K. Marvin Bruce

I'm pleased to announce that my latest story, “Pearls before Swine,” has just appeared in Dali’s LoveChild .  If you care to read it, the link is here . This story concerns the metaphorical fate of a Bible believer.  It takes place in a Bible store in the Arizona desert.  I have to give my friend Steve credit for the main idea, although the setting was inspired by a trip I once made to Tempe. Steve was raised in a very religious household.  The Bible was a big deal to him growing up.  In the bookstores in his hometown and at his college, accessories for Bibles were big business.  The book itself was so sacred that you couldn’t put it on the floor or lay other books on top of it. I wondered what it must’ve been like to have been raised in such an environment.  Would you eventually reject what you’d been taught?  Would you simply accept it all your life and push on with a meek living in an unsatisfying job? The two brothers in...

I used to work with someone who was disgusted at those who Google themselves.  She felt it was unseemly and a waste of time.  I disagree. As a writer trying to build a platform, you’ve got to know if you’re making an impact.  In the days before, say, the 1980s, you sent your material to a print publisher and they did the work.  They advertised, distributed, and tried to make sure it would sell.  It is no longer so. Today a writer must promote their own material, even with big publishers.  You must make yourself known.  And so I Google myself.  And there is a kind of logic to it. I’ve published with six different journals.  To my limited imagination, that means six places have, on occasion, liked what I produce.  When I want to submit something for publication, I wonder which of the six might like it.  I also wonder which of the six will get viewed. Google tends to put the pages with the most hits at the top.  B...