A few years ago, “Beyond the Curve” won a quarterly short story contest on-line.  Sponsored by Women on Writing (WOW!) every quarter, this competition offers a unique option to aspiring writers because submissions are limited to 300 and judged by literary agents, making it doubly cool.  The entire site is a great place to find articles on writing such as Brenda Hill’s “Write What You Know: Sage Advice or Hogwash?“ as well as links to other writers, classes, and contests.

How lucky I am to have come across the wonderful Folly Blaine.  She’s the podcast editor over at Every Day Fiction and records stories there.  She’s also “for hire” if any one is interested. I commissioned her to produce three of my stories for my blog spot since I’ve been so busy I have been woefully negligent. Since my suspense novel, What Came Before, will be coming out in various formats in early January, I also figure if I’m going to try and do this right, I need to start stirring up interest so some of you out there will give it a look.  So here’s Folly’s reading of “Somewhere in LA.”  This is the story that won The Glass Woman Prize for 2011.  Thanks you, Beatte Siggriddaughter.

To find out more about Folly, check out her very entertaining blog, Maybe It Was the Moonshine:  HERE.

Our family has gone to the White Mountains of Arizona for almost thirty years, taking our two small children strapped into the saddle in front of us up rocky mountains, into canyons, across meadows strewn with wild flowers such as purple penstemon, yellow Mexican hat, spirals of “cowboy toilet paper.” It’s been a respite for us from the crazy rest of the world, but in 2001, not long after we returned to the traffic and noise of L.A, the twin towers of the World Trade Center  in New York were hit by two hi-jacked airplanes.  In Washington D.C, the Pentagon took another hit, and somewhere in the green fields of Pennsylvania, passengers overtook the terrorists whose target was most likely the Capitol or the White House and died in the fiery crash that resulted from their bravery.

We have never been the same.  

Yet every summer, we’ve packed up our truck and headed east across the desert to the ranch and found the monsoons helped to heal, the cool evenings, balm to our souls.  As individuals, we were lucky to have such a sanctuary, as Americans we had thousands to mourn. 

We met dozens of people over the years at the ranch, strangers on Sunday night, boon companions by week’s end.  For us, seeing Marty and George Rozelle when we drove up the dusty road and parked our car by the main house, was always a delightful surprise because returning guests didn’t always return the same week. When they did, it was sweetness to enjoy each day of the week. These two, George with his booming sense of humor, his intelligence, his kindness, and Marty who matches him point for point, added so much to our annual visits, they became family too.  

George passed away in 2008, but he left so much of himself behind.  Last night, to honor the losses we have all suffered as individuals, as friends and families, and as a nation, Marty sent out a poem George wrote in the aftermath of 9/11. With her permission,  I’m sharing it with you.

AND THEN

They hit us hard and at home

Lives were lost and buildings destroyed

Smoke, debris, vivid pictures saturated our senses

Shock, fear and anger filled our hearts and minds

And then,

Public servants and people from all walks of life

Performed heroic acts

Rescue and recovery efforts produced

Both miracles and anguish

And then,

We came together as a nation

Reflecting on our lives and values

Families grew stronger

Strangers became friends

And then,

Time passed and old habits returned

Compassion, concern, courtesy, civility

Slowly gave way and once again

Us became me, we became I

And then,

It is now

As we stop to remember and seek meaning

Let us re-dedicate ourselves to

Being a nation of caring, considerate individuals

And then,

We will truly honor the memory of those lost.

George F. Rozelle 

September 11, 2002

Like so many writers around the net, I do have a novel and this one has been a long-time coming.  It will be out in late 2013 by Every Day Publishing, thanks to editor Camille Gooderham Campbell.

What Came Before is the story of Abbie Palmer, a woman who has repressed her childhood memories to live a “normal life,” but when she learns the secret of her movie star-mother’s past, she must face her own demons to understand what came before.

I’m working hard to revise, edit, and proof this project which has been close to my heart for a very long time.

Today at Every Day Fiction, I do “Stephen King.” Think “pie-eating contest.” It’s a five minute listen. Read by the fabulous Folly Blaine.

http://www.everydayfiction.com/podcast-edf127-soggy-sandy-by-gay-degani-read-by-folly-blaine/

The fun thing is I just realized that my podcast library of stories is growing.  Here are some other quck listens if you have the time and inclination.

FLASH FLOOD, read by Folly Blaine
ORANGES, read by Folly Blaine
THE BREACH, read by Robert C. Eccles
THE LONDON EYE, read by Michael Sherlock

Lots happening lately.  

Catherine the Great’s Untold Stories!

Out today is Catherine refracted from Pure Slush. Here’s the tagline: 

The unofficial unofficial biography! 19 salacious stories that delve deeper into the true life of Catherine the Great … and where no one has gone before! With Susan Tepper, Andrew Stancek, Sarah Collie, Joyce Juzwik, L. S. Johnson, Todd McKie, Dusty-Anne Rhodes, Christine Tolley, Robert Mangeot, Stephen V. Stephen V Ramey, Gill Hoffs, Anne Scott, Kim Conklin Hutchinson, Claudia Bierschenk, Juliet Beckman Hubbell, Matt Potter, Mira Desai, and me.

From “The Cossack Ultimatum”  by me. 

The steward closed the door firmly behind her. She hurried to her chair, tossed her needlework to the floor, and sat down. “I have a plan.”

Read me on your iPad!

I’ve just discovered a new site which puts short stories in an app so that they can be read online via all those magic devises like cell phones, iPads, etc.  It’s called Ether Books Mobile.  Here’s the link: http://writers.etherbooks.com/Default.aspx.  

 I have a piece that is up now called “Heading to Perdition” previously seen at K. C. Ball’s 10Flash.  You need to download the app itself to read it via iTunes or Google. 
 You flip the pages like real pages.  I’ve never seen that before.  Anyway, I’m using it to publish the stories that were printed in mags that no longer publish and there are no archives.   And I’m taking the opportunity to revise them.  So the first one up is Heading to Perdition from 10Flash.  You have to download the app and then go to discover.  Here’s the ether site link and info about the story. About “Heading to Perdition.”

If you have time, please check it out and give me a review.  Even it you don’t care for the story, tell it like it is. 

I realized today as I was visiting my FaceBook groups that I leave a lot of advice around and decided, hmmm, these could all be turned into craft essays.  But then I thought, good grief, like I don’t have enough to do already!  So I maybe when I write a bit I like or feel strongly about, I’ll just put it here since I don’t really do much with my blog anyway.  I invited anyone who wants to comment to do so! 

At  EDF’s Roundtable

Raymond Daley 

How do you deal with a story you don’t have an end for? Do you keep it in the hope you’ll think of one in the near future or do you abandon it?I’ve got so much stuff I’ve started with great ideas that just ran out of steam or eventually turned out not to have legs to stand alone.It’s depressing. It’s enough to put a writer off writing.
Thoughts? Suggestions?

What I said: 

Set aside, don’t abandon, because although not every story ends up being something that you care about, most of them can be “saved.”  They are saved when they are set aside for a period of time (an hour, a day, an month) and reread as if written by someone else.  They can be saved by asking specific questions such as what does my character want? what does he fear? what stands in her way? what do I want her to learn?  They can be saved by research.  Google the setting, find key words and look up synonyms. go to wikipedia and check out personality types.  

Go here to find out what others have said:  EDF’s Roundtable

AtFlash Fiction Chronicles New and Emerging Writers Group

BonnieZoBell  

I seem to be a kind of binge writer. I can go for long periods of time, days, months, a year, and write every spare second I have. Right now I don’t seem to be writing very much.

What I said:

A friend of mine called me a binge writer and in some ways that’s true. Really though I’m at my computer every day for the most part. The thing is I always have several things going at the same time and so my output is somewhat erratic. I’ve also had a terrible habit of sending things out too soon and I’m trying to curb that impulse. Usually I will be working on all these different things and then I’ll get pissed off at one of them because I haven’t been able to get it right and I’ll say, okay, I don’t care if it’s shit or not I’m going to finish this sucker today and that’s when I make the most progress, But it’s never done. Nothing for me is ever done. Every one of my stories for my chapbook has been rewritten to some degree or another. 

It’s taken me almost two weeks to get back around to The StoryADay challenge, but here I am.  As can be seen in my previous post, I managed to keep up–more or less–the first couple weeks, and very pleased that I kept to that commitment.  The second half was tougher for various reasons.  Once I got behind, I struggled to get caught up.  After doing several random prompts, I began to feel stressed about them.  They prompted me to write fast and to get words on paper, but what words?  At some point I began to feel as if any more new “starts” were unnecessary and I needed to go back and start searching for meaning in the ones I had.  

Here’s how I finished up:

May 24 Research and rumination on Comfort Zones (500 words)
May 25-28 Worked on Comfort Zones

I’m still working on “Comfort Zones!”  Cannot get it right.  Tried to take bits of it for the Flash Mob 2013 Extravaganza that is going on, but couldn’t get it shaped into anything.  Nice descriptions but what did it mean???  So I started the month off terrific but petered out toward the end.  Not disappointed thought because I have two strong stories to work on that I know I can get into shape and there are at least three more that I might be able to do something with.  That’s success in my book.  So thank you, Julie Duffy at StoryADay for sponsoring this event and thanks to Sue Ann Connaughton who was my “Accountability” partner.  

It’s May–Short Story Month–and all kinds of fun stuff is happening.  For example, Julie Duffy over at StoryADay.org has thrown down the gauntlet.  I’ve decided to take the challenge though right from the get-go I’m thinking “Say What??”  Don’t know exactly how I’m going to keep track.  Can’t pub the stories here if I want to develop them to submit, but hoping I can at least track the experience.  If for no one else, at least for myself!!

Also it’s time for FFC’s Short Story Month List of Links to great online stories and it’s up to you out there in the ether to make the suggestions.  Here’s the scoop.

Every year, Flash Fiction Chronicles has honored May as Short Story Month by asking readers to supply their favorite short story links.  We have asked for 100 links to excellent online stories in the past.  This year I’m hoping we can reach 150!  This sets all of us up with many many great pieces to read during the course of 2013-2014.  This is a loose, fun endeavor.  No prizes and not too many rules.