This is NOT the end of Short Story Summer

I'm not sure I've read a single short story since my last post back in... checks watch... flips through calendar... examines almanac... a long fucking time ago. But I haven't posted in a longer fucking time ago so I can report on these:

1. "Out of Draconia" by Alma Alexander from Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2025)
2. "The Appropriation of Cultures" by Percival Everett from John Hopkins University Press (1996) (linked here is the version read by American treasure LeVar Burton)

Both were incredible and should be taught in school. The first for how to world build and why narrative perspective matters, the second for the sheer cultural value. Glossing over so the post doesn't get too long, but these are easily top five so far.

I managed to write a flash since my last post, and I had a revision plan for another story that I was a couple thousand words into when I got distracted with a new story idea which I'm now also a couple thousand words into. But with family in town, and a week of APSI, and now pre-planning, I focused my end of summer reading on wrapping up a couple books. I finally finished a classic that I've been chipping away at: A Prayer for Owen Meany. Irving did not disappoint. I also ran through a novel that's getting lots of buzz and prominent display in old B&N: Martyr! That book comes up at you with a lot of heart and took me by surprise in many ways. Characters so vulnerable and real that you can't help but empathize with them and it truly is a universal exploration of the human condition, not to mention one of the best books about addiction (though that's far from the center of the story) that I've personally read. Both books felt very of the moment, a particularly astonishing feat in the case of the one written forty years ago.

To add further weirdness to this time of year, I've spent the last week doing very little writing—instead my "writing time" has been taken up with logging rejections in duotrope and firing off new submissions.

So what's next? School starts Monday. Bleh. I like to start the school year strong WITH WRITING instead of letting teaching take over my life. It's a little rebellion that my writing time INCREASES when school starts. Also, why should short story summer end? I live in Florida, damnit. Even Christmas doesn't usually end summer.

So I'm going to get back to reading some short stories, busy as I am, and I'm going to plug away at finishing the aforementioned story drafts. Maybe I'll write their titles on notecards and pin them to the cork board over my desk. It's a better use of space than the teaching certificate.

For those of you (all of you) subscribed for AP Sem lessons, fear not—more of that is on the way as well.

See ya in the margins.