Skip to main content

Prom Night

I don’t often get the chance to write two posts on one weekend, but a combination of circumstances have made it possible today.  First, it’s a holiday weekend.  Second, I had two stories published the same day (July 1) and I like to give the links as soon as I can.

The second story, published under the title “Prom Night,” appeared in Exterminating Angel Press: The Magazine (here).  The original title was “The Death of Oil City,” and the story was written (or overwritten) about five years ago.  Many journals turned it down.

This is, in many ways, a biographical story.  I don’t often try to write a first-person narrative as a female.  I know many editors who say men can’t, and shouldn’t, do such things.  The protagonist for this story, however, had to be female since, in this situation, so much had to be lost.

It’s my celebration, or mourning, for a small town.  Oil City, Pennsylvania actually exists.  I went to high school there.  When I came back from college, however, I discovered it was in a state of rapid decline.  Wal-Mart had moved in and everything was shutting down.  The town of my youth was becoming a ghost-town.

So much of my writing is about the significance of place.  We all feel connected, I suspect to the place we are “from.”  I was born in Pennsylvania, but neither of my parents were.  We didn’t have deep roots there, but my first experience of the world was small town life in that state.  I want to see it thrive.

I went to college in another small town.  It wasn’t until grad school that I moved to a city, and, after my “terminal degree” I took a job teaching in a small town.  When the work dried up I had no choice but to move back to the city.


Often I think of my hometown and how it is who I am.  My writing reflects place: my own brand of Pennsylvania gothic, or the New York City angst, and even occasionally the cabin in the woods I often visit (but not often enough).  We have no choice but to be from somewhere.  Even Rod Serling wrote many tales about Syracuse.  Escaping our roots may be impossible, but celebrating them is inevitable.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Patterns

  There’s a pattern I’m noticing.   For fiction publishers.   Even if you aim low you’ll find it a struggle.   Part of the reason is the pattern. Lots of websites list publishers.   The smaller, hungrier presses either eventually close or get to a place where they require an agent to get in.   That’s the kiss of death. Although my stories have won prizes, and been nominated for prizes, I can’t get an agent interested.   I’ve queried well over a hundred, so the agent route is one of diminishing returns.   This too is a pattern. Back to the smaller presses.   I check many lists.   What I write, you see, is highly idiosyncratic.   It’s literary but it’s weird.   Publishers don’t know what to do with it.   If a smaller press published stuff like this, I’d find it. The pattern includes writers who never get discovered.   Ironically, a number of editors of fiction literary magazines (mostly online) tell me they enjoy my wor...
Post a Comment
Read more

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.   ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Maybe Okay

  A couple pieces of encouraging news, perhaps, dear struggling writers.   I had a couple short stories accepted for publication in recent weeks.   As a fellow writer recently said, “You've got to keep trying.  Somebody will like what you wrote.” That’s a bit of sunshine.   And it’s likely true.   But the stories:   “The Crossing,” about two men in a boat trying to cross the Atlantic, was accepted by JayHenge Publishing.   JayHenge is a small, but paying publisher.   I was flattered when they wanted it for their Masque & Maelström: The Reluctant Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe anthology.   Being associated with Poe in any way feels good. The second story, “St. Spiders’ Day,” had been brewing in my mind for years—yes, this is a long game!   A friend pointed me to The Creepy podcast.   Since the story hadn’t been written, I followed their guidelines of what they wanted.   It worked. I recently heard a successful wri...
Post a Comment
Read more