My Story Is Going To Be In The Gasconade Review #5!

I'm having a short story published! Ok... so it's not as exciting as, for instance, the announcement of a new novel. (Yes I'm working on one... or two.) My kids looked at me blankly when I announced it to them and I was told, "you're an author, you get published, so what?" I'm sure if either of them decides to take up the sublime torture of writing they won't be so flippant about being published. Regardless of their opinions, I'm pretty excited about this.

As the title suggests I'm being published in the, "Gasconade Review." It's a literary publication based in Belle, MO and founded by the first Poet Laureate of Belle: John Dorsey. It's put out once or twice annually and they do show a preference for Missouri writers and poets.

The Gasconade Review #5 is different than the previous four in one aspect: it's an all-women collection. How could I pass up the opportunity to participate in an anthology of talented women? I couldn't, that's how. 

I'm excited for the release of number five since the Gasconade Review comes out in a nice book format, aren't they lovely? Sorry I'm getting distracted now.

The title of my tale is, "Good Boy." I had a lot of fun writing it, because it's a little horror story based on the myths and folk tales of the black dogs in their various forms: hellhounds, barghest, churchyard grims and other spectral dogs. They are often an omen, or herald of death, but in some of the stories they exist to protect a location or, a person in need of protecting. Fun right? I could go on but I'm just going to have to leave it at that. If you want to know more, you'll just have to buy the book when it comes out.

I know I don't normally write short stories. What am I doing? Why would I want to put a short story in an anthology? Aren't I a novelist?

Yes, my goal is to continue writing novels, but it sure does take a long time to get a novel from the plotting notebook to the published book. I'm not going to lie; my first novel took me literally years, with an 's', as in multiple years.

Who wants to wait years to read something I've written? I don't, but then, I don't have to wait years. I have to look at my writing every day. Everyone else, however, has to be patient. In case you don't want to be patient, I didn't think it could hurt to sprinkle a short story here, or there.  I promise you they don't cut into my novel-writing time at all. They're what I write when I have writer's block. After all, it's better to write something than nothing at all. That being said: if you suddenly see a bunch of short stories from me, send help, it means I'm hopelessly stuck.