Endings and New Beginnings

This morning, I couldn't sleep, so once more, I pulled out the warm slab of my laptop, and let its screen keep me company in that early hour (early for me, anyway), as the light of a new day spread across the walls and the floors.

Ten minutes ago, my wonderful sister and her wonderful boyfriend Sam brought me a mimosa and breakfast in bed (woot!) . Their timing couldn't have been better, because just moments before, I wrote the last sentence of my novel draft. Time to celebrate the next step, a new year, and a new decade.

It feels a little surreal and emotional. Soon, we will be packing up and heading for two days of relaxation in Montana. I'm bringing books, but not my book. Of course, there is still work to do. Hello, revision and rewrites! But for now, I'm settled in with the happiness of being done and leaving behind this stage for a new one, just as my character did an hour ago, crossing into her imagined future and spinning out into the ether of narrative possibility.

I want to toast my beautiful, supportive family and my wonderful friends and cheerleaders. I am so lucky to have you along on this ride. Your love, even from afar, gives me faith in myself and humankind in general. See, I told you this was the year of feeling feelings!

Okay, it's party time. Raising a glass to all of you!

New Story Up At District!

"Scrabbling," the second story that District kindly accepted for publication, is now up!  Check it out HERE, and while you're there, the other fantastic poetry and fiction on the site!

More Publication News!

My story, "Going," is now up at DISTRICT.  Check it out HERE.  This is the first of two stories that will be featured at this rad literary magazine.  Not only is the work great, but the editor was gracious enough to track me down on Facebook and ask me for a story.  That never happens!  Until now.  So, needless to say, I am a huge fan.  Enjoy reading!

Publication News!

I am excited that one of my stories, "Edward Hopper's Women," is the first piece of fiction being featured by the lovely and Seattle-based Pacifica Literary Review!  Go and check it out HERE.  I wrote the first draft of this story in 2009 and polished it up for publication afterwards.  It's oh so nice to see it in print.

I've also had two stories accepted by District, another brand spanking new and high quality literary publication.  I'll be sure to link to those stories as they go up!

Fine Line Short Story Competition

I found out today that one of my stories was short-listed for the Fine Line Short Story Competition prize, sponsored by The Fine Line Editorial Consultancy , based in Edinburgh. Congratulations to the winners and fellow finalists!

New Story in Quick Fiction!

My story, "Reaching," has just been published in Issue 17 of this magazine that specializes in "precious little fictions in 500 words or less." This is the second time I have been published in the journal, and although this time you will not be able to read the full text of my story online, you can browse previews of all the stories in the issue and order your own copy but clicking here.

Happy reading!

(image credit: "Tightrope Walker" by Laura Niemi Young)

Story Up at City Arts(!) and Other Musings

First things first, a short story of mine, Mitigation Report 1, is now up on the City Arts magazine website. It has also been published as an excerpt in the print version of the magazine. For those unfamiliar with City Arts, it is a monthly arts magazine devoted to covering Seattle, Tacoma, and the Eastside. It's free for the taking, and widely distributed around the Seattle metropolitan area. I am pretty excited to be published in its pages. As I like to say, it has all the quality (free!) arts coverage of a publication like The Stranger, but without the snark. Last month, their cover story focused on letterpressing and the mad, brilliant folks who still painstakingly set type on vintage machines in order to craft something more personal in our digital age. Good stuff. This month's cover story focuses on the Seattle International Film Festival. Give it a gander, and click on the link above to check out my story.

Speaking of my story, a link on the right side of this page can take you to an audio file of me reading Mitigation Report 1 last year at Castalia, a UW-sponsored reading series at local literary center, Richard Hugo House. As I explain in my preamble to the story, I was inspired to write this particular short short by the work I have been doing this past year as a legal assistant for a criminal defense attorney. Legal work requires the (oftentimes tedious) organization of reams and reams of documents. This often includes mitigation documents.

I was unfamiliar with the idea of "mitigation" in the legal sense until taking my current position, but the presentation of mitigation evidence in a criminal trial often forms a crucial aspect of what is called the "sentencing phase." At this point, the jury has already returned a guilty verdict, but the presentation of evidence is not over for the prosecutor, or the defense attorney. Now, evidence is presented that mitigates against the seriousness of the crime and attempts to elicit some mercy from the jury or judge before a sentence is returned. In a capital case, this element of the trial proves especially important, as garnering sympathy or understanding from the jury can quite literally be a matter of life or death.

In these high-profile capital trials, a mitigation expert will often be retained by defense counsel. This expert completes the work of obtaining voluminous documents from all stages of a client's past -- from childhood to adulthood. These social history records comprise everything from birth certificates, to records of child abuse and institutionalization, to adult correctional facility records. The mitigation expert then crafts a kind of story from these records and attempts to ask, and answer, the question: Who is this person who sits before you for judgment? How might he/she have arrived here, in this courtroom?

Although it would be inappropriate of me to comment on the mitigation records I have reviewed for specific clients, I will say that as a writer, I find them extremely compelling. In these photocopies are the stories of children running away from home, being abused, lashing out, begging for help. In short, they are the story of a life. Reading them puts me, and I would imagine a jury member, in the interesting position of seeing two people: a person who has been found guilty of a heinous crime, and that person as a child; an innocent who will be formed by the experience he or she encounters -- formed, and perhaps hardened and twisted beyond repair. It was with these two people in mind that I composed this story, interspersing the "official" language of state and legal agencies to add an institutional flavor to the collage piece.

This is what I find amazing about legal work: at its base, it is the messy stuff of life itself. Children growing up; parents making mistakes; the state often tragically late in coming to the aid of those in need. Since taking this job, I have thought a lot more about what it means to be merciful, what it means to "condemn" a person, and the conflict inherent in despising someone's acts, while understanding (partially at least) how they came to the juncture where the act was committed. In short, I have had to negotiate my relationship to that child, and to that child as an adult.

Oh, and speaking of archives and records, I have now begun sorting through a collection of beautiful old letters and photographs and postcards, most pre-dating 1930, that belong to my mother's family. I hope to blog about this in the future, and perhaps write some flash fiction about the experience of cataloging these family records...

(http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/about/preservation/pics/documents_2_520.jpg)

April = Not So Cruel

I have just received word that another of my stories, "Reaching," will be featured in the next issue of Quick Fiction! This is a charming jewel of a publication, and I am very excited to be published in its pages once more. I have also been named a runner-up for the second consecutive year in the Summer Literary Seminars Unified Writing Contest. Lastly, a story I wrote last year is forthcoming in a future issue of local arts magazine City Arts. This is a lot of fun news, especially after a ream of January rejections. Please give Quick Fiction and City Arts a gander. They are both big favorites of mine.

(image credit: http://www.pictures.pixelda.biz/UserImages/White-Cherry-Blossom---Work.jpg)

Story Up at Quick Fiction!

My story "Spelling," is currently being featured on the homepage of Quick Fiction, and will appear in print in their 16th issue. It has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Check it out, and the quality shorts published by this snazzy journal! Click here.