Since having Seeking Single Male, No Stakers accepted for publication in With a Twist: Not Your Everyday Vamipre Stories, I’ve been writing up a storm and polishing a few previously written pieces for publication. I’m breathlessly awaiting responses on two of them, which are both,  according to Duotrope, past the average response time. I’m choosing to interpret this positively, since all my prior rejections were swift and to the point.

Story A was written for an anthology, rejected by said anthology, and subsequently revised. On a friend’s advice, I submitted it to the highest-paying market of the appropriate genre, from which it was politely rejected. I have since submitted it to slightly-lower-paying-market, but it was the market that I thought would be the best match, given that the story pays stylistic homage to the publication’s namesake. I’m now sixteen days past the average, but it’s still over a month before I can query the status. Alas, the story tracker only lists the story as “received,” and I don’t know if there are any intermediate statuses between “received” and “rejected” or “accepted.”

Story B was also written for an anthology that didn’t bite, but the publisher said that was because they didn’t receive enough submission that fit their admittedly niche specifications (queer, feminist, erotic science fiction). Emboldened by the non-rejection, I submitted it to another anthology and received my first personalized rejection:

A competently written, solid story, but more risque than I would like for this book. Very much reminded me of Spar by Kij Johnson in a way. I hope you try us with something else.

I think I woke the neighbors with my delighted squeals.

Now in a state of confidence normally achievable only with large amounts of alcohol, I submitted Story B to a LGBTQ-friendly market, and in contrast with the potential publisher of Story A, their website is scrupulously up-to-date on submission status, but in a general way (e.g., “We have read all submissions received before [date]. If you haven’t received our response, Query like this: [instructions].” Currently, [date] equals the day I received my auto-confirmation, but my submission is still “under consideration,” so I’ll wait until their next update to query and hope that this means the story got passed up to an editor or two.

And since I’m not about to play multiple submissions roulette, I’ll indulge in some pleasant daydreams of both stories being accepted, receiving nice little checks, being notified that I’ve been nominated for awards, and being solicited for submissions to anthologies.

Very nice.

And now back to actual writing!

Cheers,

Libby