K. Marvin Bruce

With a shock I realized it had been months since the last time.  Months!  I write every day, and yet I hadn’t submitted anything for publication since the spring.  I had several stories ready to go, and although my skin is getting more reptilian, each rejection still hurts (nobody’s allowed to say that, by the way). A couple weeks back, then, I took three stories that have been gathering electronic dust, and sent them out.  The first, a prose riff on Whitman called, “O Driver, My Driver,” was turned down by a journal that had published me twice before.  I’m incredibly busy so I just took the pain and went to work. A decided to send it out again—it really is a good story.  I will discuss it more, once it’s published.  That’s why I started this blog.  Long ago a friend warned me not to try to publish fiction on a blog.  Of course, some people do, and become best sellers. Did I say it’s going to be published?  Oh yes, thank you...

Most writers give this advice to those of us who wish to join the guild: read.  Read lots.  Read constantly. While it’s not always possible to read all the time, I do spend at least a couple hours most days behind a book.  I know not everyone likes to read, but I read a tremendous number of books.  Of course I don’t keep count, but the total is in the thousands rather than the hundreds. When you read, you learn.  Yes, I read for entertainment, but I also learn at the same time.  I learn how to write.  And how not to write.  I learn what works, and what doesn’t.  I love to read. An ethical issue has been nagging me.  Aren’t those who read required, if so enabled, to give something back?  If there’s anything I enjoy more than reading, it’s writing.  I could write until I drop dead with no regrets. It is my obligation, is it not, to offer back some of what I’ve taken?  I’ve borrowed ideas, thoughts, and dream...

Angel Hunter is the darkest story I’ve ever written.  A combination of things—feeling lost in New York City, having stories rejected multiple times, seeing what seemed to be good turn evil—forced me to explore my darkest imagination. The story went through several permutations on its way to birth.  Initially I tried to take the edge off with some humor.  It was a little gross and a little funny.  The more I reworked it and rewrote it, the more sober it became.  I realized I was the angel hunter. Deep Water Literary Journa l accepted it for publication.  Many other journals disliked it for a variety of reasons.  Assuming the fault was my own, I rewrote and rewrote until someone took it seriously. We assume that angels are good.  It is almost one of those “by definition” things.  Just accept it.  I wonder what happens when we question everything.  Sometimes, it seems to me, sad can be happy.  Sometimes rage can feel...

Like most Americans, I don’t understand cricket.  I do know there is a batter and what we would call a pitcher who “bowls” a ball to try to knock down wickets behind the batter.  If the bowler knocks down all three wickets with successive balls, it is called a hat trick. Hat tricks are, by definition, rare events.  According to the venerable Oxford Dictionaries on the somewhat less venerable Internet, the bowler was given a hat to commemorate the feat, thus making it a “hat” trick.  Now any three unexpected successes are called by that moniker. I’ve been submitting to many publishers from my copious backlog of short fiction for about five years now.  For the first four years of my efforts I only found two online magazines willing to put any of my stories out there ( Danse Macabre and Jersey Devil Press ).  Over forty other mags turned me down. Then, out of nowhere, a hat trick.  Three submissions accepted in a row.  I don’t expect th...