New Stories Are Out!

So, if you visit my Published Works page, you may notice that it has expanded a little recently. That’s because my college’s annual arts magazine and Sonder Midwest’s first-ever issue have published, combined, THREE of my short stories! Sonder published “Important Transmission” (probably my most comical presentation of a sci-fi concept to date), while the arts magazine took “Plumber” and “To Write a Story”. I thought I’d discuss those latter two stories here, though, because…the circumstances of their publication were rather interesting.

Here are three of those peculiarities.

First, the fact that my college’s arts magazine took two of my stories is new on me. Normally they only take one—but last year I did get one story and one photo accepted. Other than that, it’s just been one story at a time. I hope this is a good sign for my writing skills and not a bad sign for submission quantity, but whatever the case may be, it’s rather flattering.

…Except that I submitted three stories, and to be honest, the one that didn’t get published was probably my favorite. Oh well. That means I’ll feel better when I submit it elsewhere.

Second, one of the published short stories, specifically “To Write a Story”, won for me my third Short Fiction Award. I didn’t think that was allowed. I’d won it before with “URCARU” in 2015 and “The Longest Three Days” last year, so I was expecting—and OK with—not acquiring it this year. But I guess it is possible. So to all those who may be attending any academic institution with such an arts award (I’ll tell you my college someday, probably after I’ve graduated), I offer this advice: shoot for the fiction award every single year. Don’t expect it every year maybe, but trying for it will at least get you some good stories in your stories folder.

The weirdest detail, though, is probably Detail Number Three.

Third, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but this semester I’m also a reporter for the college newspaper (but you may never see those articles in “Published Works”—believe it or not, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t writing fiction). I was attending the arts magazine not only to see if any of my stories had made it in, but also to cover the story of the magazine’s release. It was a pretty big anniversary edition, and I volunteered to take the story because I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting an award.

And then I did. Which was awesome, make no mistake. But what am I supposed to write for my article? I’ll probably have to close it out something like this:

“Even though this reporter won the Short Fiction Award, he would like to reassure you that everything in this article is absolutely true and he didn’t make up any of this.”