K. Marvin Bruce

“The Last Train from New York” is a story I wrote while working for a New York publisher.  Being unemployed was on my mind, and the story is a metaphor for a loser trying to find his place.  This past week I heard the glad news that “The Last Train from New York” has been accepted for publication in Corvus Review .  This makes eighteen stories published, and also marks another literary magazine that seems to think I’m capable. That may sound gratuitous on my part, but I assure you it's not.  Like many writers I suffer from lack of self-esteem.  All the advice givers say to take rejection lightly, but as someone who puts a lot of effort into each piece I decide to send out, how can I not take rejection personally?  When I do get a hit, it makes my day.  Week, even. Only a writer understands how publication is validation.  Someone who has a louder voice than me—a longer reach—says yes, this guy has something interesting to say.  Pa...

There is, I’m told, a natural progression to dating.  If a girl doesn’t like you on the first date, it’s over.  A second date is a hopeful sign and, barring unforeseen circumstances, a third date is likely. Don’t take my word for it.  I was never a proficient dater, and the girl I married was one I never dated.  My first girlfriend entangled me in a tragic relationship that strung over two years and came to define my senior year in college. No, this isn’t a dating advice column—you wouldn’t want to read one by me!  It’s a metaphor.  You see, I used to think getting published was like dating.  Once you found an editor who “got” what you were doing, you’d be able to move forward.  Progress. I think of H. P. Lovecraft, who is now being taught at universities, and how he really only found one magazine that liked his work.  I thought maybe I’d found that magazine in Danse Macabre , but then they started to be less-than-enthusiastic ab...

I often wonder how many people read my stuff.  That’s the thing about the World-Wide Web.  You’ll never know.  Hits, yes, may be counted.  But who really reads? My writing is metaphorical.  Unapologetically so.  To gather by past responses, this is not a popular or desirable thing.  It is, however, what I do.  I began publishing fiction in 2009.  (I’ve been writing fiction since the 1970s.)  Rejections fell like rain. Over the past month, strangely, there have been a few more open editors.  I feel confused.  Within a three-week period I had acceptances from Dali’s LoveChild (an excellent new surrealist literary magazine) and Deep Water  (a more established, darker venue).  I even had a maybe from Defenestration . I’m a realist, despite my fiction.  I know many more rejections will come.  I still regularly get them.  I submitted a truly creepy story to a magazine that was rejected in less t...