K. Marvin Bruce

A felicitous bit of unexpected delirium came my way as I received news that one of my stories had been accepted for publication in Danse Macabre .  That magazine reserves a bishop’s throne of reverence in my psyche as the first place willing to publish my efforts at finding a voice. Not exactly a neophyte at fiction—I have been writing since grade school days—publication has been an uphill forced march in an icy rain for me.  I finished my first novel last century, in 1988.  Like many first novels, it sucked.  It didn’t seem that way to me at the time. Nothing is a better assassin to good fiction than academic writing.  Trying to establish a career in higher education, I wrote a couple of dry books and some articles, always trying to up the bar a little on style and panache.  Most publishers were not amused. I was 47 years old when my first fiction piece was published.  In Danse Macabre .  It won special mention as a macabre Christma...

Sometimes it is all I can countenance even to consider submitting a piece of fiction for publication.  You know, I always thought artists were sensitive people, but these days we’re told to have thick skins—not to take rejection personally.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t like what you’ve spent hours and hours creating, honing, and polishing.  It’s nothing personal.” My day job is a professor at a nondescript college.  I still do research now and again, and like my fiction it is generally rejected before somebody else picks it up and says its worth a look.  Sometimes it is said even to be good. I wrote a scholarly book some years back.  I sent it around to publishers who didn’t like it for various reasons, and so it languished while I moved on to other things.  Recently three publishers approached me about it, expressing an interest.  Ah, editors!  Ye are such a fickle breed! Fiction, however, is far more personal.  It is mi...

No writer really works in isolation.  Although my favorite time of writing falls daily between 3:30 and 5:00 a.m., I am not alone.  In my head are the many other writers I’ve read, and those from whom I’ve learned my penurious craft.  Today marks the birthday of Franz Kafka, one of my literary heroes. My experience of trying to find publishers has been a kafkaesque trial from time to time.  I learned to write by reading those who’ve written before—Poe, Melville, Austin, Kafka.  Their rich writing, it seems, had a place in a past that no longer exists. Something few editors appreciate is the metaphorical and ironic style of writing I employ.  Anyone who reads Moby-Dick and comes away thinking it is a novel about whaling has no subtlety whatsoever.  To write about life’s great questions, you need a vehicle.  Melville chose a whale, and Kafka chose a bug.  Today, unless your style is flashy and full of sparkly panache, you’ll remain s...