We all know that reading is one of the cornerstones of good writing, right? And we all want to suck less, right? And we all know that writing short stories is a great way to get a lot of practice with all the stages of writing in a compressed manner, right? Obviously, reading short stories is key. Plus it's way, way less depressing than reading the news these days.
Here are some of the stories I've been looking at recently. This post is also a sly way for me to point a couple of new / new to me short fiction markets I've discovered.
Fellow Crusader Eileen Wiedbrauk of Speak Coffee to Me recently published her Rumpelstiltskin-themed story, "Garbage-to-Gold Spindle -- On Sale Now!" in Enchanted Conversation. It's funny, a little bit sad and mostly epistolary - really great stuff. Go read it immediately! I am slowly working my way through the other stories and poems in this issue of EC. I think this magazine is filling a very important niche in the fantasy market. They are doing good stuff. They've got a Rapunzel-themed contest starting April 1, so if you've written or would like to write a juicy maiden-in-the-tower story, now is your time!
"Don't Move a Muscle, Mr. Liberty" by Jordan Ellinger and "Aliens, Eh?" by Laura Lee McArdle (props for the ultra-Canadian title, Laura Lee!) are two pieces in the fairly new online magazine AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review. Ellinger's piece is still turning in my mind hours after I first read it - it's one of those that stays with you as you contemplate its possibilities. Neither are what I would call hard science fiction at all. The submission guidelines state, "We publish exclusively science fiction, though our interpretation of the genre can be quite inclusive." I'd say they're as good as their word on that. I'm excited about this magazine, especially since I'm Canadian. They do publish authors from elsewhere, but their mandate is to support Canadian writers, so if you're a fellow Canuck, this is good news.
