Art by Felix Sanchez
In 2018, Ghost Parachute published “An Old War Hog,” flash-sized ‘metaphorical realism.’ But as I return to writing after a turbulent hiatus, I’m excited to (re)discover that the poetic paragraph has been (re)published in their anthology, Ghost Parachute: 105 Flash Fiction Stories. Having a short story accepted for publication is a joy, but watching said fiction become a tangible part of your library gives the achievement an elevated sense of accomplishment.
Once upon a day, I was an editor of some fine magazines. Those days are behind me. But here I place the three magazines as a quick reminder (mostly for myself) of some of the work that I was engaged in. Rune Bear was my creation with an old friend. A microfiction journal of weird, wonderful works, but the journal was not a moneymaker. Coffin Bell was a dark horror journal spearheaded by Tamara Burross Grisanti, to whom I was an assistant editor. And Writ in Water was an undergraduate journal that I formed while working for the Houston Baptist University Writing Center. The title comes from the gravestone of English poet John Keats.
What remains? Very little. A faded digital trail. So it is with many musings that do not endure. To write with ink and parchment, or electronic processor and keyboard, really is to write on water, for most writing drifts away with the time. Yet there is beauty in what is temporary. Who can fail to admire the river, even though the composition of water is fleeting? An ephemeral nature does not diminish beauty, only deprives the next folk who come to watch, even if they never notice, even if the next generation of water and stone exists just as beautifully.
The past few years have been a whirlwind of activity, and they’ve brought into my focus that strange dichotomy that many writers experience: the split between living a life and producing the artificial lives of Story. Sometimes the most difficult, even boring periods yield productive fruit, while the epochs of fully absorbed living, content or not content, leave little impulse to create.
That is how I have spent my years post-pandemic. Some moments were incredibly painful and some joyous, but my inclination to write has been a path I’ve let grow thick with weeds. Only now, as I leave behind a master’s degree and plod in the middle of a Ph.D., have I found the desire to clear the undergrowth and walk that trail again.
And so, I clean out my rejection letters for short stories from 2021, and begin again the funny business of writing and publishing short stories. We’ll see how it goes.
Gypsum Sound Tales picked up my post-apocalyptic short story, “Glimmer on a Darkling Plain,” and published the piece in Thuggish Itch: By the Seaside.
I know, I know, “Glimmer on a Darkling Plain” is kinda pretentious. The work went through several titles, including “Hands with Teeth” and “Plains of Glass,” but “Glimmer” ended up being thematic and poetic but maybe too generic? I wanted to reference the story’s diminishing hope and paint an image in the mind of the fiery finale. In any case, the work is published, I’m happy with the writing, and maybe the integrity of the story will transcend the title from cringe to class.
Years ago, I wrote a story about an old man in the ruins of the future. The man faced a dragon, really a hovercraft piloted by mindless tech. The piece was published by Kasma Magazine, now defunct. Wonderful art was created to accompany the writing.
I loved the voice of the unnamed protagonist, an amalgam of Cormac McCarthy and Jeff VanderMeer, and I wanted to revisit his lonely world. I also felt like there was an unexplored hook—an ocean of invasive scientific monsters, held at bay by a colossal Wall.
“Glimmer on a Darkling Plain” is that sequel.
Thuggish Itch is a speculative fiction anthology produced by Gypsum Sound Tales. If you’re interested, they have a delightfully bizarre collection called “Birds Have Teeth,” which features “twenty short stories that depict what might ensure if our feathered friends suddenly developed teeth.” The press is located in Sydney, Australia.
Art by Bossu Finn. I wanted an R2 unit in the Dohvahkiin helmet from Skyrim. Dude delivered.
lucky is this bear
your eyes, honey to my soul
in spite of the bees
A drabble submitted to Singapore Unbound’s 1st Flash Fiction Contest. The prompt was “The Infinite Library.”
Varis, in the gray robe of a peer, raises a torch. There is no need. Above are impossible stars hiding a vaulted ceiling. Between the shelves are lanterns white. Licking cracked lips, Varis scans spines and checks a tea-colored map. He’s close. Soon he will find a gap among dark covers, where he will place a book before sliding down in exhaustion. His thoughts will toss downward, past the tomes between the walls, to the black ocean. There are shelves down there. Books preserved against the cold and miry, against man’s finding, writ on something enduring, driftwood maybe, on water.
A few years ago, Kasma Magazine published my scifi short, “Two Wings, Flightless,” a dragon-slaying quest set in a post-apocalypse. Tthe traditional winged lizard was replaced by an aircraft piloted by a hostile AI.
Kasma was a speculative magazine with beautiful art accompanying prose, but now, at least according to Duotrope, the publication has ended.
The magazine’s website concurs with this assessment.
For writers, this is the constant threat of having publications be digital-only (not that I will stop publishing digitally or anything). A physical print copy does wonders for the ego as well as permanency of a piece, although even print has its ephemeral nature. My story, “Two Wings,” also dealt with the ends of beautiful things.
Of course, this blog will too someday go extinct, whether it is by my death or distraction or poverty.
Originally, my friend and co-editor, Stuart Warren, was to lead Rune Bear‘s Quarterly Contest, but he didn’t know what he was doing and our visions for the magazine clashed (Stu saw this journal as an opportunity to publish only his and my work, while I wanted Rune Bear to follow a less narcissistic path).
After letting Stu go, I took over the defunct effort and implemented a drabble series with a $10 prize. One year later, so far, so good. We’ve completed four seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) without any complications and are now cycling back into spring. Last season was our most successful submission period; the Quarterly received 53 drabbles.
My Oregon-bound friend Robin Stranahan has been creating the art to accompany our prompts, with the exception of the first contest, which featured a dragon and cowboy by Hari Nezumi. Wanting a more consistent style, and after receiving fifteen stories about dragons snatching horses, we opted for Robin’s simpler, vaguer, and deeper imagery.
Here are some of her pieces for Rune Bear.
Summer 2020
Prompt: Apocalypse
Fall 2020
Prompt: Things that Live in Holes
Winter 2020
Prompt: Dead of Winter
Spring 2021
Prompt: Patch Notes Version 2.0
And, in accordance with our last prompt about scifi transhumanism, here’s to a weird, wonderful, unpredictable future!
Desmond, Write 