Another Effort Sails Out

I pinged a US sci-fi mag a few months ago and received a generous rejection, so I'm trying them again with a 1250 word story I wrote in spring. It failed once with another US mag, and I've done a great deal of work on it since. I have three more stories in the wings which I'll be sending to the US before returning to the novel.

I constantly search for equivalent UK magazines, but never find anything. I Googled some writers in Brace, a 2008 UK anthology published by Comma Press, but never found a single example of their work published anywhere online.

Maybe I should Google harder and for longer. If I was an anthologised English writer, I'd be promoting my writing through my web pages. Maybe English writers think the web is beneath them. Anyway, Charlotte Allan, Juliet Bates, Annie Clarkson, Adam Connors, Steve Dearden, Paul de Havilland, Tyler Keevil, Richard Knight, Jacqueline McCarrick, Neil McQuillian, Chris Killen, Heather Richardson, David Rose, Guy Russell, and Guy Ware. Where is your work online?

Rejected by Expanded Horizons

Rejected by Expanded Horizons after I queried, but I never received the original email.

Wished me the best of luck with my writing though, and then declined my Expanded Horizons Live Journal community membership request.

Non Response From Expanded Horizons

Two issues of Expanded Horizons came out since I submitted a story to them.

Editor Dash never replied to my submission, so I think I can move on with this story. Maybe the email never reached its destination. They're a small mag.

Back On Shorts

Short stories again. I looked at some new material, and it looks good. I have a lot of work ahead. Some stories that have been around benefitted from a rewrite and I'm very excited about one in particular.

I worked on the novel for four weeks. Most of that was spent reworking the ending. I'll leave it four weeks and come back to it again.

About My Writing Credits - Eclectica Magazine

The editors at Eclectica have had the wisdom and foresight to publish my stories over the years. I was spotlight author in 2006@http://tinyurl.com/c5mn5g.

Eclectica was founded in October 1996 with the goal of providing a sterling quality literary magazine on the World Wide Web. At the time we were not able to find a forum that would be the net equivalent (in terms of content) of Harper's, New Yorker, Granta, The Atlantic, and other publications providing quality material for the appetites of a wide variety of demanding readers. Although some of these magazines even had their own web-sites, they were conceived as companions to the print items rather than sites that stood completely on their own."

"Thus Eclectica was born. The vision we shared was that of a magazine not bound by formula or genre, that harnessed technology to further the reading experience rather than for the sake of flashy gimmickry, and that was dynamic and interesting enough content-wise to keep readers coming back for more."

"Thirteen years later, quality is still the sole criterion in our editorial process. If it is outstanding writing, then we want to share it with our ever growing, global readership. We provide broad categories for convenience's sake, but we love to get material that just doesn't fit into them. And while there are many, many online publications now that succeed, to greater or lesser degrees, in doing what we set out to do in 1996, we pride ourselves on being one of the longest-running and most consistent literary ezines on the web."

About My Writing Credits - Verbsap

My stories Have You Quite Finished? and Think Of a Name For It appeared in VerbSap - "an independent online literary magazine featuring an eclectic selection of concise prose."

"We publish more than 100 short stories and author interviews each year, showcasing the work of recognized and emerging writers."

"Our authors have been awarded Pushcart Prizes, Nebula Awards, and major grants such as The Guggenheim Fellowship, and many stories originally published in VerbSap have been reprinted in independent collections. Over the past three years, more than 20 stories from VerbSap contributing writers have featured on the storySouth Million Writers Award list of notable online fiction."

Laurie Seidler

"Founding Editor of VerbSap and a former Reporter, Editor, and Bureau Chief for Dow Jones & Co. Her reporting has appeared in in The Wall Street Journal, among other newspapers, and she has had short fiction published in various literary journals. She is a graduate of Yale University and has an MFA in writing from California College of the Arts. She lives in San Jose with her husband and son."

Randall Osborne

"Writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has appeared in salon.com, identitytheory.com, the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and The Progressive magazine, among others. He is finishing a book of stories."

Paul Schweer

"(Seen Waking) is a part-time student at Rollins College. His work can be found online at AikiWeb. He lives with his wife Cheryl in Apopka, Florida."

Neil Crabtree

"Lives in Miami, FL, and offers commentary through his daily blog, Believable Lies. He is completing a novel, The Barricades of Heaven, and a short story collection, Isolated Incidents."

About My Writing Credits - Transmission Magazine

Transmission is one of many magazines to have had the foresight, intelligence and great taste to publish two of my stories.

The people behind Transmission are:

Graham Foster

“Graham is the ukulele-playing, garlic-obsessed editor of Transmission. While, at best, he has an amateur knowledge of all things horticultural, he writes regularly for Urban Garden Magazine. His particular literary passion is contemporary North American literature, something he is indulging by studying for a PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he also teaches. His writing has appeared in The Daily Telegraph, Literary Review and Times Literary Supplement. He believes there is no greater pleasure than reading a quality book while drinking a quality beer…”

Jo Phillips

“Jo is the gentleman designer of Transmission. He is a softly-spoken perfectionist who whiles away his time at the club, slim cigar in hand, singing Russian folk songs with his elegant, lilting voice. Not content with being the aesthetic brains behind the magazine, he also reveals his love and knowledge of literature at key moments. Jo has a degree in the History of Art and Design, but really his eyes are firmly on the future.”

Stephen Ireland

“When not huddled behind his computer screen, exercising his computer wizardry, web-designer Steve is Transmission’s in-house action man. While his team-mates would weep at such activity, Steve likes nothing more than a throwing himself down some gushing rapids in his kayak. His love of the white water aside, he also enjoys thunderstorm hikes followed by a bottle of red. He is also the creative force behind Ivyparkmedia, a web-design company with extra ones and zeroes…”

“Transmission is a sturdy skiff on the turbulent waters of independent literature, packed with a cargo of the best short fiction. It features exclusive interviews, articles, writing guidance from industry professionals and reviews.”

“Transmission is designed to appeal to literature lovers from writers and academics, to bibliophiles and bookworms. Published tri-annually on a not-for-profit basis, Transmission continues to explore the choppy waters for the best and most original literary voices.”

“We publish only the best short fiction and with every piece illustrated with original artwork, we hope to stand out from the crowd. We are amongst a very small number of UK printed magazines solely dedicated to the short story. While we don’t pay for submissions, if your work is published you can be sure it will find itself in a well-respected literary magazine (that’s us!), alongside interviews and writing guidance from established authors and industry professionals.”

“A magazine showcasing some of the finest writing talent.” – BBC Online