Ripley Patton's "Traveling By Petroglyph", originally published in our October 2008 issue, has been picked up as a reprint in Flash Me magazine. Congratulations, Rip!

Here's the editorial calendar for the next few months. This doesn't include Bruce Holland Rogers' contributions or the Classic Flashes. I publish on the first Tuesday or Thursday of the month, whichever comes first.

August: Going live on 8/4
* There Are No Great Truths Here -- Danielle Friedman
* Purpose -- R.W. Ware
* A Taste For Life -- Patrick Freivald

September: Going live on 9/1
* Suddenly Speaking -- Ray Vukcevich
* Doofus -- Mark Patrick Morehead
* How High the Moon -- Patrick Lundrigan

October: Going live on 10/1
* Eating It Too -- Kristine Kathryn Rusch
* Death Babies -- S. Craig Renfroe, Jr.
* The Door -- Damon Shaw

November: Going live on 11/3
* My Superpower -- Leslie A. Dow
* A Delivery of Cheesesteaks -- Alan Grayce
* Irma Splinkbottom's Recipe for Cold Fusion -- Janene Reichert Murphy

I just responded to an email that I thought I'd reprint here:

> Do you publish authors who have not yet been published?

Yes, often. The competition is fierce, though.

> How do I copyright my story?

By current US law, you own copyright the moment you write your piece. When I publish it, I do so with a copyright statement at the end. I don't actually "register" the copyright, but I'm obliged to take all reasonable steps in the event of a copyright violation.

> How many stories can I submit at one time?

I don't have a formal limit, but you don't do yourself any favors by submitting more than three at once.

> How long does a story you publish stay online?

Indefinitely. My contract also says that I get First Electronic Rights (i.e., this is not a reprint, and I'll be the first to publish it) AND a non-exclusive one-time right to publish the story in an anthology. "Non-exclusive" means that you can submit your story to other markets as a reprint *after* I publish it, and you can have it in other anthologies if they'll accept it, as long as everyone knows that I can publish it in my anthology as well. I will pay my authors royalties based on their word-count contribution to the overall word count of the anthology.

This latter information is all on our submissions page.

It occurs to me that I haven't announced our line-up yet, so here it is. It's a music issue:

"Addiction" by Ariella Adler, a fantasy -- though more about the aftereffects of the fantastic than the fantastic itself. The music in this case is that of the sidhe.

"Gustav's Mars" by Emily Leverett, a science fiction story. It's about music and martians, but really about something more mundane when all's said and done. And yes, the narrator starts off dead.

"Trumpet Volunteer" by Oscar Windsor-Smith, a literary story? A fantasy? I guess it depends on your perspective. It's an odd one for me, but I like it and I hope you will, too.

We publish on the first Tuesday or Thursday of the month, so I'll see you sometime on March 3rd!

January's line-up includes three stories:

* Mike Resnick's "The Fallen Angel"
* Stefanie Freele's "The Flood of '09"
* Robin Gillespie's "As Their Eyes Touched God"
* A Classic Flash by Anton Chekhov, "An Enigmatic Nature"

Mike's piece is a reprint, but (a) it's an out-of-print almost-20-year-old story, (b) it's a really good story, and (c) Mike is the winningest SF author ever, so I'll break my usual "no reprints" rule for this one. Interestingly, this isn't a science fiction story.

Stefanie's story falls exactly one year after her first story with us, "James Brown is Alive and Doing Laundry in South Lake Tahoe". We nominated that one for a Pushcart Prize.

Robin's bio refers to graphic novel work, but not short story publications, so this might just be her first one. When she emails me her bio, I'll know more. :)

Bruce Holland Rogers will be with us as well, of course -- even though he's traveling to Egypt. Of course we wish him safe travels.

Happy New Year!

Norm Sherman at Drabblecast has released his podcast of Apologies All Around by Jeff Soesbe, which was originally published in our February issue. And even if you read it here already, it's so worth the sitcom treatment than Norm gives it -- funny and a little campy and totally different without mocking it or being crazy. Amazing job, Norm.

Yep, that's our very own Karen T. Smith on the list of finalists for the "Return to Luna" writing contest. She'll be published in the "Return to Luna" anthology. Karen, what other details can you provide for us?

Cris of hat-moononline.com is a friend of R.W. Ware's, and posted a picture that he did of Cris's crew. It's a fun Webcomic, too -- check it out.

David Tallerman, who gave us this month's "Strive to be Happy" and March's "The Desert Cold", is in Hub #57 with a story called "Exodus".

Jeff Soesbe, who gave us February's "Apologies All Around", has resold the story to Drabblecast. This will be the first time that one of our stories has been resold to another market, so congratulations to Jeff and us! (Okay, more to Jeff than to us, but still...)

I'm thrilled to announce that, starting with our June issue, Bruce Holland Rogers will contribute a monthly column called "Short-Short Sighted: Writing the Short-Short Story".

Bruce is an award-winning writer and a teacher, and may be best known as a writer of extremely short stories. (If you doubt it, visit his web site, "shortshortshort.com". :) ) There's no one more qualified to write this sort of column than he is.

Watch this spot -- only a few more weeks to go!

I really like this quote from an interview with Vanessa Gebbie over at Smokelong Quarterly:

Great flashes are diamond stuff. Perfect. They don't leave the reader hanging, or assume another role. Strong, resonant stories packed into non-safety matchboxes.

I have a strong emotional pull to the form. It feels very natural. I'm sure they are deeply seated in our psyches, these little stories, told in snatched moments. And it's such a joy to read a really good flash.

It's not a function of word count. It's more to do with the magic of 'scope'. Read a good flash and a whole world envelops you. You CAN'T turn the page and read another.

But I also see flash writing—the process—as a way of freeing up creativity. Of 'defeating the sentinels'. Of allowing the mind free rein to produce what connections, rhythms, voices, colours and textures it wants, with as little interference from the writer as possible... no planning, no 'conscious thought'.

If you don't read Smokelong Quarterly, they're worth a look. It's a very different 'zine from Flash Fiction Online -- much more literary, in particular -- but if you like that sort of thing then you should definitely check them out.

Rod Santos, who brought us "Speed Dating and Spirit Guides" in our January issue, has a new story up at the Town Drunk: "The Curse of the Friendly Forest".

Galaxy Press has released the names of the finalists, semi-finalists, and honorable mentions for the Writers of the Future contest for 1st quarter 2008. Of special note are two honorable mentions: Our very own R.W. (Rich) Ware -- showing he has a talent for writing as well as art -- and the author of our upcoming special feature for March, Barbara A. Barnett.

This is a very tough competition, and getting an honorable mention is a very big step for a budding writer. Congratulations to both of them!

I can't be the only writer who has wondered what authors look like, right? Real authors. The ones who have published books. Who get paid money to write. Those ones. I've seen some aspiring writers at local writing groups and the like, but I mean real ones.

Well I took my six year old son to the library in town on Saturday for what I thought was a used book sale. To my surprise we discovered we were at the St. Charles Literature Festival, (can't find a webpage for it, but here's a newspaper thing.) There was a book sale, but not a used one. The books for sale were fancy and new. And as you left the sale room, you entered wonderland, also known as the regular youth services department of the library, festooned with author placards and loads of people milling about (the greeter told us that she had clicked more than 500 times that morning on her hand clicker counter thingy. A technical term if I've ever seen one.)

Some observations about authors, at least this particular group of children's and young adult authors:
- Most wore glasses
- Most men had very little hair, neatly trimmed very short
- Illustrators are awesome. They draw tiny pictures for your kids when signing their books.
- Most were not young. I've reached an age at which I no longer speculate details on any individual, but I'd put the average age of the authors at high 40s, maybe even low 50s.
- Even after 2 hours of signing books (for 500 people!) the authors were gracious and kind to me and my son.
- Caldecott winners look just like regular people. Or at least like regular authors. (If you're dying to know who - there may have been others, but we met the illustrator/author of this book - which is one of our family favorites.)

Neat event, good time. Check to see if your town has a literature fest. Volunteer to work with the youth writers' workshops or do children's storytimes. Mill about to get the writing vibe. People watch. Just do it.

Karen Smith aka KayTi

Semi-retired from technology consulting and educational software design/development while the wee folk are wee. Reading, writing, and blogging in my spare time between carpools and playdates. Flash Fiction Online slush reader. Coupon clipper. Vegetarian eater. Global warming worrier. Lifelong learner.

I didn't write a complete "coming next issue" article this month -- I don't yet know everything that's coming! -- but I want you to know a bit about what's on deck for March.

First, I'm very proud to present a new story by Jim Van Pelt called "Just Before Recess". Jim says on his blog that January has been a good month for him -- I'm happy to be a part of that.

We'll also present a great story by David Tallerman called "The Desert Cold". You can find his work around the Net if you look, but this will be his first pro sale.

"Avid rejection letter collector" Barbara Barnett-Stewart shows her sense of humor with our St. Patrick's Day special. She doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to ask her to post the haiku version in the Flash Forum. (And no, I don't pay by the syllable.)

Since Barbara's story won't go live on March 1, we're still looking at the last story to put up then. We're also still hashing out the details of our Classic Flash #4. And I hope to have an interview with Eric Garcia, who wrote The Materialist for our January issue.

It'll be good, it'll stick with you through the rest of the month, and it probably still won't take you more than 20 minutes to read. :)

Regards,
Jake

I just saw this good news for our January contributor Stefanie Freele: she has beaten out 89 other competitors to become Smokelong Quarterly's Fish Fellow. Congratulations, Stefanie!