I’m excited to share three photographs published in the latest issue of Thimble Lit Mag.
I’m honored to have work included with so many talented authors and artists. Check out the whole issue at Thimble Literary Magazine.
I love celebrating National Flash Fiction Day by reading flash pieces by my friends and new-to-me authors. I especially love the 25 writing prompts over 24 hours! This year a friend and I got together to write for some of those prompts on Saturday night. Sunday we polished our work and submitting pieces to The Write-In.
I’m pleased that four of my pieces were accepted for publication! You can read them here:
You can see the prompt and other writers’ responses by clicking the tag on each post. It’s so fun to see how people interpret the same prompt in such different ways!
November is commonly known as National Novel Writing Month for writers, whether you participate or not. I’ve tried it off and on over the years, winning some, giving up some throughout the month. I’ve written a young adult book, a middle grade book, and a few story collections. But overall it’s hit or miss for me because I’m still not really sure I have a good novel in me.
When Thirty West Publishing House suggested a different approach to NaNoWriMo, I was all in. They called it #antiwrimo. Instead of one author writing a novel in a month, 30 authors would write one together.
Yes. A collaborative novel.
We had a Google doc for the book and a separate one for notes. On November 1st, the first author started the story. On the 2nd, the next author wrote their chapter. And so on. Some days had two authors because everyone wanted a part of this project. I wrote the 24th chapter and it was… wild. I was trying to keep up with the chapters as they were written so I’d have an idea of what to write myself. But then my day arrived and the story was in a totally different place. It was wild. And fun.
After some meetings for edits and consistency and a cover art contest, the final product came out at the end of May. And it’s amazing.
It was definitely a fun experience to work with other writers like this. As someone who has always seen writing as fairly solitary (with the exception of writing groups), it was nice to be a part of something so massive. You can get your own copy of the book here, along with other amazing titles—I especially recommend Little Feasts and Spells of the Apocalypse.
I’m thrilled my story “The Man Who Would” found a home at Livina Press!
This is the journal’s first issue and it’s a beauty. You can read my flash fiction on page 198 and see my photography on page 205. Check out the whole issue online here. A print issue will be available in the coming weeks.
Today my piece “At Least I Have Nothing” is live at Rejection Letters.
Back in December of 2021 they had a call for “One Sentence Shit” and I knew I had something to submit! This story came from a prompt in the SmokeLong Quarterly workshop to write one breathless sentence. I was listening to the Saint Motel song “At Least I Have Nothing” and my imagination went into overdrive. This sentence came out and the wonderful Christopher Allen gave me feedback to polish it. And now it has a home, paired with a beautiful image by Andrea Damic!
Today my piece “Witches Do That Sometimes” is live at MicroLit Almanac.
I get Kathy Fish’s newsletter, The Art of Flash Fiction, and try to make time to do her writing prompts because they’re fantastic. After a rough day at work in February, I knew I needed to stretch my creative muscles. I saved her email “Same Song, Three Verses,” until I was sitting in afternoon carline, read it, and immediately pulled out my notebook and started writing. The result was the first draft of “Witches Do That Sometimes.”
I’m grateful that everything came together to deliver that newsletter on that day so that my mind could push my usual boundaries to write this story. So thank you Kathy Fish, for your inspiration and support! And thanks to the MicroLit Almanac and Birch Bark Editing team for choosing this story!
I’ve always loved March because it’s (usually) the beginning of sunshine and spring weather. We’ve had some snow and storms lately, but it’s still my month. I had a blast with the March Faxness competition and had a flash piece, “Freshman,” find a home after 12 long years.
Now I’m wrapping up my favorite month with two—yes, count ’em, TWO—photography publications.
You can find five of my photos illustrating the beautiful poems at FERAL, in Issue 12 – The Time Issue.
Three more of my photos are up at vulnerary magazine for the THAW issue, along with some amazing writing.
Take some time to check out my photographs, as well as the fantastic work of all the other contributors (and the hard-working editors behind the scenes)!
I’m happy to announce that my flash fiction story “Freshman” was published by Discretionary Love. Read it here.
I wrote this piece in the first semester of my MFA program, and it was several hundred words beyond the limit for flash. I vividly remember a classmate waiting for me after workshop, saying, “Women only write stories like this because they really happened.”
Yes, he was a white male. Shocker, I know. At the time I’m sure I gave a tense smile in reply, but I wish I had said, “Of COURSE something ‘like this’ happens to every woman!” I don’t think I knew it then. But reading stories lately, especially the amazing “Just a Girl” by Kait Leonard and “Boys” by Jody M. Keene, have helped me see this is true, and maybe I should cut him some slack for realizing it, even if he didn’t broach the subject in the best way. (For one, don’t approach with a cocky sneer.)
That version of the story had less consent and more harsh reality. But when I got back into writing last year, I thought it was strong enough to submit, with some minor edits for word count and clarity. It was longlisted and then shortlisted for a Fractured Lit contest, but didn’t place. I started submitting it elsewhere, and it still couldn’t find a home. I started to doubt the story, but every time I felt like I should retire it, I thought of the contest.
A writing partner offered to look it over, and her fresh eyes and unique point of view were exactly what I needed. She brought things to my attention that I hadn’t noticed on my own, after working on this story off and on for over ten years.
So I revised it and fell in love anew with the resulting story. I sent it to two places, and it was accepted by the first place I sent it. I can’t believe I was so close to letting this one go, and I’m very glad it found a home. I hope you read it!
Sometimes I see a submissions call for works on a theme and I think, I have something like that somewhere. And I scroll through my archives and dust off something old and revise it a little bit before sending it out. Because much of my past writings are short stories that I had to push to make them hit the word count for writing workshops. It seems natural to cut them back down to the flash-length pieces I originally intended them to be.
However, something about the spring weather makes me want to tackle massive projects. So I dusted off something else, something much longer than a short story. It’s a novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2010.
I’ve struggled through many years of NaNo, but this one happened pretty naturally. I’ve even revised the novel a time or two, but it was always a half-ass effort, never knowing for sure what I intended to do with it.
But the story has been sticking in my mind lately, and I decided this is the project I want to take on this spring. And since the novel is actually based on a short story, I wanted to revisit that original work to compare the two.
My dad loved this short story when I wrote it. I was in college, sure I’d be a famous author one day, cut working as a graphic designer to get through school. So I formatted the story into a book layout, designed a cover, printed it, bound it, and gave it to my dad for his birthday. (Yes, I’m cringing that I thought this was a gift.)
Anyway, now I’m incredibly glad I did that, and that he kept it! Not long ago, I lost all my documents from 2003-2018. Now I have a hard copy of the story I can type and save in a dozen different places. (My dad also saved a few other stories I’d given him to read, so I have those too!)
I re-read the story and actually really love it. I can clearly remember when the idea came to me, but I didn’t remember how I wove the pieces together to make it work. And now, loving the original story so much, I feel invigorated to tackle the novel. And finally do something with it. So that’s where I’ll be for the foreseeable future.
As someone who loves brackets and hates sports, March Xness is one of the best things to happen to me—especially since I got to write a piece for the competition this year.
I spent three months obsessing—I mean, researching—Aerosmith, Run DMC, and “Walk This Way” before I really sat down to work on it. (For those who don’t know me, I’ve been a diehard Aerosmith fan since I was 13, so I had a lot of information to comb through.) I compiled my notes, which totaled more than 3,000 words in their final form. Then I whittled it down to 1,969 words of… well, you can read it right here and judge for yourself:
The Song That Almost Didn’t Happen: Allison Renner on “Walk This Way”
If you’re reading this on March 3rd, please vote for my piece in the poll at the top of the linked page, and also on Twitter HERE.
UPDATE 3/4/22: Thanks to everyone who voted! I won and moved on to round 2, where I’ll face off against Johnny Cash’s cover of “Rusty Cage”!
For fun, I took photos of most of my Aerosmith memorabilia and started sharing one a day on Twitter. I started the day I turned in my final essay—January 23rd—and am still going strong, hoping to finish out March unless a loss breaks my heart and I just can’t anymore. I know, it’s basically like sitting through slides of someone’s vacation, minus the breathtaking views. But if you’re an Aerosmith fan or someone who’s interested in weird collections, it might be right up your alley. You can check them out by scrolling through all of my gibberish on Twitter: @AllisonRWrites (or just checking out the media tab).
Aerosmith wants you to ROCK THE VOTE.
Remember, you have “The freedom to choose what you choose to choose,” which is hopefully choosing to vote for my essay because that would make my day.
Allison Renner Writes 