The October issue of Worlds of Possibility is out. You will find a new story by me inside. To quote editor Julio Rios Night Mare looks at “… mother-daughter relationships, and the ways that magic and the supernatural affect them.”
The issue is available to buy here.
My latest story is out in Nature Futures as of today! Nature stories are free to read for a limited time after they’re published, so if you want to read it do it sooner than later.
Sometimes technology is frustrating and sometimes it is less frustrating if I think of it as an easily distracted toddler.
UPDATE! Nature allows the author of their stories to share them for free via PDF. So If you can no longer read the story at the link above it is available here. Dad and Ick PDF
Looking over the blog, it looks like I forgot to post another story that came out last year. So here is a bonus, very short story for you. https://flashinaflash.tumblr.com/post/698104361357819904/do-not-ignore-this-plea-the-mother-spider-is
Another new story is out today. It can be read on Flash Fiction Online. If you have a problem with Flying insects you may want to skip this one. Can Anyone Tell Me What Kind of Moth This Is?
My latest story is out today in If There’s Anyone Left Volume 3. The ebook is available here
Which World Ending Nightmare are You? is the story in the form of a test you never knew you needed. If what you needed is to find out what kind of apocalypse you embody that is.
I have a story out in the latest issue of Translunar Traveller’s Lounge.
If Shakespearian characters griping about their fates sounds like a good time to you, go check it out.
I have a drabble (100 word story) in issue 19 of Fairfield Scribes. This is probably the nerdiest thing I’ve ever written, being both a send up of Shakespeare and P.G. Wodehouse.
My story, Guard of the Crossing, went live this week on Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast.
This story was previously published on SIc Semper Serpent’s Patreon page, so this is its first public outing. And its first audio publication. I really enjoy hearing my stories read by voices other than my own. I think the narrator hit it out of the park.
My third story of the year is out now.
https://dailysciencefiction.com/hither-and-yon/alternate-history/susan-taitel/date-and-time
The idea for this one started out with me noticing that one of my favorite speculative genres is when a mythical or historical figure gets transplanted into mundane settings and scenarios often without much explanation for how they got there. Neil Gaiman’s Chivalry is a good example of one such story. So I’ve had in the back of my mind that I wanted to try my hand at it. But first I had to come up with both a figure to use and a situation to put them in. I don’t remember how I decided on Lady Jane Grey goes on a blind date, but once I did I knew it should be a good date. Her real story is such a sad one, it was cathartic to show a fictional Jane a good time.
The park they go to is a real park in Minneapolis that does host a holiday fair most weekends leading up to Christmas, though not these last two years because panini.
And it was published in the November issue of Galaxy’s Edge Magazine. You can read it by clicking on the link below and then clicking on the title in the table of contents.
http://www.galaxysedge.com/#editorWord
I might be teensy bit excited!
And it made me realize that I never posted here when another of my stories was published this Summer in Stupefying Stories.
http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2018/09/showcase-amenities-by-susan-taitel.html
I get to announce that I have a story forthcoming from Galaxy’s Edge Magazine! As of yet I do not know what issue it will be in or when it will be published. I will definitely be linking to it when it comes out.
The story in question, Cat Lady, was written during my time at Viable Paradise, though it’s been revised a few times since. It’s my first professional sale and I shed a few tears when I opened the acceptance email. If you’re curious about what qualifies a market as pro, semipro, or token the SFWA has a guide here. The gist of it is it depends on how much the market pays, how long they’ve been publishing, and how big of a readership they have.
I have been submitting my stories to pro markets since 2015 and have racked up over a 100 rejections split between 7 stories. Cat Lady was rejected 17 times before Galaxy’s Edge accepted it. That is about average from my understanding. There were several times I felt I was so close to making a pro sale and other times when it seemed like the impossible dream. This doesn’t mean that I won’t get any more rejections, in fact I’ve gotten 3 in time the since. But it’s one more hurtle cleared. I get to call myself a professional. Even if never sell another story I will always have one professional credit to my name. I’m tempted to order a little pin or plaque to remind myself of that, but I think having the issue in my hands will be enough.
In other news, in a few short weeks I’ll be attending 4th Street Fantasy Convention for the second time. A few of my favorite people in the world will also be there and I can’t wait to see them all again. And celebrate the hurdles they’ve cleared since we last saw each other.
Finally, here we have another Fraggle. For such simple designs they really are hard to capture in 2D.
