Out of the Blue

I found out yesterday that my short story, "Out of the Blue", has been accepted for publication in the spring issue of moonShine Review!

"Out of the Blue" is a short story about a man whose brother comes home after years of being out of touch. The missing brother wants to say goodbye to their father, who is in the hospital, dying of cancer. This is the only "literary" piece I've ever had published. Most of my stuff tends towards horror (as you know), but this piece is pretty mainstream. It was the result of an experiment I tried a couple of years ago, where I decided to write a story based on a song. I picked "Brother" by Murder By Death. The title actually came from a contest put on by the ACW club. I entered a truncated version of the story (they limit their entries to 2,500 words) and it won!

After editing and editing and editing until the story became its own particular entity, I started sending it out to markets I found via Duotrope. (Have you found Duotrope yet? It's amazing!) It was in rotation for about a year and a half before moonShine decided to pick it up. moonShine is a beautiful perfect-bound bi-yearly journal that showcases (from their website) original, previously unpublished works of short fiction, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction. They publish work from anywhere, but preference is given to artists from Charlotte, NC, and the Southeast. I found them through Duotrope, but was further encouraged to submit to them by my fellow guerilla writer/Reedy River Rat Gail Gray, who had a short published in their anniversary issue last year.

I'm so excited to have another publication credit to add to my writing resume! I wonder if this giddy feeling ever stops happening when you find out your work is getting published. I hope not.