Passion of the Titans

After lurking around the fringes of the World Wide Web for several years, I’m pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of my novel, The Passion of the Titans with Vagabondage Press next summer. The Passion of the Titans is the story of Medusa, told from her own point of view—if you want to know how that’s possible, I urge you to read the book! I’ll give you a hint, though. Rock-and-roll did not begin with Little Richard, Chuck Berry, or Elvis Presley. It started a long, long time ago in a land far away.

For those of you who’d like a little taste of the my other work, I’d point you to the excellent online magazine Danse Macabre. My first piece published there, “O Tannenbaum,” won the 2009 prix d’écriture de Noël in Fiction for the magazine. Unfortunately, in this age of impermanent servers and services, the piece has disappeared into cyberspace. My second story, “Hide and Seek,” appeared and disappeared in the same journal, but is now available on Amazon as part of a literary collection.

2011 was my hottest year with “Vardøger” appearing in May and “Fashion Wear for Gentlemen” in October in Danse Macabre, and “Literary Ops” in June in Jersey Devil Press, another great online magazine. “Good for the Gander” is scheduled to appear in Jersey Devil Press early next year.

I’ve been writing fiction since I was a sickly kid in grade school but a mutual phobia of publishers has kept me silent until now. And I need to clear up a little mystery. My friend Steve Wiggins submitted a few of my early stories for publication. I work at an institution that doesn’t approve of Internet use (more on that in a future post), and Steve kindly sent my stories out to be rejected and finally accepted in Danse Macabre. Some people think we’re the same person. We’re not. K. Marvin Bruce is my nom de plume because of my job. Steve’s a real buddy, but he’s not the real me.

I’ll be posting updates here for my forthcoming book, so check back often for more exciting info!

Comments

Dusty

My, this thing is dusty. My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic. No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third. With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give. Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out. I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again. I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut? My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago. Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction. Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up. I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best...

Creative Righting

Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world. That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week. That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press. The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor. She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher. I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions. I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor. That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it? You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify. It’s got speculative elements to it. ...

Creativity

Maybe you’ve noticed this too. When you step away from fiction writing for a while, your creativity becomes flaccid. I’ve had to step away from this blog for a while because I was writing my sixth nonfiction book. God, I’ve missed fiction! Now that I’ve entered that phase of waiting for publishers to respond, I’ve turned my limited writing time back to fiction. I submitted a couple of stories this week and am waiting to hear about those as well. When you’re a writer, waiting is a way of life. Opening my software where I store my fiction stories, I was amazed by how many I found. Some of them are bad—so bad that they’ll never (rightfully) be published. Some are surprisingly good and have been sitting around while I finished up my nonfic. The vast majority, however, are unfinished. Some years back I realized that when I’m writing in the heat of inspiration but don’t have time to finish a story that I need to write down where I...

K. Marvin Bruce

Search This Blog