Retrospective Plus

Content Warning: It's all about me, me, me!

We’re in that fuzzy time between Christmas and New Years that some call Dead Week, a term that works for me. This week has always felt shimmery and porous to me - as if time can be bent or molded and thoughts dance through our heads like the Northern Lights. I spend a lot of time daydreaming and time traveling as I’m sure many people do when approaching a new year. I see lots of writers taking stock of their writing pubs on Twitter and Facebook. It’s fun to see your writer friends’ accomplishments but can be an exercise in self-discipline to not compare yours to theirs or ruminate on all your rejections. I recommend reading this essay by Sarah Lippmann in the Run Amok Books blog for perspective on that beast!

I’m happy with my writing accomplishments this year so I’m posting my list below with sincere thanks to the readers and editors who felt my words were worthy of publishing.

Before that, I want to share three major exciting things happened this year.

I joined Reckon Review in January as Features Editor, a position completely unlike anything I’d done before as a litmag editor. I don’t mind saying I was apprehensive at first to be editing writers with more education and experience than I had. It meant a lot to me that Editor-in-Chief Meagan Lucas trusted me with this position. We assembled a team of talented writers and named the column Wind and Root, publishing a craft essay every Wednesday. I am awed and grateful every week to read the wise words our columnists submit. They are super people that I’m truly humbled to work with.

The most exciting thing that happened concerning my own writing was a day in February when I received an email that my flash fiction piece, “Hot, Cold, & Blue”, published in Still: the Journal was selected for the Best Small Fictions 2022 anthology. It was my first nomination for BSF (which was thrilling!) but I never once thought it would be selected. This anthology has published so many of my flash fiction favorites in past years and now I’m among them! Whodathunkit?

In August, Jamy Bond and I launched our own litmag, SugarSugarSalt. It was something we’d discussed a few times but we finally took the plunge. We are both primarily CNF writers so we wanted a litmag that focused on that genre. We thought republishing previously published pieces (over a year old) would give deserving pieces another life and new readers. How often I’ve wished pieces from my past could find new readers! We were excited to feature esteemed writer Paul Crenshaw as our first published piece. It’s been a real eye-opener creating and working on this project! Although I’d worked on several litmags, I now realize it was a small part of the whole of putting a site together and everything that goes with it. It’s been stressful at times but the joy of publishing so many wonderful writers makes it all worthwhile. I hope you’ll visit - we have some fantastic pieces coming up in 2023!

Speaking of CNF, here are three essays I read recently that blew my mind and I highly recommend:

Anatomy of the Postpartum Mother By Annie Marhefka in Fatal Flaw Magazine.

Oysterless Bay by Jamie Etheridge in Essay Daily.

The Last by Paul Crenshaw in Essay Daily.

Finally, the old “writing goals” monster raises its head every new year. I’m not good with goals. I mean, I think of things I want to do, try, accomplish but I’m not so good at follow-through. I tend to lose interest when trying too hard to be organized. My intentions to write more and more often sometimes land in a ditch somewhere waiting for rescue. Sigh. I have lots of ditches in my Google Docs. So I quit making new years’ writing goals. I stopped trying to be disciplined and organized. When an idea or thoughts start brewing in my head, then I write. I’ve tried forcing myself to write every day but it just doesn’t work. Filling notebooks or documents with words that mean nothing frustrates me. I’m not gonna do it. So there. (But if it works for you, great!) However, here is a good post by Maurice Ruffin about writing goals plans I can get behind. This bit is especially good:

“To want to write is a sure-fire sign that you’re a writer. And if anyone has ever told you that you have the gift, that bit of external validation means something. What it all means is that you shouldn’t poormouth yourself or your writing.”

When someone tells you that something you wrote inspired them to write…..well, that’s just the best. That happened to me today and it made my day. I inspired someone to write flash CNF! So do a writer a favor and let them know when something they wrote inspired you.

And now for more me, me, me. Here’s my list of publications so far this year. I have one more coming any day in Flash Frontier, one of my favorite litmags. Maybe tomorrow, who knows? :)

Have a great weekend, y’all!

***

2022

Soft Star Magazine - Poetry, “Bodies Craving Fusion” / Link to Issuu / Also available from Amazon

Love in the Time of COVID Chronicles - Creative Nonfiction, "How Red Velvet Cake & Potatoes Took Me to the 70s & Back"

Mythic Picnic - Micro Creative Nonfiction, a winner in the Tweet-Tale contest "Women jumping from the triangle factory fire"

Atticus Review - Creative Nonfiction Essay, "DÉJÀ RÊVÉ IN THE GULF"

Harpy Hybrid Review - Poetry & Photos, "Swoon Tryptic" & Additional Photography

Impermanence

Hobart After Dark - Flash Fiction, "Anything is Possible"

Flash Flood - Microfiction, "Ida is axing"

Micro Madness Competition, National Flash Flood NZ - Micro Fiction, "Wild Horses" Youtube link

Vimeo - Interview of Suzanne LaFetra Collier and myself by Rachel Laverdiere, "Musicality in Lyric Essays"

Mythic Picnic Tweet Story Project V8 - Microfiction, "Blue Sunday"

Anti-Heroin Chic - Poetry, "Caught in the Cloudy Eye", "Everything is Temporary"

JMWW- Flash Creative Nonfiction, "Extremities"

Twin Pies Lit - Flash Fiction, “Night Running”

New World Writing - Flash Fiction "Tell Me Why It Was Bad to Execute Myself"

Emerge Literary Journal - Poetry, "Sleepwalking Season: A Cento"

Emerge Literary Journal - Poetry, "Sunlight Bruises: A Cento

Paragraph Planet - Micro CNF "Tic"

Bending Genres - Flash Fiction, "When Your Momma Leaves a Guardian Angel"

Five Minute Lit - Micro Creative Nonfiction, "Flying"

Panoply - Microfiction, "Those Dead Shrimp Blues"