So I’ve been writing like crazy this summer, even though I’m also doing a million other things, and I have some good writing news to share.

I just found out that my flash collection The Path the Lost Girls Take is a finalist in the Black Lawrence Press Black River Chapbook Competition! The winner has not been announced yet, but I’m honored to be a finalist. Black Lawrence Press is an outstanding small press that has published writers whose work I admire. All fingers and toes crossed!

My story “Squeeze Box,” published in 3Elements Literary Review, was nominated for the Sundress Publications Best of the Net anthology. If you’d like to read it, it’s in Issue 18. More fingers and toes to cross!

In my “early” writings, when I was a kid, I invented a comic character, “Mee-Too” (no relation to the #MeToo movement, but I rather  like the coincidence) whose claim to fame was that he had 10 legs and 10 arms and rolled around like a pinwheel. If I were that character right now, I’d have all 200 digits diligently crossed.

In addition to the wishing-hoping-praying stuff, I’m also excited to have work accepted by Pidgeonholes, Longleaf Review, Fiction Southeast, and 100 Word Story. These stories will be coming out at different times over the next year and into 2019.

And although I haven’t published a ton this summer, I’m happy with these two pieces that came out recently:

“Things You Think About When You’re a Girl” was in the August issue of Bending Genres.

And “When God Closes a Door” is in the September 5 issue of Jellyfish Review. That marks my third appearance in Jellyfishlandia. I’m going to be keeping an eye out for tentacles. And a close and hopeful watch on that email of mine.