UP at Smokelong Quarterly!

I'm thrilled to announce the new Smokelong Quarterly double-issue is out! My story, Complicit, was a Smokelong Weekly feature back in February and is now up again as well as an interview of me by Tara Laskowski. Beth Thomas and Tara are the senior editors of Smokelong taking over for the wonderful Dave Clapper and it's clear they are determined to continue to make Smokelong beautiful and relevant (and I'm not saying that because I have a story there!)

And one more shout out to those who gave me feed back on "Complicit" when I was revising it, especially Randall Brown of FlashFiction.net.

COMPLICIT

INTERVIEW of me BY TARA LASKOWSKI

Two More for July

"Amok" is up at The Molotov Cocktail and "To Have and to Hold" at Every Day Fiction. Both are short and quick.

The Binnacle's Seventh Annual Ultra-Short Competition

Look for me down there in purple and a couple of writing buds too.

The Binnacle is proud to announce the winners and honorees in its Seventh Annual International Ultra-Short Competition.

Top Prose Prize: Emily Jiang - Wedding Song

Top Poetry Prize:Toni Giarnese - Dancing

Top UMM Student Prize: Bunny Richards - Lions in Winter

Honorable Mentions

Adrian S. Potter - Incantation

Alan C. Baird - Hack

Anne Earney - Blue

Barb McMakin - Hopscotch

Barbara Fleming Phillips - First Day of High School

Britt Kaufmann - Last SongCaroline Michalicki - Underground Spudway

Christina Beasley - How the Natural Collects the Divine

Colin Meldrum - House-sitting

Daphne Nichols - Ed and Dorrie, 2009

David Mohan - Before the Lights Went Out

David Jack - There Ance Wis A Laddie Ca’d John - A Scots Limerick

Dave Yost - Homeostasis

David Ochs - All in a day

Debbie Okun Hill - Lying on a Beach Blanket Too Long

Diane Smith - The Rodeo

Donna L. Turello - Miracle

Ed Parrot - Tiburon

Ellen LaFleche - Jesús, the Miner of Gold

Elyse Shapiro - Seasonally Tragic

Emily Spreng Lowery - The Birthday Party

Fehmida Zakeer - Auspicious Numbers

Gay Degani - What's Left

Geoffrey Hoffman - Ruth among the Teacups

Graves Collins - Ghormley, My Shamrock Heritage

Harold Bauld - Trivium

Hema Raman - Go Figure

Jari Thymian - From the Other Side

Jiayan Yu - Dormant

John Gosslee - The Paradise Birds

Josh Byer - A Rough Idle

K. S. Dearsley - The Case of the Geometric Pattern

Kathleen Rivera - Cloud Watching

Kelly O'Neill - In a Moment

Lori Pollard-Johnson - Easy It Ain’t

Lynda La Rocca - The Houseguest

Margot Zucker Mindich - Coming In On the Fire Island Ferry 1977

Max Speed - Hands Off

Meg Eden - Names

Mitchell Noel Kelly - Off the Top of Your Head

Myra Merritt - Beyond

Patti Jazanoski - As Jehovah Is My Witness

Petra Angelen - My Secret Aunt Who Never Was

Pervin Saket - Neighbors

Philip Sultz - The Speck

Rachel Cordasco - (R)evolution

Robert Craig - A Gig to be Missed

Russell Marsh - Late Shift

Ruth Almon - The Change

Samantha Priestley - The Talent

Sue Ann Connaughton - An Elegant Revenge

SuzAnne C. Cole - Pyramids

V S Adams - Past Contempt

Vanessa Gebbie - Swarf

Summer Workshop!!!!!!!

I'm very lucky. I'm on my way to the Tin House Workshop tomorrow. I'm excited and more than a little ADD. Okay. It's 11:51 at night. My plane leaves at six am tomorrow. I have to get up at 3:00 am. Clothes are neatly stacked on my bed. Just about everything is BLACK. I have no idea what to put into my suitcase. Will it be cold or hot? I pray for cold. I look so much better in a sweatshirt.


I'm going early so I can finish a couple stories and go to Powells. Maybe lose 5 pounds? Does my hotel have a gym? Then I could buy something that isn't black and hot and oh, dear. I hope it's raining.

I just printed up everyone's piece 11 of them changing them all to garamond 11 pt. single spaced so I can manage to carry my brief case. And what am I doing? FACEBOOK! Well, I was doing FB until they told me this was too long so I moved it on over to my blog.

But what I should be doing is looking for flash drives, extention cords, power cords, cat cords (whatever that's called), phone cord, my phone, my notebook I put together with my ticket information, and my camera, my camera charger, my ipod, my earphones, my neck pillow, my earplugs--the days of a writer traveling light are long gone--so what I really want to do is go look at the second half of So You Think You can Dance!

Genre Safari!!! @ Flash Fiction Chronicles

At Flash Fiction Chronicles, we're planning to spend some time posting various articles about genres and sub genres. We have several writers committed to writing posts, but are on the look out for more. These can be opinion pieces (most discussion of genre falls under the classification since since few people agree), but they should all exhibit knowledge either from experience or research regarding the conventions they discuss.

Genre Safari!!! « Flash Fiction Chronicles

The Element of Surprise and Story Structure

If you're a writer and you know your use of language is strong but you are struggling with story structure (most of us do) watch this video of Alex Wong and Twitch on So You Think You Can Dance at UTube. Alex and Twitch

Look for "build." How it starts, how it grows, how each change in the music brings a fresh surprise. Strong stories achieve the same kind of surprise.

July Pubs!!

I have a piece up at the inimitable K.C. Ball's 10Flash today called Heading for Perdition.

And at 50 to 1: Before She Left

And continuing at Apollo's Lyre: Tumbling Down

Another piece is due out at Every Day Fiction in mid-July, see calendar in previous post.