Happy New Year. Since 2017, I have submitted and tracked my fiction writing, and posted annual updates (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023). How did it go with my short stories in 2024?
- In 2024, I submitted versions and revisions of 24 stories 53 times to 34 different outlets. This included three contests.
- Between January 1 and December 31, 2024, I received 56 rejections (including 18 for stories submitted in 2023) and four acceptances (7.1%, which includes one acceptance for a story submitted in 2023).
- Select comments from editors in 2024 included:
- “The dialogue is so natural — I felt like I could have been listening in on my own family having this kind of discussion! But…”
- “Not bad at all, but…”
- “…I almost spit my gum out when I read that, and the descriptions get better as you go…”
- “Funny and, given people’s cellphone addictions, almost not satire, but still too slight, at least for us…”
Stories Published in 2024
Four stories were published by four different venues in 2024.
On January 10th, Maudlin House published “Alien Interventions and Paranoias” (464 words, 3 minute read). First drafted in January 2023 while feeling parentally frustrated by cell phones, social media, and our electricity bill.
On April 30th, Close to the Bone published “Barrel Rollers” (1,279 words, 6 minute read). Originally inspired by a November 2017 article in The Economist magazine on maple syrup crimes and by my trip that year to Quebec City for a forestry meeting. This story is the second one published (the first is here) in my Inspector Coudert series. My thanks to Lisa Jacobsen and Darryl Stal, friends in Quebec, for their fact checking help and to my aunt, Susan Brooks, for a careful read and her notes.
On September 1st, 101 The Rye Whiskey Review published “Drinking with Grandpa” (83 words, 1 minute read). A moment of listening.
On October 27th, 365tomorrows published “Book Mouse” (303 words, 2 minute read). Inspired while reading a hardcopy of Flowers for Algernon in a busy airport terminal and looking up to see the world lost in their technology. A version of this was first submitted to a contest in 2018. The story was revised eleven times and accepted on its twelfth submission.
Thank you for reading!
Thanks for mentioning me in your blog. Happy to read and comment on future stories.