Tech Person, Writer, Misc.
Remember that exciting thing I couldn’t discuss? It’s official: my novella won the 2026 Miami University Press Novella Prize.
I did a thing!
I’ll share more details as they emerge - cover, release date, all that. For now: this is real, it’s happening, and I’m equal parts thrilled and terrified about people actually reading this thing.
Big thanks to the Miami University Press crew for picking up my odd creature and giving it a home.
More soon. Lots to learn.
My publishing “system” is picking up steam. First, let’s revisit November:
- 7 pieces: 1 novella, 3 short creative nonfiction essays, 3 short stories
- 36 total submissions
- 14 rejections
- 2 of those were personalized, the rest were form.
- 1 of the rejects made it to the second round
Has turned into:
“This Did Not Matter” didn’t make the short list for Fractured Lit’s Elsewhere Prize, which was a bummer, but expected. I’m shopping it to some more horror/dark-fantasy-focused venues.
The acceptance listed above is one of my weirder pieces - about dissociation and giving up agency. Also a little spicy. It got picked up by BULL. I’ll link to it once it’s live. It got a very binary reaction on CritiqueCircle, which probably means it’s good. :D
The exciting thing which cannot be discussed yet was a big surprise. Soon, my precious. Soon.
Regarding the end-to-end process, I’m finding that:
I’m gravitating to a form that’s more than flash, less than short story (1000-2000 words). Some places call it short-short, but most call it flash. Whatever.
My general familiarity with mags/journals is maturing and I’ve developed a better sense of fit based on editorial theme. Fewer wasted shots.
This is pretty fun. Even if some parts are a slog.
The public announcement is up. I can talk about it now. One of my fiction pieces, “This Did Not Matter,” has been longlisted for Fractured Lit’s Elsewhere prize.
Visible traction. Huzzah!
I should find out in the next week or two if I make the shortlist and/or win. I’m honestly happy with just being longlisted. The piece is more accessible than most of my writing, but lacks the human-focus and interiority of past winners, so it’s probably at the edge of their taste-band. It’s cold mythic dread, kinda McCarthic. An exhausted djinn destroys the last inhabitants of a dying desert town, then seeks its own end. Rainbows and unicorns…
We’ll see what happens. I’ll share it when I can.
Holiday nostalgia isn’t really a thing for me. Maybe it’ll hit me when my kids are older, but right now I just can’t match my wife’s enthusiasm for all the holiday trappings. A chunk of my grinchiness comes from the “classic” holiday cartoons that refuse to die. I disliked them as a kid. I hate them now.
Rudolph There are research papers about how shitty this story is. “They Wouldn’t Let Poor Rudolph Play in Any Reindeer Games”: Individuals on the Autism Spectrum as Social Misfits in Organisations is a great example. The lesson of Rudolph is that difference is only tolerated if it becomes economically useful.
Frosty the Snowman Sentient being melts to death, kids cry. Magician just wants his goddamn hat back.
Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town Orphan overcomes authoritarian regime through capitalism.
The Year Without a Santa Clause Santa is sick of this shit, but gets guilt-tripped into going back to work.
The Little Drummer Boy Kid’s parents murdered. He’s rightfully upset. Learns to love through providing free labor.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas A boundary-respecting introvert is forcibly rehabilitated.
A Charlie Brown Christmas Mediocre child with no growth arc gets treated shitty by his shitty friends. They feel bad and sing at him.
The pattern: traumatized or marginalized characters prove their worth through service, earn conditional acceptance from the group that rejected them, everyone cries. We cargo cult this shit forward without examining whether it’s actually good.
Meanwhile:
A Garfield Christmas Garfield goes to the farm, is cynical. Genuine affection breaks through. Garfield gives Grandma a letter from her dead husband. Nobody earns anything. Nobody proves their worth. Just warmth. I don’t even like Garfield (Garfield Minus Garfield is a treat though) and I like this one.
A Claymation Christmas Celebration Anthropomorphic church bells at Notre Dame strike their own heads with mallets to perform Carol of the Bells. One keeps fucking up, loses his mallet. The conductor (Quasimodo) uses a slingshot. Dinosaur hosts argue about wassailing vs waffling. The California Raisins do Motown carols.
Pure creative joy. No trauma arc. No one has to “learn” anything to be tolerated. Just weird little bells smashing themselves in the face. Impossible to find in-full online.
These don’t get the same traction. Can’t manufacture catharsis. Nobody quotes them at holiday parties. These are the ones I want my kids to remember anyway.
I’ve put in some work to get a few of my pieces published. The more I learn about the process and ecosystem, the more I respect the people who slog through it.
Stats so far:
These numbers are low. From what I’ve put together from Duotrope, most pieces take between 8-15 submissions before they get any bites, and that depends both on the form (flash vs. short story, etc) and the tier (higher tier venues have lower acceptance rates). If you’re targeting top-tier magazines or presses, 30+ rejections is not uncommon.
Some places charge fees. Some don’t allow simultaneous submissions. Some are super picky about format. Some only accept submissions on the 6th Tuesday of the 13th month. Some - XRAY, cough cough - have submission windows that last for 30 minutes every month before their Submittable budget runs dry.
I’m integrating all this into my system though.
I’ve tried to suss out fit as best I can to focus where I put my energy. It’s helpful that my style, voice, and chosen forms narrow down the avenues I can target, but that cuts both ways.
Style fit has been my biggest struggle. My writing tends to be very compressed and immediate. It can be claustrophobic and has high sensory pressure, because my ‘tism makes me hyper-tuned to those things. (I’m getting better at emotional contrast and letting readers breathe, but it’s taking a while to find a rhythm that I like).
I tend to be too weird and intense for the more mainstream magazines and presses and too coherent for the wilder ones.
I’m slowly finding the right niche, but it will take some acceptances to validate that. It would probably help to find a writing community to bounce some of my assumptions off of, but I haven’t found one that seems to be a good fit.
There’s logic to this maze - I’m starting to feel the patterns underneath - it’s just taking time to map and some recalibration to live with a longer feedback loop.