Short Story Acceptance! "The Tale of Starling"

I'm happy to announce that my fairy tale story "The Tale of Starling" was accepted for publication by Pumpernickel House!

This is the story I wrote from prompts in the NYC Midnight challenge in January. Here are two other blog posts about it:

Round 1 Story

Round 1 Results

More publication details coming soon... 

Publication: "Dental Hygiene on Orbital Station #57" in Solarpunk Magazine

My micro fiction story is live at Solarpunk Magazine online! Read it here: 

"Dental Hygiene on Orbital Station #57"

Thanks for reading!

- Meg

Micro Fiction Acceptance! "Dental Hygiene on Orbital Station #57"

I'm excited to announce that my tiny 250-word story "Dental Hygiene on Orbital Station #57" was accepted by Solarpunk Magazine for their April Micro Fiction Contest!

This is a story I literally started writing while brushing my teeth one night. It's also a story for everyone who loves caring for animals and knows the grief when pets are gone. There's a lot packed in to a small story. I'm thrilled that Solarpunk Magazine will be publishing it!

More Short Fiction Contests

This month, besides finishing a Round 2 story for the NYC Midnight Short Story contest, I also wrote a flash story for the TL;DR Press 1K Word Herd Competition and a tiny story for the NYC Midnight 100-Word Microfiction Challenge! I love having prompts and deadlines, apparently. Now, I'm considering joining the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge which kicks off in June.

More information on all of these fun contests at the links below:

NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge

TL;DR Press 1K Word Herd Competition

NYC Midnight 100-Word Microfiction Challenge

Coming up next:

NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge

Round 2 of the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge 2022

Yesterday, I turned in my story for Round 2 of the competition. There are over 1000 writers in this round (from over 6000 in Round 1).

Here are the prompts I received for a 2000 word max story:

Genre: Romance

Subject: Inoperable

Character: A wayfarer

The story I wrote is titled: "Crossed Paths"

Synopsis: Heidi, an avid hiker of backcountry trails, sabotages an engineering project that crosses paths with the trail. After her actions unintentionally injure an engineer, she helps the man to safety and falls for his flirtatious spirit.

The results for Round 2 will be out later in May. Hoping I can make it into the top 5 of my group to advance to Round 3!

NYC Midnight Short Story Round 1 Results

Exciting news! My fairy tale advanced me to Round 2 for the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge!! Details about Round 1 can be found in my post here: Round 1

I was so happy to have taken 1st place in my group because I worked very hard on the story!

Here are the rules for Round 2 coming up this weekend:

• advancing writers will be placed into new groups
• each group is assigned a new Genre, Subject, and Character
• within 3 days each writer submits a story with the prompt in under 2000 words
• then the top 5 from each group will advance to Round 3 in May

I'm looking forward to writing a new story this weekend! Fingers crossed that I will get one of my favorite genres!

-Meg

Publication: "Born in the Watchmaker's Garden" in HyphenPunk Magazine

The web version of my new story is online at HyphenPunk Magazine! Check out "Born in the Watchmaker's Garden" here:

https://hyphenpunk.com/fiction/born-in-the-watchmakers-garden/

The story will be published in an eBook for Issue 4 of the magazine in June. 

HyphenPunk previewed the story perfectly in this tweet & excerpt:

Thanks for reading!

- Meg

Short Story Acceptance! "Born in the Watchmaker's Garden"

I was thrilled to receive an acceptance from HyphenPunk Magazine for "Born in the Watchmaker's Garden," a clockwork fairy story. It's a bit steampunk, a bit clockpunk, and a lot rebellious. I think HyphenPunk is the perfect home for it! I can't wait to share it when it's published online and in eBook form this summer.

I made this AI artwork for the story:

NaNoWriMo 2021 Wrap-Up and Next Steps for 2022

New accountability post for my novel progress in 2022!

I finished up last November's NaNoWriMo with 33,568 words in my novel draft after writing on 27 out of the 30 that month. I'm now looking at doing another rigorous plan to get the draft finished up so I can send it to beta readers.

To get back into the mode of my story, I've been working on making lists of my characters, place names, and other terms used in the building of the novel's world. I'm also going to reread the 33k words I've written and update my chapter-by-chapter outline. Then I'll keep going, full steam ahead, to The End around 100k words.

Here are some details I posted last November about my WIP novel:

Title: The May Queen’s Daughter

Genre: Science Fiction

(possibly solarpunk or lunarpunk??)

Vibe:

23rd century Earth

paganism

advanced medicine

pregnancy

rebel teens

lotsa fire

My goal is get back to writing every day if I can, even if it's just a few hundred words. 

Happy writing, everyone!

-Meg

Publication: "Luna Britannia" in For Page & Screen Magazine

Issue 1: New Beginnings from For Page & Screen Magazine has been released! My story "Luna Britannia" appears in this issue. I'm so thrilled it found a home here. 

My alternate history sci-fi tale follows newlyweds Millie and Oscar as they journey into the unknown--towards a lunar colony and new understandings of each other. 

I'm really looking forward to receiving my contributor's copy of the exclusive print edition!

Read the entire issue for free here: Issue 1: New Beginnings and "Luna Britannia" here. A short excerpt is below.

Round 1 of NYC Midnight's Short Story Challenge 2022

I entered the NYC Midnight contest for the first time this month with the Short Story Challenge. There were over 6000 writers entering this first Round! 

How it works: 

• writers are divided into groups of around 28 people
• each group gets a prompt of Genre, Subject, Character
• within 8 days each writer submits a story with the prompt in under 2500 words
• then the top 5 from each group will advance to Round 2 in April.

I was nervous about getting a Genre that I'm unfamiliar with like Romantic Comedy or Political Satire, but I lucked out with a great combination of prompts:

Genre: Fairy Tale

Subject: Nidification (= nest-building)

Character: A Shut-In

I came up with a story titled: "The Tale of Starling"

Synopsis: After a seamstress dies, her orphaned teenage daughter gains a bothersome magical ability to summon twigs from her hands. She is forced to deal with the never-ending pile of branches and her growing fears of the outside world.

I'm looking forward to the Round 1 results to see if I advance to Round 2!

My Favorite Short Fiction Stories Read in 2021

I read A LOT of wonderful short fiction this past year, so I want to share a list of my favorites.

Some of these of were published in anthologies that are available for purchase, others are free to read online. I will link to as many as possible! I'll also add my one sentence description of each story.

In no particular order, here are my favorite speculative stories read in 2021:

"With the Nectar Comes the Sting"

By Jennifer Hudak

A shifting POV between mother and daughter tells a very unexpected superhero origin story.

Published January 25, 2021 in Apparition Lit, free to read online here: 

https://apparitionlit.com/with-the-nectar-comes-the-sting/

"What the Humans Call Heartache"

By Jiksun Cheung

A drone takes a detour from her regular path. 

Published April 26, 2021 by Arsenika, free to read online here: 

https://arsenika.ink/fiction/what-the-humans-call-heartache/

"Springs Eternal"

By J. Nelson Jr.

Some very, very, very old friends meet up... once again.

Published July 27, 2021 in Alphanumeric from Zoetic Press, free to read online here: 

https://www.zoeticpress.com/alphanumeric/2021/6/18/springs-eternal

"The Robots of Eden"

By Anil Menon

A family in the future deals easily with life's troubles in this story I wanted to read again and again.

Published March 12, 2019 in New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color,

link to buy the anthology here: Bookshop paperback

"Crush"

By Sarah L. Hawthorn

A slow-burn creepy tale about a college student consumed with caring for a houseplant.

Published August 19, 2021 in GROWTH: A Speculative Young Adult Collection from TL;DR Press,

links to buy the anthology here: Amazon paperback or Kindle version 

"Don Queerxote"

By Jennifer Lee Rossman

A teen in a solarpunk future avoids her homework and follows her crush to a protest.

Published in Fall 2021: Issue 1 by HyphenPunk, free to read online here: 

https://hyphenpunk.com/fiction/don-queerxote/

"Discontinuity"

By Jared Millet

A captain tries to keep her sanity and her memories to complete her vital mission through space.

Published September 17, 2021 in Issue 125 of Apex Magazine, free to read online here:

https://apex-magazine.com/discontinuity/

"Tidings"

By Rich Larson

Time jump through a future with creative solutions to some of society's biggest problems.

Published September 14, 2021 in Fix's Climate Fiction contest from Grist, free to read here:

https://grist.org/fix/imagine-2200-climate-fiction-tidings/

"The Catcher in the Eye"

By Ai Jiang

A girl who sees ghosts through only her right eye tries to keep it closed until... she doesn't.

Published in November 2021 in Issue 78 of The Dark Magazine, free to read online here:

https://www.thedarkmagazine.com/the-catcher-in-the-eye/

"Drifting"

By Christopher R. Muscato

When ships are damaged and stranded in space, one young woman proposes an unconventional solution.

Published on December 20, 2021 in Optopia Zine, free to read inside Issue 4 here:

https://issuu.com/optopia/docs/issue_4

I encourage you to not only read these stories, but also purchase or donate to the magazines and presses that have published such great work!

Happy reading!

- Meg

2021 Publishing Stats

Happy New Year ‘22!

My 2021 publishing stats (creative NF, short fiction, flash fiction, & poetry):

3 Acceptances ("A Library on Wheels," "Yoko and the Sunbeam Garden," and "Luna Britannia")

23 Rejections

29 Submissions

4 Pending

2 Publications ("A Library on Wheels" and "Yoko and the Sunbeam Garden")

(Bonus: 1 Long listed story)

After a hiatus in 2020 w/ only 1 sub, this past year has been my busiest yet! I'm looking forward to submitting more stories and poems in 2022, as well as finishing up the next draft of my novel.

Happy writing, everyone!