Mermaid

The good folks at Rumble, an on-line literary journal, have just published my short-short story “Mermaid,” plus a photograph called “Two Shadows”.

“Mermaid” began as a submission to the Fish Publishing very short fiction contest, which is why it weighs in at under 250 words. One of my problems is verbosity–I can’t manage to say anything in under 1,000 words–so writing this piece was a challenge, and a good exercise in excision. In the end, I think of it more as a poem than a story.

Like two other stories I’ve published–”After Ice Cream” and “Sunshine Over Helsinki”–I owe the inspiration for this story to my friend Penny. It started off as a story Penny told me; indeed, she’s even named in it. And so, of course, it’s dedicated to her, for what it’s worth.

Though it appears that there’s been a bit of a lull in my publications, there are actually at least three waiting to appear (I say “at least” because there are two, for a total of five, that were accepted quite a while back but haven’t yet seen the light of day–one at a publication that may, sadly, be defunct, so I’m starting to shop it elsewhere; and one at a publication that has slowed its once-frenetic pace). Watch this space for more news as the summer drags on!