Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts about the piece of writing, The Fog, that I sent you last time.
Your encouraging words gave me a nice little boost to keep working on it. So now I’ve submitted it to a place that I’ll hopefully hear from in the fall! (If it isn’t a fit for them, I’ve already got alternate plans for it.)
BUT the good news that I really want to share is…
One of my stories made it on to the June 2022 Bath Flash Fiction Award long list and will be published in the next Bath Flash Fiction anthology, due out in early December this year!!!
Author’s names aren’t yet being shared, so I can’t tell you which title on the list is mine.
If you know which title is mine, please keep it to yourself. If you’d like to guess which one is mine, please don’t… or keep your guesses to yourself. I promise I’ll tell you when I can.
Keep your fingers crossed my story makes it on to the short list that comes out later this week. Winners are being announced next week.
But know that I’m celebrating the hell out of making it on to the long list!
I’m also celebrating the final week of school for my kid. He’s so excited for the break.
Happy Solstice.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
PS. For most of the pandemic (which isn’t over), I’ve had very little capacity to read a book from cover to cover. You’ve seen the rare exceptions that I’ve shared in these PSs where I’ll list what I’m watching and reading. But out of the gazillion books I’ve bought, or borrowed from the library, I’m often only able to read a few pages at a time before I give up completely. Unfortunately, it hasn’t stopped me from accumulating books, so now I have stacks of unread books that have taken over my house. And they refuse to pay me any rent.
But a couple of weekends ago, I finished three whole books!!! It was nice to see that my reading muscles hadn’t completely atrophied.
The first was Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. I’ve been avoiding it for years (I can only tolerate Anne Lamott in teeny-tiny doses), but many people love her, and this book, so I finally gave it some attention. It isn’t my favourite. Yes, it contains some nuggets of wisdom. Unfortunately, they’re buried under a lot of material that hasn’t aged well. I pushed my way through it, but it was challenging to take it seriously at times.
Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk was a book that caught my attention when I went to pick up Bird by Bird. I didn’t know anything about it… I don’t think I’ve even read any of his work. I’ve seen the movie Fight Club, but I’ve never read the book. And yet, Consider This was a treat to read! It’s filled with a heap of wild stories that I’m still thinking about.
Little Weirds by Jenny Slate is full of exactly what the title describes. It’s a little weird AND IT’S DELIGHTFUL. I wanted more by the time I got to the end. The chapter called “I Died: Listening” is my favourite.
Downton Abbey: A New Era wasn’t as shitty as the movie trailer suggested it would be! I found it sweet, sickly on occasion, and it made me cry (happy and sad tears).
The movie Nine Days is slow and quiet and heartbreakingly beautiful. It’s full of reminders that I (we) need now.