I’ve been silent because there hasn’t been much to report. I entered two pieces of new flash into the local paper’s (Alibi) flash fiction contest. I doubt I will win, and I can’t believe how much time I spent crafting these bitties, but we will see.
I also received a rejection from Kenyon Review after I queried them about a piece they’d been holding onto for a while. I’ve noticed that trend with a lot of journals. Does a query automatically guarantee a rejection of your story?
I also was invited to participate in my first ever book club event last week, in which After the Tsunami was the book being discussed. I was the guest author. I knew in advance that not everyone liked the book, which made for an interesting discussion. The topic of how to handle negative reviews came up, and for me, though sometimes it does irk when people post negative reviews on Goodreads or other sites without any explanation, it’s their prerogative. I’m just happy people are reading. Like in life, you can’t please everyone all the time. The discussion went well, and I enjoyed hearing about the aspects of the book that stood out for people the most.
“Bitties” is a fine word.
In my book group, the author of When the Colored Sisters Came to Town came to our discussion. All of the questions were about what it was like to be a published author. There was very little discussion of the novel itself. I was disappointed.
Congrats on your “guest author” status, though I would have thought you would be the “distinguished guest author.”
Haha, I like “distinguished guest author.” That might have to be part of my minimum requirements for future discussions. In all honesty, I would say about 50% of the questions were about the book and the other 50% were about the business of writing. I wonder if it has to do with self-consciousness? Fear of offending the writer or of appearing as though you didn’t understand the text? Though I can’t think of any questions about the book that would offend me.