I am very, very happy to tell you that one of my short stories will appear in Avery 7. The last time I had the pleasure of sharing this type of news with you was Fall 2005 when I got word that “go” had been accepted by failbetter.

Why such a long stretch between acceptances? Well…I’m a better novelist than short story writer. I need the room to spread out, to build up layers. It’s what works best for my voice most of the time, so it’s where I put my energy. I never sit down intending to write a short story. Every so often a story will just kind of…spill out when I sit down to write. And then I’ll spend the next year or so poking at it once in a while when I need a breather from whatever novel is in progress until the story either comes together or falls apart. Maybe once a year, if I’m lucky, a story will prove good enough to be submitted to literary magazines. And you know what? It’s hard to get a piece accepted by a good journal. (I’m picky about where I submit. It’s not like I have a ton of stories to put out there.)

So here I am, five and a half years between acceptances. It was totally worth the wait. Avery! Very exciting. It’s set to pub in early June. I’ll let you know when it’s available.