Serial monogamy: don’t be married to your first novel. Be married to the first, second and third. ********* Question: Why my story was rejected? A short answer: your story wasn’t rejected because it was bad, but because other stories were better. A longer answer: your story wasn’t rejected because it was bad, but because…
The Vestal Review Press is pleased to present the newly expanded edition of Condensed to Flash: World Classics An anthology for people who love concise writing that is intense, entertaining and educational. This anthology features variations on themes of world classics, condensed to 500 words or fewer. We have a retelling of The Ramayana, The Letters of…
“Coercion” and “Rent.”
Publications reject your stories not because they are bad, but because the competition is better. Try to become your own competition.
A Soviet educational movie “2017” shot in 1960. Bering Strait will be closed by a dam to improve the climate of the Far East. Huge underground machines will mine coal beyond the Polar Circle. The alarm clock will tickle your nose. Photon rockets will take you to Alpha Centauri. You could drop a hand-written request…
It’s not important what or how well you write but who you are. Names sell words.
The story ideas are like blood cells: they come to life until you die.
Someone called me “bright.” I replied that my brightness is an optical illusion.
My twin granddaughters, 5 months old now (but adjusted to 3 since they were born prematurely), is the most attentive audience I have ever had. They are staring at me with starry-eyed admiration and even forget to blink I have already exhausted my considerable arsenal of Russian poetry I know by heart, the English-language stories…
Just wrote a story. I was laughing out loud when I was writing it. I still do.
