– A story about someone who goes foraging and afterwards suspects she ate a poisonous plant. Only, the plant doesn’t kill her. It makes her feel as if she needs to shed her skin. Perhaps she does. The story would be much better than it actually sounds. Or maybe it wouldn’t.
– I have been working harder at editing stories lately. Mostly this involves changing one sentence over and over and over again. Sometimes I’m not sure if it’s making them any better.
– The other day, I got an e-mail from Submittable saying, “The status of your submission has changed.” I went to Submittable to find the stories had been rejected. This has happened twice in the last month and I am deeply disturbed. I can’t stop thinking about why you would do this instead of sending a form rejection letter. Tin House gets 70,000 submissions a year and they still send a form rejection letter. These two rejections are the hardest rejections I have ever received. That’s a very melodramatic thing to say. They are worse than never responding at all. I suspect this experience has tapped into some very deep psychological wound I wasn’t even aware existed.
– I went foraging this week.
– I have a story that’s been accepted at CALYX Journal and will be published in the fall. It is my favorite story of all the ones I’ve written, and I want it to be out right now.
– This academic year has lasted entirely too long.
– Words I’m not really sure how to say: arugula, culinary, Appalachia, ex oficio, potager.
– I feel like I need to shed my skin.
I wanted to ‘like’ this post. It took a while to figure out I could say it in actuals words instead of tapping that little thumbs up sign. I like this post!