Image courtesy iamroco on Flickr

I’m happy to share some exciting news with you today: an essay of mine was purchased by The Writer a few months ago, and it appears in the November issue.

The piece is called “Stand out”; the cover line is “Make your mark in literary journals.”

Although “Stand out” is not available online, the November issue is on newsstands now.

For the past four years I’ve focused most of my writing efforts on the short story form. It’s not that I’ve given up on writing a novel, but this detour into writing, editing and publishing literary short stories has helped me grow exponentially as a writer—in ways I never would’ve grown if I’d stuck to my guns about a novel being my first publication.

Short stories are great for so many reasons. As I wrote in this article at Writer Unboxed, reading short fiction can make you a more knowledgeable writer, writing short fiction can make you a more accomplished writer, and publishing short fiction can make you a more marketable writer.

For me, there’s no more satisfying part of writing than holding a copy of a publication in my hands. When life is overwhelming and I feel I’ll never be able to write another word anyone would want to read, I dig out the stack of journals and anthologies that have published my work, and I simply hold them.

Thank you all for your continued support!