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Los Angeles, 1952 is now complete for the world to read on Twist in Time

Last post, I talked about Twist in Time Magazine and what a nifty little litmag it is.Well, they have just published the second half of my oddball short story: Los Angeles, 1952. It’s about, well, Los Angeles in 1952 and a perfect storm of boxing, old Hollywood, and first dates.

If you’d like to read the first part to catch up, it’s here:

A couple of months ago I wrote about the back story to this tale, and I blame it all on The Duchess. That explanation is on my blog as well.

I hope you enjoy meeting Lorna, Jimmy and Maggie. Have a great week.

Support Lit Mags #3 Twist in Time

Take your time and get it right. We’re not going anywhere.
Renee Firer, editor Twist in Time

If you love short stories and poetry, you need a place to find new work. If you’re a writer, you need a place to submit and get your stuff into the world. This is the third in a short series about litmags I really like–some have published my work, some have not–that do a terrific job. This week’s focus is on Twist in Time Magazine and we are talking to its editor, Renee Firer.

Full disclosure, I really like this mag for a couple of reasons. First, it is absolutely delightful. The look of it, the design and the artwork are really lovely and slick (in a good way). it’s not just a website with words on it.

Secondly, its theme is time. Their motto is “Take us on a journey to somewhen.” Fact, fantasy, fiction, it’s all about time and how it works on us, and we on it. Content runs the gamut from delicate fantasy poems about fairies to fact-based historical fiction and back. If you haven’t read it, you should take a look.

Then, of course, they have published some of my work. The war story (something outside their normal wheelhouse but they liked it, so there) Dien Bien Phu, 1954 came out in Issue 2. My 2-part longer piece, Los Angeles, 1952 was premiered in Issue 5 in September and will conclude on November 1 in Issue 6. I wrote some backstory on it earlier this month…

Renee, tell us about your magazine, Twist in Time and your new imprint, TwistiT Press and why do we care?

Such a good question! I think the better question would be, why should we care about the evolution of literature? What we consider today to be historical fiction was once just literature set in the time period the author was from. Some of the science fiction written years and years ago is now comical literature that completely missed the mark when guessing what the future might look like. Writing that focuses on time, on a single moment, the future, past, etc., is like a history book in and of itself. Twist in Time documents it all. Years from now, someone could read the work in my magazine and maybe learn something about our era, the authors, the world, community, and so much more. No one can escape time. So we might as well start paying more attention to it. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to learn from it so that history doesn’t repeat itself.

This is a tough gig. What were you thinking? What inspired you to take the leap?

Honestly, it’s a bit selfish. I write a lot of historical fiction and poetry. But when searching for magazines, online or print, that would publish my genre of work, there was a huge gap. A bunch of the magazines I found had shut down for a few different reasons. One of them being not enough submissions. Was historical writing a dying art? I didn’t think so. Or more like I hoped not. That would have been heartbreaking. So I took that as a lesson and took a deeper look at what fascinated me. I needed to find a way to broaden the topic. What was it about history that drew me to it? The answer was time. Something about writing about a different time and place gave me the warm fuzzies. A stranger sitting beside me, though, would be able to interpret time a different way. And that’s what I wanted. Different stories from different people from different places all over the world all because of one word.

What kind of stories or other content are you looking for?

Steampunk, steampunk, steampunk! Now, with my shameless wishlist out of the way, I’m looking for the unconventional. I want quirky, different, but engaging work, be it writing or art/photography. I want someone to take the idea of “time” and twist it around their finger and create something new that leaves me salivating and desperate for more. I want it all. The past, present, and future.

Here’s your chance to vent: What drives you crazy about submissions to your magazine?

Oh, oh, oh! I HATE when people don’t read my guidelines. I tried to lay it out as simply as possible, but there are still people who don’t read it. And I can tell instantly. There are people who just send me an email with the attachment, but no cover letter. Nothing to tell me if the piece is a simultaneous submission or previously published. It drives me up the wall, honestly. Because I look at it this way, if someone can’t take a few minutes to read my guidelines then why should I waste time reading or viewing their work? To me, that’s disrespectful, but more than that, unprofessional.

What are your long-term goals for Twist in Time and your imprint, TwistiT Press?

To get filthy rich. On a more serious note, I would love to reach out into print for the magazine. It’s something I’ve been circling for a while now, but I just lack the time to finish laying out the issues. But that is the goal. I want to find a way to reach a wider audience, do more work with charity anthologies, and branch out to high schoolers and middle schoolers (TwistiT Teen, anyone?).

As for TwistiT Press, I’m in the beginning stages of this aspect of my business, but I am so grateful for the writers I have published or am soon to be publishing. My goal is to continue on this upward momentum and continue growing with my press and authors. I hope to one day have an honest business from the magazine and press, so that I can continue bringing content to my readers. And my authors deserve the best I can offer them.

If people are going to submit to you (No, not like THAT!) what should they know?

Well, if they’re going to submit to me, they better submit to me (100% in THAT way). Actually no. I don’t wish to be sued for sexual harassment. But I think they should know they need to be patient. With themselves and with us. If they miss a submission period because they can’t get a piece just right, that’s okay! Submissions will open back up eventually. But also, if they rush to finish a piece for fear of missing the deadline, don’t. Take your time and get it right. We’re not going anywhere. Better to submit something you’re proud of rather than work that’s subpar.

Also, remember, we’re running this magazine and press in our spare time. And sometimes, we’re swamped with submissions. It’s both flattering and terrifying. It can take longer to go through them all than we intend. Please be kind, but don’t hesitate to reach out and ask about the status of your submission. We’ll get back to you ASAP. We’re doing our best for you guys.

You’ve published two of my stories now. I’m grateful because they were hard stories to place for different reasons. What the hell were you thinking? What did you find publish-worthy?

You’re one of the few who have submitted historical fiction to me and that immediately grabbed my attention. But what kept me reading was your ability to story tell. It’s not just the prose, but the way you draw a reader in with details, giving them some footing to stand on. It’s the dialogue, keeping it authentic. You have this amazing ability to build a world in a limited amount of space, a world where readers just kind of fall in and find themselves no longer on their couch, kitchen table, bed, etc., but in LA, watching two guys duke it out in the ring.

On that note, I’m going to quit while I”m ahead. Please check out Twist in Time. Also, some of my other short stories can be found on this page of my site, and my novels and nonfiction can be found on my Amazon Author Page.

A Female Samurai with India Millar

I am a sucker for anything that has to do with the Samurai period in Japan. Toshiro Mifune is my boy. So when I heard about Firefly, the tale of a female samurai warrior, or “onna-bugeisha,” I was all in. So, meet India Millar.

India, who are you?

My name is India Millar, and I am a writer of historical fiction. Also, I may well be one of the luckiest people I know – I make my living doing something I love. But like most things that are worth having, my journey to becoming a professional novelist was far from easy. In fact, my love of writing was born out of adversity. I come from a very poor family. My father died when I was eight, and to keep us both together, my mother was forced to work impossibly long hours. In those days, “latchkey” kids were common, and the authorities took no notice of us. Books didn’t figure in our tightest of budgets, so I would come home from school, get myself something to eat and then head for the local library to lose myself in as many books as I could devour, staying there until they threw me out. And that was the start of wanting to be a writer for me. I soon began to create my own, private adventures in my head and I became a dreamer of other existences. I carried my own world in my head, whenever I had a spare moment weaving stories just for myself, for nothing more than to give myself pleasure. To me, this was perfectly normal. I was amazed when I found out that everybody didn’t do it. And it was only recently that I came across a term for it. Apparently, I am a “maladaptive dreamer.” I think that is a remarkably ugly title for one who gives pleasure by introducing their worlds to others. I wonder if I asked any of my favourite authors if they knew they were maladaptive dreamers, what they would say? (Wayne’s note: Hell yea, maybe we need tshirts!) I have a feeling that the response would be that – just like me – they wouldn’t have it any other way!

In spite of my lifelong love affair with words, I never believed I would become a professional writer. That was for other people, not the daydreamer from nowhere. Now I have achieved the impossible and I spend my days bringing my dreams to life, I can only give thanks for those long-ago times that were my start in life.

I really enjoyed Firefly, but tell my readers about it.

“Firefly” is the first in a series of books based on the true tradition of the warrior woman of the samurai. My heroine, Keiko, began life as the daughter of a wealthy samurai. But unlike most women of her class, she was not a pampered nothing, expected to do no more than marry and have as many male children as possible. Dominated by her lovely elder sister, Keiko wanted no more than to win the love and respect of her father, who largely ignored her. . But she found to her cost that the ancient oriental saying of “be careful what you wish for, you may get it” can also become a curse when it amused her brother to teach her the way of onna-bugeisha; the revered warrior women of the samurai. She finally wins her freedom, but at a cost she could never have envisaged.

We share a fascination for that time period. What drew you to the world of samurai Japan?

I’ve been fascinated by the Victorian period for as long as I can remember. I think it is because it was the period in history when suddenly anything at all was not only possible, but likely. Never has mankind achieved so much in a relatively short period; virtually everything we take for granted today had its roots in the Victorian age. And I can’t remember a time in my own history when I wasn’t fascinated by Japan. Who could imagine a country that voluntarily closed its doors to the rest of the world for hundreds of years and then, in less than a century, rose to become a world power? Geisha, samurai, courtesans, the code of bushido, haiku,the kabuki and bunraku theatres, warrior women who fought alongside their men and of course Edo’s Floating World… delicious!

So, what’s your favorite (or favourite) scene in the book?

It’s always difficult to divorce a certain scene from the whole. Of course, if it was easy to pick out one particular piece of the action, then that scene probably shouldn’t be there in the first place as it disturbs the harmony of the rest of the book. Having said that, I enjoyed writing about the incident that made Keiko realize she had achieved her goal of becoming onna-bugeisha. Her brother, Isamu, takes her to steal a golden eagle chick from the nest on an inaccessible mountain. Her father loves hunting and she knows that the rare and wonderful gift of a golden eagle will please him above all else. It does, but the dangerous mountain climb to reach the eagle’s nest and the mother bird’s frantic attempts to protect her chick nearly kills Keiko. And at the end of the day, it is her brother who takes the credit for the gift. As he tells Keiko, if their samurai father knew that she had had any part in stealing the chick, he would have declined the coveted bird because if a mere woman could have taken it, it would surely be worthless. A definite example of be careful what you wish for; you may get it!

Where can we learn more about you and all your books?

You can find me on Amazon, my website at www.indiamillar.co.uk, and Facebook.

We interrupt this interview for a shameless plug. Acre’s Orphans has won a much-coveted “Discovered Diamond” award for historical fiction. You can read the review here, or just take my word for it and buy the book.

England in the 1600s with Michael Ward

All historical fiction fans have their preferred time periods. One of the joys for me is when someone introduces me to a time and place I might not have been as familiar with. Such is the case with Michael Ward and his novel Rags of Time set in England during the mid-1600s.

Okay, Michael, what’s your deal?

I count myself lucky indeed to have grown up in Liverpool during the sixties. We really did feel we had the world on a string thanks to the Fab Four. I always hankered after journalism and my first interview was with Frank Zappa, on tour in Liverpool, for my school magazine. I didn’t realise then my reporting career had just peaked at the age of 15.

Later I joined the BBC before becoming a journalism academic. But, as they say, inside every hack there’s a book waiting to come out. I eventually succumbed when I discovered historical fiction and a fascinating period that, to me, had been relatively overlooked – the mid 17^th century Stuarts. The die was cast.

What is Rags of Time about?

‘Rags of Time’ is the first in a series which will chart the adult life of my hero merchant Thomas Tallant. Tom returns from India with a ship full of spice to find England sliding into Civil War, and London in the grip of a bitter struggle between King and Parliament. The streets are seething with sedition and soon Tom is being dragged into London’s turbulence, falsely accused of killing a wealthy merchant and then, later, the death of the man’s partner.

He meets Elizabeth Seymour – equally addicted to astronomy, tobacco, mathematics, and gambling – who steals his heart and then saves his life by untangling the web of intrigue that threatens to pull Thomas under. Their journey of discovery takes Tom from the underground radical press to the halls of Parliament, and the apprentice boy riots to a regal masque ball, all in search of truth and his salvation.

What is it about that time period or character that appealed to you? What are the roots of the story?

The more I researched this period, the more I realised it must have been a remarkable time to be alive, in London. Everything was changing. Religion, politics, society, commerce, science, and medicine – all were touched, and in some cases transformed, by the spirit of this age.

So I wanted my readers to see, hear and smell this for themselves, by walking in Tallant’s shoes, experiencing both the everyday and the dramatic. Understanding, for example, how centuries-old medical cures and treatments of dubious value were finally being challenged and replaced by science. But also witnessing historic events such as the Fire of London, or the execution of Charles 1.

Do you have a favorite scene?

That’s very difficult! Possibly an extended scene between Tom and Elizabeth that marks the turning point in their relationship, when Tom shares his darkest secret with Elizabeth. It took me an age to write and re-write because I wanted the scene to end with the reader understanding completely that a bond had been created, through the offer and acceptance of deep trust, without any overt reference to this throughout the dialogue. Tricky!

Where can we find your book and more about you?

It’s available in paperback and e-book on Amazon. I’ve just joined Goodreads and am developing my author profile there. Book 1 (‘Rags’) introduces us to the rending divisions that will soon lead to Civil War. Book 2 is now in development.

Holy @$%^, My Flash Fiction Won Something

My short fiction has been filling in space while I’m between novels, and it’s been getting some love. The latest pleasant surprise is from my boys at Storgy.com, who have awarded my story, “Sponging” third place in their 2019 Storgy Flash Fiction Competition.

Flash is something I had never tried before. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s the need to tell a complete story in a pitifully small number of words, usually 500 or a thousand depending on who you ask. For this contest, it was 500 words. Flash fiction fans (who also appreciate alliteration, apparently) will tell you it’s a legit art form that forces the writer to focus on only the elements crucial to creating a character and theme, a little like prose haiku. Others will tell you it’s because nobody can afford to do print and paper magazines anymore, and reading long stories on line can be a drag.

Given that I write primarily novels and business books, it’s hard for me to even say hello in 500 words, so the fact I could tell a tale about a fixed horse race and a guilty jockey in such a short space was a little surprising. I couldn’t have done it without the input from my writer’s group, the Thursday night bunch at Sin City Writers.

Truthfully, my goal was to make the book– the top 30 stories are getting published in a chapbook. I never expected to make the top 3 (and a little bird told me I damn near won the thing, but that’s practically irrelevant.) I know and really enjoy the work of several of the authors who submitted, like Tomas Marcantonio, Emily Harrison, Rick White, and Laure Van Rensburg and that’s some durned fine company to find oneself among.

I’ll keep you posted on when the book will be available. Meanwhile, check out all my short stories and where you can find them on this site on the Short Stories and Other Pieces page.

Los Angeles,1952 and the story behind the story

When that first dime-sized drop of blood hit her blouse, I figured the evening was pretty much shot.
Los Angeles, 1952 part 1

One of the favorite stories I’ve ever written is Los Angeles, 1952 which is now out (at least part 1 is) in Issue V of Twist in Time Magazine. It came out the same day as another story, Ava, Lana and Old Bob Campbell was published in Ragazine.

The stories are a little similar, in that they both take place in the 1950s (at least partly) and are based on semi-historical events and involve Studio-age Hollywood. I gave you a little backstory on that tale in a previous post, and thought I’d do the same for this one.

LA 1952 is the most thoroughly researched short story I’ve done. On the surface, it’s a tale of boxing, old Hollywood, and first dates. In its own way, it’s also a very personal story. Here are some of the tidbits you might not know.

The boxing card that night was real. Using BoxRec, a website for the geekiest of boxing geeks, I found a real fight card for June 7, 1952 at the Legion (later to be the Olympic) in Los Angeles. All the fighters and the results of that card are as stated in the story. Gil Cadilli was a popular LA-based fighter who fought the likes of Davey Moore and Willie Pep in the early and mid-fifties. He was one of “Senator” Johnny Forbe’s proteges… Forbes helped set up boxing programs in East LA and was responsible for a good percentage of the west coast fighters of that period. I have always been a huge boxing fan. In fact, nowadays you can often find me placing bets on websites like FanDuel whenever there is a big fight on! To be completely honest I love the thrill of placing a bet and then seeing your chosen fighter win. There have been quite a few occasions where I have even landed a good payout after correctly predicting which fighter would take home the crown. That being said, as you can imagine, I have watched lots of boxing fights in my time so I have a good working knowledge of this fascinating sport and this came in useful when writing this story.

The details about Monarch Studios contracts are accurate. As stated earlier my wife, the Duchess, is a fount of information about the golden age of Hollywood. She also has a number of friends who are equally geeky. One of them is Gary Brumburgh, a singer, actor and someone who has contributed to hundreds of IMDB bios and articles on the studio days. He gave me the low-down on the small studios like Monarch and all he asked in return was to name the actress Lorna Malone. Seemed like a fair deal. Lorna got her big raise in 1952. Unfortunately, Monarch closed its doors in 1954. I hope she married well.

The Hollywood Studio Club was a real thing and my wife lived there. The studio club dormitory where Patsy/Lorna lived was on Lodi Place between Fountain and Lexington in Hollywood. It opened in the early 20s and remained open until 1975. A number of famous actresses lived there, and literally thousands of wannabes and never-weres. in 1972, a bright-eyed 22-year-old from Miami named Joan Herrera pulled up in her Toyota Corolla planning to be a star. They put her in the room once occupied by Marilyn Monroe. She immediately asked to be put in another room fearing bad juju. She became the actress Joan Dareth, and then the current Joan Turmel.

I sold cars in LA for a short time in the 90s, and that was pretty much my boss. Morrie existed, and he’d have absolutely been that guy.

The final part of the story will be out November 1 in Issue 6. Please read it.

If you enjoy my short stories, you can find a list here of what’s out in the world. Better yet, buy one of my novels and support my habit by visiting my Amazon Author Page.

Support Litmags #2 – The Mighty Line

The Mighty Line is looking for stories that are technically sound and culturally relevant.
John Hegellund, publisher The Mighty Line

As someone who loves the short story, it’s kind of staggering how many places are you can find them. If, of course, you know where to look. Because so few print magazines feature short fiction, most of these places are to be found online. This is the second in a series of interviews that might steer you towards places I find great stories to read.

Some of these mags, like Storgy, or Twist in Time, have published my work. Others I enjoy but have yet to crack (although it doesn’t stop me from trying.) Such is the case with The Mighty Line magazine.

Here’s my interview with John Heggelund.

The Mighty Line is kind of unique among lit journals. Tell us about it.

The Mighty Line is a digital magazine of short fiction and visual art. We publish our issues online for free (www.TheMightyLine.com) so our contributors can share their work with as broad an audience as possible. We do not solicit fiction. Every story we publish starts in the slush pile, so every submission we receive is given equal attention. Contributors are paid $25. In addition to standard submissions, we offer expedited submissions, which receive responses in two weeks or less, and feedback submissions, which receive a critical essay critiquing the story submitted with suggestions for improving it.

What was the big idea behind the site? That’s a nice way of asking what the hell you were thinking.

The journey from amateur to professional writer is long with few avenues of support. Your friends and family can encourage you, but they can’t edit your work or give you critical feedback, typically. For the most part, magazine editors respond only in form rejections and paying for editing can get real expensive real quick. I received 168 form rejections before my first story was published. I had spent hundreds of dollars on submissions fees and racked up twice that in editing costs. It was all worth it, but it was a huge investment in time and resources that many people can’t afford. I want to change that. That’s why I started The Mighty Line.

You just publish short stories, rather than poetry or essays. You also showcase one visual artist per issue. What kind of material excites you? What are you looking for?

The Mighty Line is looking for stories that are technically sound and culturally relevant. I love a great plot, but if the story does not encourage the reader to reconsider their perspective on the concepts it touches on, then it’s a lot less likely to be selected. We believe stories resolve internalized conflicts by reconciling opposing ideas in specific contexts. This is a citable public good we want to see in everything we publish.

I won’t take it personally that you haven’t selected one of my stories yet, but you do get major karma points for positive encouragement and feedback. But let’s get negative for a second. What drives you crazy about submissions?

Guidelines. There will always be people who don’t follow guidelines, so I’m railing at the wind here, but it’s very frustrating. It seems incredibly rude that some people expect me to read and seriously engage with their work, yet they aren’t willing to even make sure it’s in the requested format. Our guidelines aren’t arbitrary rules for making the submission process more complicated. A readable font, decent spacing, numbered pages, email in the cover letter, these are all things that make my life so much easier.

What are the long-term goals for The Mighty Line?

As long as The Mighty Line continues to exist and publish writers, I’m golden. I didn’t start this magazine to make money. Our submission fees barely cover our costs most months, and the vast majority of those are tied to services such as providing feedback, which is increasingly taking up more of my day. This mag isn’t going to make me rich, and it surely isn’t going to make me famous, but it does give me a daily opportunity to encourage people to critically engage with literature. I want to inspire people to decide for themselves what is good writing and what is bad writing and why. I don’t care if you’re a tenured professor or a dilettante mystery writer, everyone can engage with literature equally. I want to convince as many people of that as possible.

That’s the goal, so as long we’re receiving submissions, I’m living the dream.

If people are motivated to submit now, what should they know?

Follow guidelines, have a discernible theme, and build to a climax in which a decision is made whose ramifications meaningfully subvert or fulfill the reader’s expectations. Do not summarize the story in the cover letter. The longer your cover letter is, the more likely I am to skim it rather than read it. Please, please, please do not send me something unless you are absolutely sure it is ready for publication. Rejecting good stories that aren’t sufficiently refined breaks my heart. Don’t break my heart.

Most of my short stories, published or otherwise, can be found here on this website.

New Short Story- Ava, Lana and Old Bob Campbell

…you can imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, the old guy ups and says, “I ever tell you about the time I had a three-way with Lana Turner and Ava Gardner?”
Ava, Lana and Old Bob Campbell Ragazine, Sept 1 2019

So, I have a new short story out in the world this month. Two of them actually, but more about that in a minute. This one appears in Ragazine, which is a smart, eclectic collection with some world-class contributors. I’m always glad and a little surprised when places of this caliber let me come and play in their sandbox. I also think it’s a pretty nifty little story.

The story is called Ava, Lana and Old Bob Campbell. It’s a tale of Old Hollywood, memory, and day-drinking. There is also a story behind the story that I thought you’d find amusing.

Usually, writers hate the “where’d you get that idea from?” question. It’s what we do. But the fact is that this story actually has roots going back 20 years or more.

My wife, The Duchess, is an old Hollywood geek. Like the Rainman of old movies. Anyway, we were sitting at the table after dinner with friends one night and we were relating our favorite scandalous tales from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Out of the blue, she comes up with one that knocked us cold.

When she lived in Palm Springs in the 80s, there was a local urban legend that sometime in the 1950s, Ava Gardner and Lana Turner were having a bit of a lost weekend in The Springs. According to the tale, they picked up a local gas jockey and gave him the weekend of his life. Well, of course, everyone said, “Can you imagine? That had to be the luckiest SOB that ever lived. Must have been the greatest night of his life!”

The writer in me asked a different question: What if it wasn’t? What if instead, it started a downward spiral and the guy never recovered? Since then, we’ve talked about that story many times with people, and I had threatened to write about it but it just stayed so much cocktail chatter.

The Duchess thought it should be a novel. I actually considered making it part of a play (yeah, I had delusions of grandeur. Don’t worry, it will never happen). At any rate, this year as I was stuck on the last few chapters of Johnny Lycan and needed a distraction the story finally came to me.

As usual with these kinds of pieces, the research was a blast. I had to pick a year when Ava and Frank were on the skids, Lana wasn’t married and hadn’t yet gotten involved with Johnny Stompanato, and the kid could still mathematically be alive today to tell the story. I settled on the summer of 1957.

Then there were all the details about the Coachella Valley and the people who lived there. Go Arabs. Only they’re not the Arabs anymore, for reasons you can well imagine. You also shouldn’t use the word “beaners,” but the behavior of the characters is not always condoned by the management.

If I thought nobody would care about such an odd little tale, I was disabused of that notion when I brought it to my Sin City Writers critique group, blessings be upon them. Enter Mike Foldes and the good folks at Ragazine, and here we are.

I had another story, with an equally twisted history published this week in Twist in Time. Part 1 of Los Angeles, 1954 is here, and I’ll say more in another post.

I hope you enjoy it. If you want to read more of my short piece, you can find them on my website under Short Stories and other Pieces. Support the litmags who publish writers, and if you like the short stuff, imagine entire novels full of that brilliance. You can find The Count of the Sahara, Acre’s Bastard and its sequel Acre’s Orphans on my Amazon Author Page.

New Orleans and Reconstruction- Amanda Skenandore

One of the best things about moving to Las Vegas has been developing a whole new network of local writers. One of the nicest and, more importantly, successful of these is Amanda Skenandore. Her first book, Between Earth and Sky, impressed the heck out of me. Her second, The Undertaker’s Assistant, is just out now.

I’ve met you a few times now, but tell my readers about you. What’s your deal?

I’m originally from Colorado, but I now live Las Vegas, NV with my husband and our pet turtle, Lenore. When I’m not writing, I work as a registered nurse at a local hospital. My first novel, Between Earth and Sky, came out last year. The highlight of my debut years was winning the American Library Association’s Reading List Award for Best Historical Fiction. My second novel, The Undertaker’s Assistant, released in July. I’m an avid reader, tea-drinker, and wanderlust. I love to write historical fiction because it transports me to past while at the same time shining light on the here and now.

What is your book about?

The Undertaker’s Assistant follows the story of Effie, a young freedwoman who earns her living as an embalmer, as she seeks out her past amid the growing violence and racial turmoil of Reconstruction-era New Orleans. She says in the novel, “The dead can’t hurt you. Only the living can.” A former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, she knows the truth of her words and keeps her distance from the living. But two encounters—with a charismatic state legislator named Samson Greene, and a beautiful young Creole, Adeline—introduce her to new worlds of protests and activism, of soirees and social ambition. Effie decides to seek out the past she has blocked from her memory and try to trace her kin. As her hopes are tested by betrayal, and New Orleans grapples with violence, Effie faces loss and heartache, but also a chance to finally find a place of belonging.

What is it about that time period or character that appealed to you? What are the roots of the story?

I wanted to explore Reconstruction. Growing up, I remember learning a lot about the Civil War, but very little about Reconstruction. I’d learned the names of a dozen generals, but not the names of the African American men elected to congresses and statehouses throughout the South in the decade following the War’s end. Some of these men, like Robert Smalls and Blanche Bruce, were former slaves. What struck me most as I researched, was how progressive the era of Reconstruction was and how quickly that progress crumbled. I’d been taught about carpetbaggers and political corruption, but not about systematic violence and intimidation that truly undermined this progress.

I also wanted to explore the nature of death and dying in an era when that experience was often more frequent and intimate than we know today. A few years ago, I came across an article in The New Republic titled “Who Owns the Dead.” In it, the author explores the increasing distance modern funerary practices place between the living and the dead and compares that to earlier American practices. The intimacy and continuity of care our forbears practiced with the dead intrigued me. The article also mentioned how the rise of embalming in America coincided with the Civil War as families sought a way to bring loved ones killed in battle home for burial. I knew I wanted to set my second novel during the era of post-Civil War Reconstruction, so the profession of undertaking seemed like the perfect intersection of these two interests.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

My favorite scene—favorite scene to write anyway—was one that takes place during Mardi Gras. It’s Effie’s first social outing in the New Orleans and is unlike anything she’s experienced. I enjoyed researching early Mardi Gras traditions and imaging the varied sights, sounds, and smells Effie would have encountered. Mardi Gras in the 1870s was part celebration, part political rally, and part melee. The hand-stitched costumes and horse-drawn floats were not only mean to dazzle but to convey a message: carpetbagger-rule was coming to an end. It’s a tumultuous scene for Effie, one of both excitement and injury.

Where can we learn more about you and your books?

I’m most active on Instagram, but you can find me on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter too. My books are available wherever books are sold, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound.

Support Litmags #1- Storgy

If we start zoning out a page in then it needs work. Don’t bore us. You know what’s good.
Anthony Self, Executive Director, Head of Film, Storgy Magazine.

Since I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. In particular, I had visions of being a wildly successful short story writer, firing off brilliance to magazines like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Fantasy and Science Fiction, slumming occasionally in Esquire or the New Yorker and the checks would just flow to my mailbox.

I still love writing and reading short stories and there is a crop of new online lit-mags and publishers who are flying the flag and keeping the art-form alive. I’m going to showcase a few of them over the next couple of weeks. Some have published me, some have kept their standards high (Kidding!)

A few years ago, I had a boxing story I was looking to submit. While it went to another magazine, the kind reply inspired me to stay connected with the boys in the UK. If you haven’t checked out Storgy.com yet, you’ll find a mix of opinion, short fiction, and just cool stuff, unbounded by genre (although they do skew heavily to the snarky and slightly weird.) Their new short story collection, Hopeful Monsters is available for pre-order now. (It’s on my Kindle TBR pile)

Here’s my interview with Anthony (Tony) Self.

What is Storgy, and why should we care?

STORGY magazine initially started as a closed-off writer’s group, where a few of us would be able to massage our own egos and pretend to know about the craft to put stories online. People started sending us their own work to put online and we liked the attention like craven wannabe-celebrities so I guess something stuck and we began publishing stories that fell through the cracks. These were the stories that didn’t have a home. The bastard children of literature.

Given how hard the publishing business is, what the hell were you thinking? How did the original concept come to you?

I know, right? Five years ago we were dilly-dallying with a story a week and now we’re independent publishers; posting reviews, previews, interviews and short fiction for all the masses to gobble up like malnourished street urchins. We wanted to write a 1,000 story every week and challenge ourselves to accomplish this. Looking back we were probably naive. Or had head trauma. One or the other.

Editor’s note: through a series of late-night emails the name of the magazine is a mashup of “Story” and “Orgy.” An Orgy of Stories. Don’t form companies while drinking. What kind of content are you looking for?

All kinds. We’ve had essays, we’ve had poems, we’ve had mythological Buddhist zen-like soliloquy’s, at the end of the day if the story keeps us engaged from beginning to end we may publish it. If we start zoning out a page in then it needs work. Don’t bore us. You know what’s good. And don’t send us your first draft. You’re better than that.

One of the reasons for this post is to encourage submissions. What do writers do that drives you crazy?

We used to heavily edit stories because a lot of mistakes were evident in the prose. We want to get stories out there to the masses but we also want to be professional about it all. It kind of hits us in the feels when we’ve edited something, send it back to the writer for review and they’re indignant about a rewrite as they consider their work a masterpiece and HOW DARE WE TRY TO CHANGE IT. Oh yeah, and ‘it was all a dream’, type endings

I love when I get constructive feedback from an editor. Most of us are submitting to find an audience and build our brand, such as it is. What are you and the the boy’s long-term plan for world domination?

A less elitist New Yorker type mantle would be fun. We’ve pushed ourselves to become independent publishers to create content for the short story form, so we’d like to carry on with that. Oh yeah, and get a $1,000,000 grant or something like that. That would be nice.

Any advice for authors submitting?

We’re flexible with a lot of things, such as number count, typeface, formatting – but look at our FAQ’s before submitting, it’s a courtesy to the person reading and potentially wanting to publish your piece.

You’ve been very kind to my work, publishing a number of stories and reviewing Acre’s Bastard and Acre’s Orphans. At the risk of sounding needy, what is it you like about my work?

Personally, I really liked The Towel – on one level it’s a snapshot of a boxing fight, conveying the imagery of RagingBull, Southpaw or Warrior, but on a deeper level it can be interpreted as the indomitable spirit of never giving up. This is something we agree on. In fact, it’s the core message of what STORGY is all about..

Storgy has expanded to publishing short story collections. Check them out here.

Most of my short stories, published or otherwise, can be found here on this website.