K. Marvin Bruce

Thanksgiving seems to be an appropriate time to express my gratitude to the editors of Calliope .  Apart from being (to date) the only literary magazine to actually print one of my stories (others, I am grateful, post them online), the editors have nominated “Initiating an Apocalypse” for a Pushcart Prize. I’m enough of a realist to know that my chances of actually winning a prize are slim, but it is nice when a story previously rejected many times is seen to have some potential.  I suspect, but I may be wrong, that writers don’t submit material unless they believe it is good enough to publish. Still, being declined repeatedly wears not only on the ego, but on the soul itself.  It’s easy to feel like a poser or mountebank trying to pass yourself off as a writer.  Still, somewhere deep down, we believe. At times I seriously question whether I should keep at this at all.  The ideas, however, burst out regardless.  Either I will catch them or they will fall fatally to the gro

Some days I can’t seem to find the groove.  I wake up a couple hours before heading to work so that I can write, and some days I just stare blankly at the screen.  As if my mind were allergic to ideas. Then there are the times the Muses trip over each other, trying to crowd into that limited space I call my mind.  I’ll start one story, then an idea for another will come and crowd out the first.  That which seemed so damned urgent can now wait until I get these words down.  But then another idea bursts in, unannounced. I wonder if other writers experience this.  I once knew a media professor who smoked a pipe.  He once said that if he couldn’t find the tobacco he liked he could resort to cigars.  “Or even cigarettes.”  I’ve never smoked.  I don’t see the need to, but his words reminded me of the behavior of my Muses. Some days I work on my novels (my pipe).  I prefer to write long, and I have completed six novels over the years.  Other days I write short stories.  I’ve got

It was one of the nicest rejection letters I’ve received.  “It’s not you.  It’s me.”  You get the picture.  I’ve lost track of how many times this book has been rejected.  A friend of mine in publishing tells me that publishers are hungry for content.  I’ve got six pretty good novels lying around with very little interest shown. Perhaps I suck as a writer.  I don’t really think so, though.  You see, i read a lot.  On the order of three hours a day a lot.  Some of what I read sucks.  I recognize suckiness.  I don’t produce it. And yet when I submit to a publisher they want three months to consider my work before rejecting it.  You’d think I’d have learned the lesson by now.  If they don’t write back the next day, so excited they can’t stay in their seats, I’ve failed to sway them.  At least that’s how I imagine it must go. This particular novel—the first I’ve seriously tried to publish—is an orphan.  It had been accepted for publication.  The editor wrote back and said, “I