TWO TO GET READY - June 1, 2024

I find myself in the happy position of having two stories scheduled for publication in the same month. June is indeed busting out all over. What my tales have in common is that they were both written in response to calls for submissions for anthologies, a process that was a mystery to me (pun intended!) when I wrote my first short mystery story.

My internet wanderings paid off as I discovered how the process works. It begins when an editor and publisher agree on a theme for a volume of short stories and then establish rules for formats, word counts, and other variables, including a schedule that will end with publication. Some anthologies are by invitation only, when editors contact writers they are already familiar with and invite them to submit a story. Others are open call, where anyone can submit. These calls are circulated on the internet, on Facebook, and often generously shared within the community of short mystery writers.

There are advantages to writing for an anthology for people like me who have trouble getting started on a new story. It’s a lot easier when the editor tells you at the beginning what kind of story they want, including the genre, the length, and the theme. Those themes range from “hard-boiled stories from the foggy back alleys of Hollywood’s infamous past” to “must use the words Moon, Western, Placebo.”

Since my introduction to the world of submission calls, I have had seventeen stories accepted for publication in a wide range of anthologies (as well as five more for publications of various kinds). From gargoyles (horror) to a nagging dead mother (ghost story) to an astrophysicist trying not to fall in love with an astrologer (romance) to a treasure-hunting parrot (adventure) to multiple homicides, I’ve come to love the benefits offered by the anthology process.

Now back to the two new stories that are coming out this month. The submission call that resulted in my story, “Red Ink,” was for a story that would fit the anthology title, Larceny and Second Chances. I had been mulling a story about a tattoo artist for some time. When I saw the name of the anthology, the plot fell into place.

The other story, “Spllit/Personality,” will appear in the anthology Two for the Show. The call was for, “Two times the trouble, two times the love. Two locations. Dual time lines.”  I thought a mystery I had been working on would be a perfect fit. A retired undercover cop assumes a second identity to see that justice is done. Two personalities in one character. Fortunately for me, the editor agreed my two-fer would work, which is how I found myself with the great pleasure of seeing two of my stories find an audience in the same month.

I’ll be making an announcement here on the blog for each of the stories when they are officially launched. I’d love to hear what you think of them.

A Sneak Peak! - May 19, 2024

Here's a sneak peak at the cover reveal for LARCENY & LAST CHANCES, a Superior Shores Anthology edited by Judy Penz Sheluk, which includes my story, "Red Ink." Stay tuned for the publication date announcement coming soon.

POWERLESS – May 1, 2024

At nine o’clock on Sunday morning, just after breakfast, there was a loud noise that sounded like a thunder clap. The lights went out, along with every device that ran on electricity. Over the next two hours, my husband and I read on our Kindles, with nothing else to do. It was a sharp reminder of how much our lives relied on electricity. Here in Southwest Washington State, the outside temperature was in the low 40s, and the sky was gray with rainclouds. As the temperature in the house dropped, I pulled sweaters and gloves from the closet and wondered what had happened to the brief recent days of sun and cloudless skies.

The power outage wasn’t supposed to happen. When we moved here from Florida, I mentioned to an electrician that we were considering getting a generator. He assured me that in our neighborhood, the power lines were below ground and outages were rare and brief.

It was what I wanted to hear. After Hurricane Charlie in 2004 had left us with no power for a week during a hot, humid August in Florida, we bought a generator. For the next 17 years, my husband started up the generator every month, replaced the gas as needed, and then replaced the machine with a new model each time the old one gave up the ghost.

Then came Hurricane Ian in September, 2022. When we returned to the house after evacuating to higher ground, we at least had the comfort that we’d have a generator if we found the power was out at home. We had no idea that the storm surge had destroyed everything in its path including our house along with its contents and, of course, our still unused generator.

We were fortunate that the power outage in our Washington home only lasted two hours, but during that time, I thought about how powerless we were, not just literally during the outage, but in so many aspects of life.

Perhaps that was one of the things that attracted me to writing during my youth and into the present. There are so many things I can’t control, but when I sit in front of my laptop, the stories I tell are completely in my own power. Unlike some of my fellow authors, my characters never dictate the story to me or demand I make them smarter or prettier or braver. If they did, I’d probably be seeking help. The only voice in my head is my own. It has assumed the guise of a retired longshoreman, an obstreperous elf, a mysterious woman with a hidden past, a veteran with PTSD, and a range of other characters. But at the end of each writing day, the story has been told by all-powerful me.

I can’t control the weather or the electric grid or the insanity of the current state of the planet, but I can rule the fictional worlds I write about.  How lucky is that!