Quick Submissions Update

Just to bring you up to speed on the trials and travails of the still-unpublished writer...

+ My non-fiction piece "Captions Without Photos" was just declined by The Site of Big Shoulders. I had sent it to them on the slightest of whims. It's a series of observations (many of them previously published here) revolving around my commute: physical settings, overhead conversations, various people encountered. In all honesty I simply strung all the various pieces together chronologically and sent it off. I might eventually rearrange the pieces and flesh them out a bit, and then try submitting it to a higher-end journal like Another Chicago Magazine.

If I somehow find the time, that is--I'm so swamped at work these days that I barely have the time to write, and sleep on the ride home when I'd otherwise be writing. I've got three or four promising but half-finished stories in the works right now that I haven't been able to touch for weeks. Things are definitely looking up for me from a career standpoint right now, the only downside to which is how much it might cut into my writing time.

+ I entered "Mahalia"--as you'll recall, my ongoing efforts to get this story published are becoming my Sisyphian boulder--in the Nelson Algren Awards competition sponsored by the Chicago Tribune. No entry fee, so I have nothing to lose except first-class postage and a little more pride.

+Having inexplicably lost the first short story contest at Bighappyfunhouse, my story "A Son Resists" has been redirected and submitted to Hobart. I really like what I've seen of that journal, particularly after reading an interview with its editor, Aaron Burch, at Emerging Writers Network. Out of respect for the journal's likely preference for exclusivity, I've taken the story offline.