Hint Fiction At Chestnut Hill Book Festival

Just a reminder that I will be at the Chestnut Hill Book Festival this Sunday afternoon at two o'clock along with anthology contributors John Cashman, Bruce Harris, and Minter Krotzer talking about Hint Fiction. You can view the entire schedule here.

The Serial Killer's Wife has been out for a few weeks now and I haven't really done much promotion on it. For The Calling I did a mini blog tour which helped spread the word. For The Dishonored Dead, I contacted a number of zombie websites about the book, and many of them were open to learning more. But for The Serial Killer's Wife ... there are just so many thriller and crime novels out there that this one sort of gets left behind. Not that it's not selling well so far, but it's difficult to make it stand out among all the rest like I was able to do with The Dishonored Dead. I am, however, stopping by a few blogs to promote the novel in the next couple of weeks, but nothing like I did back in April. I also hope to do another live reading here at this website, which will probably be sometime at the end of the month. In the mean time, look what I got.

Coming This Fall

From the Columbia Art League's website:

Hint Fiction August 23 – October 1, 2011 Opening Reception: Thursday, September 1, 2011 Artwork submission dates: Friday and Saturday, August 19 and 20, 2011

An anthology of 125 short stories, each told in 25 words or fewer, is the inspiration and muse for this juried show. Editor Robert Swartwood’s book Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 words or Fewer (published by W.W.Norton & Company, New York) is a compilation of stories, which each suggest a larger, more complex story.

Artists are invited to choose one of the works in the book, taking the story as the title and inspiration for their work. This is a juried show open to CAL members and non-members. Artists may submit two works for consideration. Entry fees (per person, not per work) are $15 for members and $25 for non-members.

Copies of the book are available to borrow from the Columbia Art League or for purchase from the University Bookstore or from www.amazon.com.

Plus, their postcard (click on the images for a bigger view):

And The Winners Are ...

First, I want to thank everyone for helping spread the word and participating in the contest. We had an amazing turnout this year, with just under 650 stories submitted, which isn’t too bad considering the contest was open for just two weeks. The past two years there have been 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners and two honorable mentions; this year we're changing it up and only awarding one winner and one runner-up. Before I get to them, though, I did mention that I would be giving away copies of the Hint Fiction anthology signed by a number of the contributors at this past year's AWP. Besides the winner and runner-up, these three writers were randomly selected: Tracy Gonzalez, Fred Osuna, and Aisha Sultan.

Now, without further adieu, chosen by Joyce Carol Oates …

Winner:

HERO by Trenton Orris 

They remembered him for the battles he fought in. She remembered him in the rocking chair on the porch at sunset, withered, telling fairy tales.

Runner-Up:

THE FORTUNE TELLER by Lis Anna 

“Can you contact the dead?”

I pull a photo out of my back pocket.

She stares then hands it back. “He ain’t dead, honeypie.”

Congratulations to the winner and runner-up! And thanks once again to everyone who participated. I hope you had fun.

Hint Fiction Contest Progress Report

Let's go over some stats, shall we? 648 stories were submitted to this year's Hint Fiction contest, which is about 300 stories more than had been submitted last year (in fact, after this post I'm just going to call it 650 because that sounds better and easier to remember).

Out of those 648 stories, 564 had titles, 84 had no titles (it's interesting to note that some of the submissions included one story with a title, one story without a title).

254 stories were submitted in the comments section.

After having done an initial pass, I picked out 112 stories that I felt required a second reading. Out of those 112 stories, only 6 had no titles.

This weekend I plan to read through those 112 stories and cut that number in half, if not more.

In the meantime, are you ready to rock?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ftgv3BHd0

And The Waiting Begins

The deadline for this year's Hint Fiction contest has come and gone. I wasn't at my computer at midnight to close comments and take away the alternative submission form (though two writers did try to sneak through an hour or two after the deadline but which have since been deleted). Instead my wife and I went went down to Philadelphia tonight to visit Sarah Rose Etter and Ben Loory (Ben was visiting from the west coast). Fun was had by all. In fact, it's almost five a.m. right now and I'm in need of some serious sleep but just wanted to let you know that it will be a few weeks before the winners are announced. First I have to go through the 500-plus stories that were submitted (this is a rough estimate, of course, but I'm pretty confident this is near the mark) and narrow those down to about 50, and from there narrow those 50 stories down even more until I come up with a top 10-15 stories, and those will be forwarded on to our guest judge. So I'm thinking at least two weeks, if not three, though it could be less. In the meantime, May is apparently Short Story Month, so go and read some short stories, why dontcha?