K. Marvin Bruce

If you’ve ever read any of my stories, I hope that they aren’t the worst you’ve ever seen.    I know individual tastes vary, but those of fiction editors vary maybe a little too much.  Stories written specifically for certain magazines rejected.  The word “subjective” always  slathered on like burn ointment. Sometimes I wonder about the essence of storytelling.  It has changed over time as I found out when my friend Fantasia had to read The Scarlet Letter in high school.  She complained about the overly descriptive narrative that made the plot sometimes hard to follow.  I explained how gothic it was.  Even that didn’t help. No doubt, over time, writing preferences change.  Or should I say reading preferences?  Many of us had to write descriptively in school.  When we carry it over into our fiction we find editors who don’t like our verbosity.  Flash fiction is all the rage in this internet culture of constant cl...

My best friend ever has gone away.  As a writer, I lead a lonely existence—often it means spending hours isolated with my thoughts.  I know that my fan-base is tiny, my voice unheard.  My best friend listened, encouraged, and provided inspiration. Recently she moved away and when I awake it is now later than my consistent 3:30 a.m., bursting with ideas.  Now I find it hard to rise by 4:00, and the ideas are like a visit to the dentist.  I want Fantasia back, but I know that can’t happen.  Where does the forlorn writer go to find inspiration? Like Willy Wonka, my work lately has been suffering.  I limit myself to editing since new ideas just can’t be conjured.  Writing means that free time is largely spent alone—not the best way to make friends.  I certainly don’t influence people.  Yet, I can’t stop trying. Writing, as rational and heady as it is, is a matter of feeling.  I try to express my complex and troubling...

I received a very nice rejection letter today.  The editor had nothing but nice things to say about my story.  Oh, and, I won’t be publishing it.  By my count, that makes thirty different literary magazines (some more literary than others) that have rejected my work.  The unnamed editor advised me to try simultaneous submissions because publication is a “numbers game.” Perhaps my skin is too thin to be a writer.  I think about writing all day long.  As soon as I wake up—literally.  I’m writing before five minutes have passed from eye-opening.  On my way to work (sometimes at work), on my way home from work.  As I drift off to sleep, I am thinking about my stories.  It is, in brief, my life. I read a lot too.  Some of what I read is shit.  I try to refrain from harsh words, but some people succeed in writing who should be condemned to the slush pile hell I inhabit most of the time.  I get enough encouraging reject...

The folks at Danse Macabre are most accommodating.  I’m pleased to announce the appearance of my latest short story, “Circumstance of Victims,” In Danse Macabre 72, Oubliette . This is an experimental piece, but, if read with patience, it makes sense.  It is also, like most fiction, somewhat autobiographical.  If you would like to learn what that means, I would encourage you to read my story.  Those who hold power over employees don’t realize just how awful that responsibility is. I’ve been alive long enough, and with a personality strong enough, to have lost a job or two.  It is never shy of anything but devastating.  The first novel I attempted (unsuccessfully) to publish was about just this.  I suspect the editors who threw it on the slush-pile had never experienced it. I sent the manuscript to my friend Sluggo to read.  S/he said that it was pretty long, but the parts about what it feels like to lose a job were spot on.  A...

I used to belong to a local writer’s group.  Frustrated at my inability to figure out how to get published (I had written three novels and couldn’t get the attention of any publishers in this crowded market) I dutifully spent a Saturday a month with a group of strangers, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. One of the benefits of this group was their ability to pool the membership fees and bring in experts.  We had people from the publishing industry come and tell us about the realities of trying to get noticed in an over-crowded room.  And esoteric knowledge sometimes came our way. It was here that I learned from industry professionals that some best-selling authors no longer write their own books.  I was floored.  I write because I have to write.  It isn’t something I learned and it’s not in any sense optional.  The ideas come, unbidden, as I walk down the street.  The turns of phrase.  The slashing wit. Some Big Names...

A felicitous bit of unexpected delirium came my way as I received news that one of my stories had been accepted for publication in Danse Macabre .  That magazine reserves a bishop’s throne of reverence in my psyche as the first place willing to publish my efforts at finding a voice. Not exactly a neophyte at fiction—I have been writing since grade school days—publication has been an uphill forced march in an icy rain for me.  I finished my first novel last century, in 1988.  Like many first novels, it sucked.  It didn’t seem that way to me at the time. Nothing is a better assassin to good fiction than academic writing.  Trying to establish a career in higher education, I wrote a couple of dry books and some articles, always trying to up the bar a little on style and panache.  Most publishers were not amused. I was 47 years old when my first fiction piece was published.  In Danse Macabre .  It won special mention as a macabre Christma...

Sometimes it is all I can countenance even to consider submitting a piece of fiction for publication.  You know, I always thought artists were sensitive people, but these days we’re told to have thick skins—not to take rejection personally.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t like what you’ve spent hours and hours creating, honing, and polishing.  It’s nothing personal.” My day job is a professor at a nondescript college.  I still do research now and again, and like my fiction it is generally rejected before somebody else picks it up and says its worth a look.  Sometimes it is said even to be good. I wrote a scholarly book some years back.  I sent it around to publishers who didn’t like it for various reasons, and so it languished while I moved on to other things.  Recently three publishers approached me about it, expressing an interest.  Ah, editors!  Ye are such a fickle breed! Fiction, however, is far more personal.  It is mi...