The writing life is about putting one foot in front of the other. I took a lot of steps in 2015.<\/p>\n
Publishing-wise, this was my most successful year, yet. I’ve always built off previous years, but 2015 had a lot of great moments. “The Polka Man” came out in Faed<\/em> from A Murder of Storytellers. “Mercury Beach” appeared in Yellow Mama<\/em>, accompanied by an excellent illustration. “A Simple Device” was published in Rejected<\/em> from ACA Books. “A Burial” was featured as part of the Page and Spine Fiction Showcase<\/em>. “C Was for Cat” found a home with Body Parts Magazine<\/em>. “Copy Rights” was printed in a beautiful edition of Sanitarium<\/em>. “Voids” was posted by the Saturday Night Reader<\/em>. I even sold another poem. “Crow, Why Do You Cry” appeared in Illumen<\/em>. I published\u00a0short stories every month at the Confabulator Cafe. To top it all off, my first solo collection All Manner of Dark Things<\/em> came out in April and has been pretty well received. \u00a0Financially, I made far more writing than I ever had before. Trust me, that’s not saying much. I turned around and invested the money in my writing education, taking classes at LitReactor<\/a> with some of my favorite writers, such as Benjamin Whitmer, Nicholas Kaufman, Helen Marshall, Jordan Hamessley, and Simon Strantzas.<\/p>\n I got the opportunity do A LOT of panels at ConQuest in Kansas City. Eight panels, plus a reading. I think I moderated five. I was running all weekend and exhausted by the end of it, but it was a great experience. I love talking about books, writing, and the horror genre in particular. I did more panels at the Longview Literary Festival at Metropolitan Community College. I spoke to the Young Writer’s Group at Sumner Academy in Kansas City. They were amazing, and I wish them great success. Who knows where the literary life will take them? I did a signing at the local Hastings and another at the Topeka Public Library’s Great Writers, Right Here author fair. \u00a0I even served as a juror for the 2015 Stoker Awards. There were other opportunities for events that I didn’t take advantage of, but I hope that this is just the beginning.<\/p>\n 2015 is going to be hard to beat, but I am going to give it a shot. “Assholes with Guns” just came out in The Literary Hatchet. “Blood and Dust” will be out in\u00a0Theater B\u00a0<\/em>from A Murder of Storytellers very soon, and “Patchwork” will be coming out in\u00a0Typhon: A Monster Anthology<\/em> from Pantheon Magazine. I am also hoping that both my novella\u00a0Mama’s Little Boy<\/em> and my second collection\u00a0Whispers and Proclamations<\/em> will be out some time this year. There will surely be other things. There always is. I am planning on being at\u00a0ConQuest and Longview again. WorldCon will be in Kansas City this year, and I would love to be a part of it. I may even pick up a couple more cons here and there as they fit in to my schedule. There have been discussions about me conducting a couple of writer’s workshops, and my monthly contributions to The Confabulator Cafe<\/em> will continue.<\/p>\n As I said at the beginning, this profession is about always moving forward. I’m proud of my 2015 steps, but I hope to take many more in 2016. It’s a long journey, but the only way to get where I’m going\u00a0is to keep writing and see what opportunities present themselves. Thank you for following along in 2015, and I hope you will still be there with me a year from now.<\/p>\n Links to all of this year’s publications can be found by clicking “The Work<\/a>” in my header menu. \u00a0You can pick up a signed copy of All Manner of Dark Things at “The Store<\/a>” if you prefer to avoid Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The writing life is about putting one foot in front of the other. I took a lot of steps in 2015. Publishing-wise, this was my most successful year, yet. I’ve always built off previous years, but 2015 had a lot of great moments. “The Polka Man” came out in Faed from A Murder of Storytellers. 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