Rebecca Cuthbert's Blog, page 4

THE START Ft. “In Crowd”

Published in Rebellion Lit’s THE START anthology

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It seemed odd to Marge—a costume party? At their age? But George said no, not costumes—more like ceremonial garb, to ring in the new year. And hadn’t she worn a choir robe each Sunday back at the Presbyterian Church in Boise? Hadn’t George worn his academic regalia at every U of I graduation, and would again, here at Seattle U? He was right, of course. And with the decade about to change over—1960!—what better time to try something different?

“Come on, honey,” he said. “I want us to fit in.”

She wanted that, too—to be invited to potlucks and the coupon club and the garden society. So Marge put on the dark, shapeless frock and half-length veil George had brought home, and he dressed to match—though he wore a robe with a zip front, not a gown, and a mask instead of a veil. To complete her look, Marge painted her lips a deep shade of red and strapped on stiletto heels. If the party theme was “sexy mourner,” she told herself, she’d be dead on.

To read more, get a copy of THE START!

Book Reviewers’ Raffle

Just a quick post to thank everyone for their book reviews of IN MEMORY OF EXOSKELETONS on Amazon and Goodreads. When SELF-MADE MONSTERS comes out in 2024, I will enter all the IMOE reviewers’ names into a raffle to win a free signed copy and book swag.

If you would like to leave a review and be entered into the raffle, click on the links above! Thank you!

“Grafting”

A bloody comedy-horror-romance published in miniskirt magazine’s PRIDE issue

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Janet opened up her flower shop that Saturday like usual.

She had to stick to her schedule—to feel normal, to remind herself that life wasn’t over just because Frank, her husband of 10 years, had told her the night before that he’d kissed Charlene, their across-the-street neighbor with the long legs and long neck and sparkling hazel eyes that were green or brown or golden, depending on the light.

Charlene.

Charlene who watered her roses on Sunday mornings, who always waved or called hello when she noticed Janet watching her from her front porch or the driveway or the bay window that got all that slanting afternoon sunshine.

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Janet pictured Charlene’s shiny dark hair as she put on her green apron, printed with “Bloomerang: Come on back” in white letters. She pictured Charlene’s crooked lower tooth—two over, left side—as she unlocked the door and flipped the sign to OPEN. Charlene’s perfectly symmetrical ears as she checked the temperature on the walk-in cooler. As she looked over next week’s wholesale order, used the bathroom, made a pot of coffee, images of Charlene’s face and hands and easy smile played through her mind on a loop.

Then Frank’s voice joined the reel like a soundtrack.

Sorry, honey. I kissed Charlene.

Kissed Charlene.

Charlene.

To keep reading, visit miniskirt magazine here.

The Social Commentary of SEASON OF THE WITCH

on TheNecronomi.com: Horror as Social Commentary

Rebecca Cuthbert joins [hosts James Sabata and Don Guillory] for a deep dive into Romero’s 1972 SEASON OF THE WITCH. We’re breaking down pseudo-feminism, domestic violence, witchcraft, the power of the mind, and a 1972 fuckboi.

(“Down with Greg! Down with Greg!”)

“The Reservoir”

Published by Hungry Shadow Press, Deadly Drabble Tuesday

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Welcome to Deadly Drabble Tuesday from Hungry Shadow Press! In this feature, we look for 100 word stories that pack a lethal punch.

In today’s haunting yarn by Rebecca Cuthbert, kids will be kids, but some mistakes you can’t take back. Enjoy! —Brandon

Everyone used to know enough about the reservoir not to go near it, but that was back when the town had a newspaper and folks had memory enough to keep the drownings in mind—a father and son fishing, a couple on a date, that one policeman. 

…

To read the rest, visit Hungry Shadow Press!

The Reservoir

Published by Hungry Shadow Press, Deadly Drabble Tuesday

***

Welcome to Deadly Drabble Tuesday from Hungry Shadow Press! In this feature, we look for 100 word stories that pack a lethal punch.

In today’s haunting yarn by Rebecca Cuthbert, kids will be kids, but some mistakes you can’t take back. Enjoy! —Brandon

Everyone used to know enough about the reservoir not to go near it, but that was back when the town had a newspaper and folks had memory enough to keep the drownings in mind—a father and son fishing, a couple on a date, that one policeman. 

…

To read the rest, visit Hungry Shadow Press!

“Writing with Friends,” a guest post by N. West Moss

Soon I’ll be going on my own writers’ retreat, so I invited my friend, N. West Moss, to tell us about her recent writing trip to Florida.

I just got back from a great writing retreat.

What made it so great? Well, it was in Key West, where I was visiting an old college friend who’s also a writer. The people you choose to go on retreat with are vitally important to the success of the retreat. Here, I was with a serious writer who wanted to write as much as I did.

I once went on a writing retreat that was a disaster because I invited someone who had different goals than I did. She wanted to socialize, and I wanted to write like crazy. She got mad at me for going back to my bedroom so I could more work done, and the retreat tanked. I felt guilty, tried to entertain her (unsuccessfully), didn’t get much writing done, and our budding friendship stalled and never recovered.

This time in Key West was heaven, though. I was with a friend I’ve known for over thirty years, so I am relaxed around him. I don’t have to dress up. I don’t have to be anyone but who I am, and that kind of relaxation is great for creative pursuits. He’s also a serious, professional writer, who (unlike me) writes for TV. What we have in common, writing-wise, is that we both had several projects with looming deadlines, so we were equally motivated to put in the hours needed to get real, tangible work done.

Every morning around 7am, one of us would text the other and ask, “Ready for coffee?” We’d meet at the Starbucks on Duvall, and then walk back to his place together, chatting and caffeinating. His computer was set up at one end of his dining room table, and I’d set up my laptop and my stack of index cards at the other end. We’d chat a bit, and then get to the writing, and we’d both write for a few hours  before one of us might say, “I need coffee,” or, “I need a walk,” or, “I can’t figure out this scene.” We’d take a small break together, walking around the block and talking about the work, and then we’d get back to it. That’s how the day would go, with hours and hours of writing punctuated by coffee or a walk around the block. In the evenings we’d do something fun – go out to dinner or to a movie, or to a friend’s porch for cocktails.

Why was this better for me than writing at home? Well, I do most of my writing at home, but home for me is full of distractions. There’s the chair covered with cat hair that needs to be cleaned, and the pile of mail to be sorted. Everywhere I look is a chore or an obligation. When the writing gets difficult (which is often), I’ll choose to vacuum or clean the vegetable crisper rather than face the complex problems in my 300-page Work-in-Progress. Being on foreign turf means I am not thinking about anything but the writing all day long, for 7 or 8 hours at a stretch.

I crave this dedicated writing time, and I suspect that most writers do, and while I do apply and attend formal writing residencies whenever possible, I now try to have as many of these do-it-yourself writing retreats as I’m able to every year.

West (N. West Moss) will be at a month-long residency in Scotland during the summer of 2023, and will be Writer-in-Residence at Gladstone’s Library in Wales for a month in the fall. Her most recent book, Flesh and Blood: Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life (Algonquin 2021) was drafted at a friend’s house in Holland. She can be reached on Instagram @NWestMoss or via email at scoutandhuck@gmail.com.

On not self-rejecting…

Photo: Shakespeare Unleashed, edited by James Aquilone for Monstrous Books and Crystal Lake Publishing, which I submitted to AND THEY LET ME IN!

It’s mid March, the sun is shining, I’m in a relatively good mood, and I’m thinking about self-rejecting–or, more accurately, NOT self-rejecting.

I hear a lot, and I used to say sometimes, “I’m not going to bother submitting to that. I’ll never get in.” Now I’m like, “How do YOU know? You aren’t the editor. Submit that story!” (Or poem or essay or manuscript.)

Have you ever submitted a story to a submissions call that seemed like it was MADE for your story? Like they were a perfect match–everything the editors wanted, your story had? And then, your story got rejected anyway? And you were thinking, WTF, I gave you everything! Yeah. I think we’ve all been there.

So here’s the thing: IT WORKS THE OTHER WAY AROUND, TOO.

You might think your piece isn’t “good enough,” or that it doesn’t quite fit a theme, or does in a WAY, but not in all the ways. Maybe you think the editor has a pronounced different style or aesthetic.

But. Like. What if your piece is just the variety they need? What if they don’t have that narrative arc or subject or theme in any of the other stories they chose?

Jenny Kiefer, author of That Wretched Valley (Quirk Books, 2024) and owner of the popular Kentucky horror bookshop Butcher Cabin Books, has gotten several publications with just that line of though. “Honestly most of my acceptances have been things where I just sent a story to a market I didn’t think would like it. I’ve experienced rejections more when I’ve thought it was perfect for the place I submitted to. I was recently accepted to F&SF for a body horror story–I would have never thought they would like it, but I submitted anyway.”

Especially if there is no submission fee (and whoa should I write a post just about submission fees), SEND IT. There is, for real, no risk. And, see blog post about #100rejections for why we should be trying to send out enough submissions to rack up 100 Rs by the end of the year, be they form or personal.

Rae Knowles, whose novel The Stradivarius will be out soon with Brigid’s Gate Press, knows this, too. “There was a pro-pay call that I knew was getting a ton of submissions,” she said. “It was outside of my usual genre, and I wrote a story, tweaked it, tweaked it, and tweaked it some more. I stressed so much, feeling it had NO chance of being accepted, but on one of the last days of the submission window, decided to send it in. To my SHOCK, it was accepted. Lesson learned, never self-reject!”

Author and editor Alexis DuBon keeps a hand over the mouth of her inner critic:

“Try to think about whose voice it is telling you your story doesn’t work,” she recommended. “Is it your own? Or is the reason you’re hesitant something other than ‘Yeah, this story about biblically accurate angels probably doesn’t fit this call about swamp monsters.’ We bring a lot of baggage into decisions where it doesn’t belong.”

Waylon Jordan, author, horror journalist, and EIC of Off Limits Press, talks over his self-rejection impulses; he drowns them out. “I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell myself, ‘You have just as much right to submit your story as anyone else.’ I see authors invited to calls and talk myself out or submitting because I’m not ‘in their league.’ The imposter syndrome is alive and well and I deal with it all the time. The other thing I have to tell myself is: I’m not Stephen King (or whoever famous author your want to insert). I can’t do what he does. But you know what? He can’t do what I can. Someone wants to read what I can give them.”

Author Katherine Silva (The Wild Oblivion series) picks what she submits to carefully–if she needs to get other things done, or needs to take time for herself, she’ll skip a sub call. So, ask yourself: Are you self-rejecting because of a low-self-esteem day, or, do you just have other things that need to come first?

Zach Rosenberg, author of the forthcoming Hungers As Old As This Land, gives himself a pep talk: “This is a story only you can tell and it should be told.”

Also, related to the topic self-rejection, remember that if you burn yourself out or get too discouraged by a particularly rough R (or a volley of them), and you decide to QUIT writing altogether, you are self-rejecting from the entire world of publishing.

Kiefer has a way to manage that feedback–because yes, you will get more rejections than acceptances. That’s just reality. But, if you don’t want to see those Rs every day, do what she does:

“What did help [with rejections] though was to set up a separate author email address, so I could control how much I saw. At one point I even had a friend who would monitor it and only tell me good news so I could submit without having to see the waves of rejections.”

Final decisions on publication come down to the EIC or a small team. So, it’s not like the industry voted on your work. It’s one person’s subjective decision, in most cases. And subjectivity could mean anything: maybe they’re sick of zombies or whatever tropes your narrative features. Maybe they already have something similar for that issue or anthology. Maybe they just–and this sucks, but it’s also OKAY–didn’t’ like your story enough to put it in.

But someone else will.

Unless you don’t send it to them because you self-reject.

I guess what it comes down to is this, which I said to more than one struggling writing friend: Does writing (and everything that comes with the process–drafing and revision and feedbacking and submissions and rejections) bring you more pain or more joy?

If it’s the first one, go ahead and quit. Life is short. Find something you like better.

But if it’s the second one…

DRAFT, REVISE, EDIT, and SEND IT!!

Book Launch!

The day is here–and like most long-anticipated events, ot came on slowly and then all at once. I have a book in the world. It’s real. It exists. People are ordering it. (You can too: click here!)

Stephen King says, in On Writing, that publishing books requires talent, desire, ambition, and luck.

Luck.

He’s right. And I’m a lucky gal.

The collection only exists because, by chance, I saw a submission call from Mausoleum Press for their 2022 chapbook contest. I realized I had enough poems to form a little collection, and sent it in. While I didn’t win the contest, the editors wrote to me to say I made their shortlist (that’s like a final round, to some degree), which was very kind and also encouraging. I thought, why not send it to some other presses?

And I sent it to something like ten of them. Not long after I did, the publisher at Alien Buddha Press wrote back to me to say he’d like to publish it. When I opened that email I went into a kind of elation-panic. I was so happy that I was short-circuiting (I do that a lot, emotionally). I didn’t know what to DO.

But, luck gave me many wonderful friends in the writing community, and they guided me through what to say and send to whom, and in what order (I had to notify the other presses that I’d had an offer, give them a chance to make one or cut me loose, all while assuring Alien Buddha Press that I was excited and eager to get back to them). All was taken care of in a week or a bit more, and I signed a contract with ABP!

More luck: I’d come across the lovely cover art of Chad Lutzke, and it turns out that a cover I liked was available.

More luck: Every single person I asked to read an early copy of the collection and write me a blurb said yes. So I ended up with something like eleven or twelve blurbs that make me want to cry, they’re so kind.

More luck: The publisher at ABP just happens to be endlessly patient, and worked through lots of formatting questions and adjustments with me.

More luck: I have lots of supportive friends and family members, and as soon as they could, many of them ordered a copy. One friend ordered five copies!

Thank you to each and every person who has made these fabulous things happen for me, and who has cheered me on throughout the process (especially Joel). You all are my good luck.

IN MEMORY OF EXOSKELETONS

Poetry Collection

Publisher: Alien Buddha Press

Cover art by Chad Lutzke

Poetry touching on “the dark fantastic within the domestic sphere,” ranging from feminist horror to lyrical memorials.

“Words are magic, and Rebecca Cuthbert is a sorcerer, conjuring beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking, images found in the quiet moments of women’s inner worlds. Her poetry captures life’s smallest moments and imbues them with immense meaning. A wonderful work.”

-Lisa Kröger, author, Monster She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror & Speculative Fiction and Toil & Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult

“Cuthbert’s chapbook celebrates the domestic, seemingly delicate spheres of women’s lives. From house witches to cryptids to body horror, this collection probes the edges of the speculative poetry genre. Supple and lyrical, these poems are cunning, intelligent, and tender.”

-Holly Lyn Walrath, author, The Smallest of Bones

“IN MEMORY OF EXOSKELETONS is haunting and heartbreaking and joyous and terrifying all at once. Rebecca Cuthbert uses language here as both a knife and a feather, each word selected with immense care. Lyrical while still being legible, this is the kind of collection that will follow you long after you have put it down. Ever since I read this, I get unreasonably angry at ‘No dog walking’ signs in cemeteries.”

– Jolie Toomajan, editor, Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic: An Anthology of Hysteria Fiction 

“… Cuthbert’s poetry shows that she is the kind of writer who pays attention to life in all its ethereal glory, a poet quick enough and smart enough to snatch up those little moments that the rest of us miss, throw them on a page, and let them shine a little light onto our lives. This writer means business and she’s worth paying attention to.”

–Christopher Ryan, publisher, Seamus and Nunzio Productions; editor, Soul Scream Antholozine

Buy a copy here.