News:

“The Devil’s Bathtub” won this month’s Shallow Waters flash fiction contest. I think the link leads to an open post where you can read the story for free, if you like.

Because I won, I got an Author Spotlight interview, which you can read here. And one of the perks of winning that started literally the month after the last time I won is that you get to decide the next theme for everyone to work on next month and curate the finalists—kinda like training wheels for editing an anthology, which I’d love to do someday. (And it comes with a decent honorarium, which I’m also excited about.)

We’ll share the theme and start taking entries next month, for posting in July.

Last weekend, I attended Texas Frightmare with a friend. I want to be a vendor there someday. Maybe next year?

Works in Progress:

The deadline for Q&C’s open submissions is the end of May 31, so I’m scrambling to finish Masque edits tonight so I can pare down the synopsis and put together the pitch before work tomorrow. As a result, I’m taking yet another day off from work (and I haven’t worked out since last week), but I put in some extra work on other days of the week, and I’ve determined that I’ll still make more this week than last (when I had to take time off for Frightmare), especially with the prize money for “The Devil’s Bathtub” added on.

I have about 33 more pages to edit, which is…doable. The narrative is speeding up from the emotional climax to the plot climax, so I’m editing faster, too. Honestly, it hasn’t required a lot of extra effort. Minimal cutting, mostly punctuation decisions and breaking up some sentences for readability’s sake. But it still takes time to go through everything.

After Masque has been submitted, I’ll go back to Tooth & Claw (M7) for the second round, and I think I figured out how to fix the Chekhov’s gun problem. And, of course, I’ll be reading for the July Shallow Waters contest.

Books I’m Reading:

The Fisherman by John Langan
Playlist of the Damned edited by Willow Dawn Becker and Jess Landry
Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
He Left Her at the Altar, She Left Him to the Zombies by Katie Cord (Frightmare, finished)

Things I’m Listening To:

Delain
Kamelot
The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall album

Things I’m Watching:

The Equalizer 2
Stranger (1991) (Frightmare screening)
Damsel of the Doomed (Frightmare screening)
Jeopardy Masters series
Home Town series
Home Town Takeover series
Say Yes to the Dress series
CSI series
CSI: NY series
Brooklyn Nine-Nine series