Printed

Two of my short stories recently greeted the world, and I'm so glad to finally see them in print.

"Autonomic Zen and the Art of Destruction" is included in the latest issue of Bards and Sages Quarterly , and it was my Write1Sub1 for week #24 last year. A warped take on Wall-E, it survived a total of six rejections before finding a good home. It starts out like this:

Unit X11-76 entered the universe as more than a null set but far less than an infinite number of possibilities. It became aware of itself and its surroundings only after crash-landing through an atmosphere of xenon and nitrogen into a crater of its own creation—its first but not last contribution, indistinguishable from any other on the moon's surface.

"Like a Good Neighbor" is in the latest issue of Title Goes Here:and survived fourteen rejections over three years before it saw the light of day. Here's how it begins:

They kept Bobby in the basement because he ate people. Well, maybe I should be more specific. He ate one person: the toddler across the street, the little Scandinavian kid with the goldilocks. We couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl when they first moved in.

I know I have a habit of quoting Galaxy Quest ("Never give up. Never surrender!"), but whenever my stories make it through rejection after rejection to eventual publication, I can't help but feel awash with relief—and maybe a little vindicated. I believe in every one of my tales, and I know they'll all be accepted for publication in time.

In other news, I recently joined Goodreads and set up my author profile, so if you're a Goodreader and we're not already connected over there, I'd be honored to make your acquaintance!