K. Marvin Bruce

  Maybe it happens to you too, struggling writers.   Just when you get on a roll for fiction, nonfiction comes knocking.   In the past few months I’ve been invited to contribute to three non-fiction books and I’ve secured a nonfiction book contract.   I was just getting back into fiction. Last year I had four stories accepted for publication.   The last one came out just this past week.   “Christmas Wish” is a funny werewolf story.   You can find it in Calliope 174 (Winter 2021/22).   If you don’t read Calliope you should.   They’ve got lots of worthwhile stuff there. What’s so fun about a werewolf, did I hear you ask?   Well, if you try to make one your pet you’ll find out. The Christmas theme actually came from a story challenge I saw.   They were looking for Christmas stories and this one was set around that time of year.   Add a few words making it explicit and then you have a story. Given the time of year, the story is s...

  Persistence.   Although 27 doesn’t exactly equate to a tonne, it is a respectable number of stories to have published.   In addition to The Space between Atoms this week—it’ll be up soon!—I have had another acceptance to celebrate. “Christmas Wish” has been accepted by Calliope , one of my favorite places to publish.   They seem to get my offbeat sense of humor.   This story came to me out of the blue and I wrote it very quickly. I then sent it to a zine that didn’t have the courtesy even to reply.   I then saw a themed issue for a horror zine that looked promising.   They were doing a holiday issue and all I had to do was shift the tale from summer to winter, and presto!   It was a Christmas story. The themed magazine liked it, but they said it had too much humor in it.   That sometimes happens when I write horror.   (Not always, as is implied by “sometimes”.)   This one was guilty as charged.   It is a fun story, I hope. M...