K. Marvin Bruce

  It looks like there may be a little more space between the atoms since I have a bit of news to share this week.   My story “Planet Heaven” has appeared in Sein und Werden —check it out.   This is an irreverent tale that I wrote years ago.   It was rejected for making fun of religion, but I know whereof I speak. Right on the heels of this happy appearance came the news that my tale “Between the Sheets” has been accepted by Yellow Mama for its Valentine issue.   Love and horror often go together, but this is very gentle horror.   Unsettling rather than terrifying. “Planet Heaven,” however, came from my somewhat common experience of being raised religious only to wonder about those who’d been raised in other religions.   Why were they damned to hell just for being born elsewhere?   Why couldn’t true believers just sit down together and talk about it? The story, although set in space, isn’t really science fiction.   I grew up reading sci fi, an...

  I’m taking a little break from The Space between Atoms this week to share some news.   I hasten to add that the “struggling” part of “blog of a struggling writer” doesn’t refer to the struggle to write.   It’s the struggle to get published.   The Space between Atoms is finished, just being unveiled slowly. The news involves overcoming, for a little while, the struggle of getting published.   My twenty-fourth story, “Planet Heaven,” has been accepted for publication.   It will appear in the next issue of Sein und Werden (“being and becoming,” roughly).   This particular story was finished ten years ago. I submitted it to a now defunct mag.   They didn’t like it.   It sometimes takes me awhile to recover from rejection.   I suffer from what one of my friends calls aporripsophobia, the fear of rejection. Then there was a publishing website—I forget its name—that had a call for submissions that was perfect for this story.   I submi...