Weekend and a writing update

For the writers who visit, I thought I'd do a little update on what's happening here on that front. I joined a writing group in May and have had one 26-page chunk of my current novel critiqued. I'm trying to do a final overall edit before querying agents with it in the fall. This is the novel previously (and maybe still) titled The Girl Who Was Never Not Broken, a tale of Ava Lee Jessup's journey to find her mama, and how she finds her daddy instead.

I also have several short pieces of work out on submission:

Airplanes, an essay about motherhood and time travel, is out.

Clairette, a long short story that looks at Claire Caviness before she meets Finn Weston (the story pre-dates the novel claire-obscure), is also out. This long story was too short to be a novella so I cut the word count enough to get it more marketable as a short story.

Skellars, another of my "twilight zone" tales, is out.

I'm in the midst of a final edit of an essay called When The Thing That Is Stuck In Your Throat Is Your Heart, which has been simmering for nearly two years now and finally erupted when I read a recent call for submissions.

Sometimes the work hovers that way, waiting for a place to aim.

I have two novels already in first draft awaiting my attention in the fall. I'm not yet sure which I'll work on, but I like having a choice!

I'd love some writerly company here - if you're working on something, sending something out, thinking about starting a writing project - announce it here! We're all in this writing game together.