I’m sharing some news about my summer submitting-rampage-turned-success. My chapbook “On that one-way trip to Mars” was selected as a finalist for the 2015 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. While it’s not being published, I’m honored that my space series made it that far in the contest. I’m still working to publish the chapbook.
I’m slowly, very slowly, getting back in the short story game. Way back in third grade, I first learned that creative writing was a thing when my teacher asked our class to write a fable story. I wrote a fable about how the dog got its bark, complete with a magical monkey and talking elephants. I was hooked on short stories. Then, in high school and college, poetry became my mode of expression. I studied the poetic line, craft, and read volumes and volumes of poetry. I was introduced to diverse and international writers through the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House. Two years after graduating from the University of Maryland, I started apprehensively writing short stories again, or at least getting short story ideas. So, it’s with pleasure and gratefulness that I’m announcing that my story “Duo-13-trip” will be published in Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction, edited by Kelly Jacobson.
Here’s the rest of my summer publishing successes:
- A space poem in PALEBLUE: art and sounds from the Milky Way, edited by Lindsay Cahill
- “On that one-way trip to Mars” and “Star searcher” in Crab Fat
- A collection of space poems in The Syzygy Poetry Journal
- “Káktos” in the Plants’ Issue of jaffatelaqlam: a haven for middle eastern writers & artists
- “On it” in Straight Forward Poetry
Fall is definitely here, with a full week of gray sky and rain. The temperature in D.C. seemed to have dropped 20 degrees overnight. As we move further into fall and the winter, I’m going to keep trying to write and submit short stories. I’ll always be writing and submitting poems. Do any of you have seasonal writing or submission goals?