To say the blog has been quiet lately is something of an understatement. I have excuses, of course! Plenty of them. The latest addition to our family taking up time. Work draining me of all the energy I need to write, yada, yada, yada.
It’s not all true, though. Life has been busy, but I have been writing and submitting in the background, and that has, finally, it has resulted in some publication news.
Firstly, the Danish anthology Lige Under Overfladen (Just Beneath The Surface) 18 that includes one of my stories was finally published in December. (I say finally, but it was only delayed a couple of months from its original publication date.)
And in even more recent news, my story “The Hand That Feeds” won third place in the Pete Wood Challenge and is now published over at Stupefying Stories. It’s free to read, by the way.
It’s a piece of micro fiction, 124 words if I remember correctly, written to the prompt of the competition. It might not seem like much, but I’m pretty happy with how the story turned out and just how much I managed to pack within the short word count. That, and it’s another SFWA qualifying sale for me.
Also, a sale this early in the year means that 2024 might finally be the year that I manage to get more than one story published. Keeping my fingers crossed for that one (which really does make writing a whole lot more difficult).
Outside of the directly writing-related news, I don’t know when I’ll return to reviewing short stories on a regular basis again. I do want to pick that up again, but right now I also enjoy having the extra time for writing, reading novels, and listening to podcasts instead.
That’s it for this time. See you around.
Toby Backman 