degani's been in your shoes, thought your thoughts, felt your emotions. You realize that you are stronger than you thought you were, the ironies of life won't stop the rain from falling, and that we need to smile when the opportunities present themselves. Beautiful prose, beautiful stories, do yourself a favor and buy this book. --Jodi MacArthur

Alongside the growing number of short story collections published recently--some of them doing surprisingly well--comes this delicious little "sleeper" volume by Gay Degani, titled "Pomegranate Stories." 

There are only eight stories, and a few of those are short enough to qualify as Flash Fiction, but the content is so startling, so intense and provocative, so well written, that it feels like a much weightier volume. The stories are about mothers and daughters (and the men in their lives), but don't think `sentimental sweetness,' think `raw reality.'  --Jackie Houchin