Recent reading: "Avenging Angelenos"

Avenging Angelenos: A Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles Anthology

Edited by Sarah M. Chen, Wrona Gall and Pamela Samuels Young)

This is my most recent publication, containing the story "Christine Thirteen".

Avenging Angelenos is a really strong collection of tales of vengeance in the City of Angels. Props to my fellow authors. It's always fascinating how different writers are given the same set of instructions and can come up with such different stories. There's no way I could pick just one as a favorite, but "The Ink Well" (historical), "Avenging Superheroes" (real-life superheroes!) and "Funeral Games" (dark humor) are pretty much my top three. "The Ink Well" and "Manny's Angel" had good twist endings that I did not see coming at all. 

There's also a really nice introduction by Frankie Y. Bailey that was of particular interest to me because it's the first time that I've been published where the intro discussed each story. In the other three anthologies I've been published in, the intro focused on overall theme and didn't address the individual stories. There's also an epilogue with the editors discussing their experience selecting the stories and going through the editing process with the writers. 

I have to say I'm really pleased to have a story included in this anthology, and I'm looking forward to the call for submissions for the next SinC/LA volume.

 

You can now order "Avenging Angelenos", the book

You can now order trade paperback copies of Avenging Angelenos and its gorgeous cover art at Amazon. Enjoy!

Charmed, I'm sure!

The other day this popped up on my Facebook feed: Celebrating Every Publication by Kate Fellowes. 

What Kate has done over the years is fill bracelets with charms relating to her stories and essays each time she's been published. She's currently on her third bracelet.

I thought it was a pretty cool idea, so I looked at my whopping four published short stories and started thinking about charms. Here's what I came up with. 

1 - "Crime Drama/Do Not Cross", which appeared in LAst Resort, is a Hollywood-based story about a failed actress turned private eye, and who is obsessed with a CSI franchise-type show that is about to end its run. So I figured a Hollywood sign charm would be awesome.

I had a surprisingly tough time finding Hollywood-related charms. In addition, a lot of them are intended to have chains looped through them, while I'm looking for charms with clasps. So far this is the closest thing I've found and I'm not really sold on it. I love the comedy and tragedy masks, but not for this story.

I did find this clapper board, but not happening at that price. Even the charms at Brighton (where I was really hoping to find what I needed to make this happen) aren't anywhere near that, and that is not an inexpensive place to shop.

2 - "Like Deja vu All Over Again", which appeared in Crossing Borders, was based on a nightmare I had years ago about being carjacked. So obviously a car charm is needed here.

Again, I was surprised by the apparent lack of car-related charms. The car in the story is an old Toyota Corolla, so it can't be a fancy car. I might need to brainstorm this one a bit more.

3 - In "The Legend of Bahama Bobby", which was just published in The Fish That Got Away, Bobby is a painter, so something painterly, obviously.

I found the perfect charm here. Is this cute or what?

4 - Lastly we have "Christine Thirteen", which is just now being published in Avenging Angelenos (I'm still swooning over that cover). I don't want to give too much away, but the obvious choice is a disposable coffee cup with a lid.

I was surprised how few of these I could find. You'd think they'd be all over the place. I needed a cup with a lid as opposed to a cup and saucer, and eventually found this.

So far I haven't bought any of these because I don't want the collection to be spotty, but if I can find charms to go with all four stories, it's pretty certain I'll be adding to my jewelry collection. Plus, it would be a heck of a conversation piece, don't you think?

Coming soon - Avenging Angelenos!!!

Okay, this is the one I've been waiting for. After the less than pleasant experience with my previous story, editing "Christine Thirteen" for Avenging Angelenos could not have been easier. All of one sentence had to be rewritten for clarity, and my editor was hugely complimentary about the story.  And how beautiful is this cover?

It will be available in a couple of weeks. I'll post a link when I get it.

Update 6/12/21: E-book available on Amazon here. Hard copies in 2-3 weeks.

We have cover art and a release date!

This is the cover of The Fish That Got Away, the anthology that includes my short story "The Legend of Bahama Bobby". This is the one that was supposed to come out in March but got delayed, and will now be available June 21. So far it's not listed on Amazon and the authors are waiting for instructions on how to order it from the publisher, so unfortunately no link for now.

I've avoided discussing this one because it wasn't the usual fun, easy-peasy editing experience that I've had with my other stories. First of all, I totally misread the editing schedule, which gave us an entire month, then seemed to indicate a second re-editing month. Turns out that there was only the first month. So that was a massive fuck-up on my part as I didn't finish editing by the deadline and I got reamed for it.

The other issue is that this is the first experience I've had where I had to delete a major aspect of the story because the editor didn't like it. I didn't realize that her comments about it weren't open for discussion, so I tried to explain why I had it in there and why I thought it was important to the story. The main aspect of the story was people keeping secrets, both their own and others. It turned out that by going to bat for this part of the story I just pissed her off some more after the deadline fiasco. I really got the idea that she just didn't like the story at all.

At the time it was only my third time getting accepted for publication. I had a great deal of confidence that the story as it had been submitted (and accepted) was strong, partly based on the fact that it was the co-winner in one short-story contest (Moondance International Film Festival) and also picked up an Honorable Mention in a genre short-story contest (Writers' Digest Annual Writing Contest). But at this point in my writing career I wasn't really in a position to dig in my heels to defend the story as written.

In addition, the genre is in some ways a very small community. You see a lot of the same names popping up not only in print, but also at conventions and in classes and newsletters, and I certainly didn't want to gain a reputation for being difficult. So I made the changes and apologized profusely, and tried to put it down as a learning experience, which wasn't easy as I'm pretty hyper-sensitive and it's hard for me to blow off a negative experience like that. But at some point you have to move on.

Luckily, about two weeks later, I had another story accepted and my experience with that editor could not have been easier or more pleasant, so that eased some of the sting. She was extremely complimentary about the story, the voice, and especially the ending, and had me re-write all of one sentence for clarity. It couldn't have been easier. That anthology, Avenging Angelenos, was the one that was supposed to be published in April, but it's also been delayed. Hopefully we'll get some news on that one soon.

Updated 6/8/21: You can order the book from Amazon here.

Publishing update...or lack thereof

I expected to have two more short stories published by now. But a few things have conspired against us (*cough* COVID *cough*) and right now I have little to nothing to report.

The Fish That Got Away (from the Sisters in Crime Guppy group) was scheduled for a March release, but between COVID and the departure of an editor who shepherded Guppy anthologies in the past, we seem to have slipped down the publisher's food chain. In fairness to them these anthologies aren't money makers for anyone involved, and they do have a business to run. Right now it seems like we're looking at a July release (hopefully).

Avenging Angelenos (from Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles) should have come out right about now, since SinC/LA releases their anthologies in conjunction with the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in April. The FOB was cancelled last year, and this year's is virtual April 17-18. But I haven't heard anything about this anthology in months and if it was on target we would have gotten cover art by now. Again, not a money maker for anyone involved and I don't want to be perceived as badgering people who are taking time out of their own lives and writing time to make this happen, but it's looking like it isn't going to happen this month. Beyond that I don't know. I'm just waiting to hear from them and I'll go from there. Really looking forward to seeing this anthology get out there - my editor on this one was really complimentary about the story. 

And unfortunately, that all the news that's fit to print right now. 

Success story

Got great news this weekend - I'm being published again! My short story "Christine Thirteen" was accepted for the next anthology from Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles. I got the notification Saturday morning and the official announcement was made at SinC/LA's monthly online meeting this afternoon. The anthology, titled Avenging Angelenos, will be published in March 2021.

This gives me two milestones - for the first time, I will be published in consecutive years, and also for the first time I will be published more than once in a year. Progress!!!

And how's this for irony - I actually wrote this story for SinC/LA's 2019 anthology Fatally Haunted and it wasn't chosen. I think it actually fits the Avenging Angelenos theme much better. All's well that ends well!