Month: December 2021

Allison

2021 Writing In Review

Since April, I’ve submitted 44 times to 32 different outlets. For someone who hasn’t been on a submitting spree since… 2011? I’ll take that.

Out of those submissions, five are still out. Five were accepted.

  • My one-sentence flash is published HERE.
  • “Just a Little Crush” is published in an anthology you can find HERE.
  • “Douglas Fir Give Me Heartburn: Exploring the Magic of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” is published HERE.
  • Another one-sentence flash is forthcoming from Rejection Letters.
  • The last acceptance is a chapter in the Antiwrimo novel that will be published by Thirty West next year.

I wrote a hybrid chapbook with a friend and we submitted it to 7 places (included in my total numbers above). It’s still out at 2 places. We have a list of other presses to submit to in the new year.

This year I became a Priority Editor at Flash Fiction Magazine. I’ve learned so much about reading, selecting, and editing stories for publication. I’ve loved working with authors and feel just as excited to email them about publications as I am about my own acceptances. I also worked as a judge for one contest and will do that again in January. In the new year, I’m taking on new responsibilities, including leading editorial meetings and hosting their Zoom events. I love having my foot in the door of another publishing outlet, along with Split/Lip Press, which I’ve been with for a year and a half now!

In more personal writing news, I took a week-long flash workshop with Nancy Stohlman this summer and a 7-week course through SmokeLong Quarterly this fall. I’ve done a few one-off workshops too, with the likes of Kathy Fish, Tommy Dean, and Gotham Writer’s Workshop. In each course, I’ve read extensively, pushed my writing limits, and met amazing people. I’ve even started a workshop with one group, and we’re still going strong. Getting feedback from other writers and giving them mine as well has helped me grow so much as a writer.

I typically take my “new year” as birthday to birthday, but as someone who loves fresh starts and goals, I’ll follow the calendar year as well. I already made resolutions on my birthday and am well on my way to reaching them. As far as public resolutions go, I don’t have anything concrete.

  • I want to submit more this year, especially since I’ll be starting in January instead of April!
  • Hopefully that means I’ll publish more as well.
  • I need to work on REVISION. I have so much work that I write and then put away. I’m in two critique groups and get amazing feedback, so I need to take advantage of the help these writers are giving me and really revise my work. I like the idea of it more than the actual action…
  • I’d like to continue to grow in my publishing roles to really make the most of the experiences.
  • I’d like to write a chapbook of my own, or perhaps a novella-in-flash.
  • I’m already scheduled to take another workshop with Kathy Fish in January, but I might look to take more in summer or fall.

If you’re interested, check out my 2021 Year in Reading post.

Allison

Essay at The Daily Drunk

My essay “Douglas Fir Give Me Heartburn: Exploring the Magic of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” is up on The Daily Drunk, just in time for my annual rewatching!

There’s so much I could write about this film, but cutting it down to less than 800 words suits it, I think. Anything more and I’d be waxing poetic about my ties to the movie, how often I watched it in childhood and into adulthood, how it felt watching it with my own child, and so on.

And no one wants that, do they?

Do they?

…

Allison

Mall Rats: An Anthology

I’m excited to announce that Mall Rats: An Anthology came into the world on December 7, 2021. Many writers gathered together to celebrate this birth with a reading, as is the custom. Everyone is so talented and it was a treat to hear everyone’s words in their own voices, spotlighting each personality.

Something I’ve come to realize this year is that the writing community is flat-out amazing. If you’re reading grumpy takes on Twitter and trying to figure out who’s subtweeting who, you’re doing it wrong.

Find yourself a group like the writers in this anthology who laughed, clapped, cheered, and left supportive comments in the Zoom chat, making you feel like you were actually all together even though it wasn’t possible. I pictured us in the mall food court, stealing chairs from surrounding tables, huddled together making other patrons nervous.

I never thought I’d miss those days of walking the mall for hours because we had nowhere else to do, but this collection elevates the mall to something meaningful. Don’t miss it – get your copy (or ebook!) from the Daily Drunk.