My flash fiction, ‘Her Incarceration’, has now been published in the fourth issue of Long Exposure magazine. It is available to purchase by following this link here.
The issue features many brilliant writers. I’m honoured to be included in this issue alongside such talent!
My flash fiction, ‘The Fortune Seeker’, has been published today by Litro Magazine as a part of their #FlashFriday weekly feature. You can read it by following this link here: Litro Magazine.
I’m so proud to have a story published by Litro Magazine, and I hope you all enjoy reading it. ‘The Fortune Seeker’ is about a young woman called Lorna who wants to discover the meaning behind her recurring dream…
Two of my flashes have now been published by Firefly Magazine in their third issue and are available to read online now!
‘She’s Saving it for Me’ has been selected as their featured flash, which is truly wonderful! The story is about a man and a female busker. The tale is innocent, or unsettling, I’ll let you decide…
‘Carnations’ is a story I’m glad has now found a home. It’s a tender tale, and I don’t want to say more as it will really give it away.
You can read these two stories and the other published flash fiction by following this link here, or, to read the entire issue, follow this link here.
‘The New Save’ has now been published in the Yellow Chair Review‘s Pop Culture issue and is available to read by following this link here. My flash is on page 26, but why not read the other fiction, non-fiction, and poetry published too. There’s also a nice selection of art featured, and the front cover truly is special!
My pleasure this evening is to read this issue, but there’s a vast array of different pieces to read, covering all kinds of Pop Culture areas from film, music, TV, and video games.
‘The New Save’ is a flash I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity to write, but when I saw the submission guidelines for the Yellow Chair Review for this issue I knew I could write about a childhood passion in a flash: Pokemon.
Yes, ‘The New Save’ is about Pokemon, and this makes me incredibly happy! But it isn’t only about Pokemon…read it now to find out what else…
29 minutes after submitting my flash fiction, ‘The New Save’, to Yellow Chair Review this evening I had a reply accepting it for publication in their upcoming Pop Culture issue. I’ve experienced quick submission turnarounds before, especially rejections, but this was by far the quickest reply I’ve had to a submission, and it felt great for ‘The New Save’ to have been accepted so swiftly.
Yellow Chair Review is a new literary which publishes a new issue every month. They’re in their first year, and they publish flash fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and artwork. Submissions for the current theme (Pop Culture: Movies, Music, Video Games etc) closes on 15th November 2015, or until it’s full, so get in there quick! Check their website out by following this link. Bonus points are available for work inspired by video games, which is where ‘The New Save’ comes in.
The idea for ‘The New Save’ revealed itself to me instantly. Video games make things seem so easy, don’t they? If you play the game right everything works out perfectly. Life is not a video game. I decided to write about a franchise of games that I have loved since childhood, and still love: Pokémon. I merged this theme with the idea of old and new, of things we had against the things we lost, and with the difference between reality and the virtual, to come up with a cool interpretation of the theme. At least, I think so, and so do the editors of Yellow Chair Review.
‘The New Save’ will be published around mid-December, along with all of the other creations featured in the Pop Culture issue, and I look forward to being able to share it with you all!
I had some wicked news this morning: my vignette ‘October’ has been selected for The Best of Vine Leaves Literary Journal 2015. I’m so thrilled! ‘October’ was originally published in Issue #15 in July of this year, and I’m surprised and delighted that it has been selected to be considered as one of the best pieces of writing to have been published by Vine Leaves Literary Journal this year! It’ll also be their last Best of anthology that they’ll be publishing, which is sad, but it feels good to have made the cut!
I’ll post more information once it has been published, though in the meantime you should check out their submission guidelines and submit to their next issue when submissions are open, and you can check out previous issues online too. You can do all this by visiting their website here.
My flash fiction, ‘The LGBouTiQue’, has been accepted for publication by Gay Flash Fiction and will be published in the upcoming weeks.
Labels are something that I feel is an important part of the LGBT community, though “labels” is possibly not the right term. Depending on the individual these labels or definitions for want of a better term can be a form of freedom, a little word that allows one to understand oneself better, but for others it can be confusing; what if the label doesn’t fit, doesn’t suit you, feels odd to wear. No matter, there is only one label that everyone should feel comfortable with, the only label required regardless of sexual orientation, gender, or any other characteristics: me. This is what I wanted to write about in ‘The LGBouTiQue’. It’s about a character who feels as though they need to find the right fit, only to understand that as long as they’re happy with and in themselves that’s all what is important. I’m in no position to argue with other peoples’ realities, but if I can speak for myself, being comfortable with the person you are is of the utmost importance. This can affect people in so many different ways as we try to seek a way of shaping ourselves to meet the conventions of society, communities, or these “labels”, and for some people that works, but as long as you like the person staring back at you in the mirror that’s what matters.
I like the person staring back at me when I look in the mirror, flaws and all.
I chose Gay Flash Fiction to submit this story to because I liked the flash fiction they published. I also admire their ethos: ‘We showcase flash fiction and poetry which is GLBTQI friendly, and has a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Intersex theme.’ You should definitely check out the flash fiction they’ve published, and consider submitting your own. I’ll post the link when ‘The LGBouTiQue’ is published; I’m looking forward to seeing it online with so many great stories.
My flash fiction, ‘Crumbs’, will be published by a new online flash fiction magazine The Flash Fiction Press on October 6th.
You should definitely check out this new flash fiction magazine. They accept a wide scope of fiction in terms of genre, form, and degrees of experimentation. Their word limit is anything between 100 words and 1200 words so that’s a lot of words you can play with! Their website is here and you can subscribe to email updates too.
A recurring theme in my flash fiction would be misunderstandings, be that our own misunderstanding of others, others misunderstanding of us, or our own misunderstanding of ourselves and the world around us. I think that the way different people perceive the same events, different peoples’ points of view on something, and the exposure of the reality, is really interesting to explore in fiction. ‘Crumbs’ captures this feeling through two characters; it’s about perceptions and the realisation of reality.
I’ll post a link when ‘Crumbs’ is published, but in the meantime, why not read some of the other flash fiction The Flash Fiction Press has published, and maybe consider submitting your own?
Today my first prose poems to be accepted for publication, ‘Stuck’ and ‘Caught’, have been published in Unbroken Journal, in their Autumn / Halloween special for 2015.
I enjoy writing and reading flash fiction and prose poetry. What I’m not about to share with you are what I believe to be the difference between the two forms (there are plenty of debates already out there online) but what I will share with you is why I like writing both flash fiction and prose poetry.
You see, I never really liked writing poetry and I (still) don’t know why; perhaps I can’t get my head around the technicalities, or hear where the line breaks should be. I loved immersing myself in the reading of poetry, but I’d never been a lover of writing the stuff until I discovered prose poetry.
Writing prose poetry comes with its own challenges and also, for me, a release that I don’t tend to achieve writing flash fiction. In both writing prose poetry and flash fiction I get to release something. When I write flash fiction, or any other prose for that matter, I’m able to bring to life a story that’s more often than not imaginary, completely fictional, though not always. When I write prose poetry, however, I feel I’m able to tap into a part of me that fiction doesn’t allow; prose poetry allows me explore my emotions yet retain a certain element of ambiguity.
Are my prose poems autobiographical, then? Potentially, in some ways maybe, yes, and no. Inspired by something real is perhaps more accurate; an atom of something experienced and how that made me feel, you could say.
Back to ‘Stuck’ and ‘Caught’. I’m very happy that these two poems have been published together. If you read them, which I hope you do, or even from reading this blog post, you may think both poems are very similar. In a way they are; they were inspired by the same thing, but what (I hope) distinguishes them (other than the poems themselves) are the titles. ‘Stuck’ suggests you’re somewhere where you don’t want to be, whereas ‘Caught’ implies capture. Okay, this sounds the same still. I think what I’m trying to say (and not very eloquently I know) is that they come from different perspectives of the same thing; ‘Caught’ being more spellbinding, and ‘Stuck’ being more hopeless, empty.
Anyway, read them for yourself. I haven’t finished reading the full issue yet, but what I have read is incredible. I love this journal, having read previous issues, and am very happy to say that I have two more prose poems, ‘Midnight Sky in Winter’ and ‘Tessellation’, due to be published in their next two upcoming issues.
You can read both poems by following this link here – Unbroken Journal. You’ll notice it’s a double-page spread – yes that does make me feel very special! The photos accompanying my prose poems are beautiful, and really capture an essence of what they’re about. I hope you enjoy them and the other writing featured in this great journal!
It’s inevitable; if you’re a writer and you submit writing to competitions or magazines you’re going to receive rejections. It’s one of the facts of life. Nobody likes to be rejected. Every “no” you receive makes you feel as if you’re not good enough, but here’s the thing, rejections can actually be your friend. I can hear you saying “What?!” now, but as I hope to explain in this article, rejections can make you a better, stronger writer.
Now everyone is different, another fact of life, so these are the 5 things I do when I get a rejection, and they work best for me. It’s how I’ve made rejection my second best friend. I say second because, obviously, my first best friend is an acceptance of publication. (Of course, I’m not talking about actual human beings).
I’m certainly no expert, but this list details what I personally do when I receive a rejection, and I find it helps me a lot and wish to share it with you all:
Let me explain: when I submit a piece of writing to a magazine or publication I believe, at that moment of time, that the writing is ready to be read by an editor or judged in a competition. By the time I’ve received a rejection, it may have been several weeks, or even months. This is why you need to look at the piece of writing again; enough time has passed since you last reviewed the writing meaning you can read it objectively.
For instance, a story I submitted a short story to a competition announced its longlist this week and I didn’t make the cut; this doesn’t mean my story was bad, it just means that there were other stories that were better – simple as that. But rather than send the piece of writing for consideration somewhere else straight away I choose to review it. This particular story was submitted when I thought it was ready in April, but now it’s nearly August, which means when I look at this story again I’m going to see things I didn’t see before.
This means I can review, cut, add, change, develop, and edit my story in many ways. Perhaps I won’t need to, maybe I still like it the way it is, but the point is the time between submitting it and looking at it again is enough time for me to be able to see my writing in a different light. Simply looking at the writing again will make it better, even if I only change one thing.
The main distinction between the original statement I disagreed with about sending your stories out before their ready is that only writing a piece then sending it straight away is a sure way to guarantee that your writing is not ready; you must give all writing time and space to breathe, and you must give yourself time to revisit the writing objectively in order to make it as strong as you can.
I like to think of it like this: every opportunity I don’t pursue is an automatic rejection. I’m having horrible flashbacks of Dale Winton hosting the National Lottery’s “In It To Win It”, but you do – if you don’t submit your writing then you miss out on the potential that people will publish and read it. So get back out there!
The important thing is that the rejection of your writing is not a rejection of you as a person, though it feels like it because writing is personal; we write from our own experiences, our own dreams, we record the stories we want to share with the world, and when someone says “no” it feels like our experiences and the stories we want to tell are being invalidated.
But this is not the case. Maybe it didn’t quite fit the publication. Maybe the writing needs a little more work. Perhaps you missed something (I once submitted a poem where the title was spelled wrong, probably why it was rejected). There’s always going to be a reason why the writing was rejected, but it is never about you as an individual.
So, believe in yourself, and do steps 2 and 3.
And remember all the times you have had writing accepted for publication; it beats all of the rejections, and if this hasn’t happened yet your time will come. It will. (I promise).
For instance the competition I was referring to earlier publish an anthology of the prize-winning story and the shortlisted stories and this presents a great opportunity to read the stories that had done so well. By doing this I can learn what qualities these stories have that perhaps mine are lacking.
Maybe you’ll read it and think I can’t learn anything from it, but I highly doubt it.
This tip is also useful for publications and magazines for two reasons. Firstly, you can read the writing that was accepted giving you a clear indicator to the type of writing they like to publish. In fact, many publications advise you read what they’ve published before you submit your own writing. This increases your likelihood of an acceptance too; your story could be perfect, but if it doesn’t fit what the publication is looking for it won’t be published. The second reason why this is a good thing is that it supports the publication; after all without readers there’d be no publication to submit the writing to. So, you get a twofold benefit here: you can learn what qualities makes a competition winning piece of writing, or what fits best in a publication, which will develop your own techniques and abilities, and you support a publication that will rely on its readers to keep it going.
That’s it. This is what I do when I’m faced with a rejection, making it my second best friend. You take rejection and you learn from it. You become a better, stronger writer, and then you find a new opportunity to chase. I firmly believe that no matter how well someone writes, no matter how widely published or successful they are, they can always learn more.
I’m really interested to hear what you think about this list. Is there anything here that you don’t do and you’re going to do now? Or is there anything else you do that helps you deal with rejection? Let me know in the comments section!
Santino Prinzi 