When One Door Closes...

I'd sent a story out back in September, a short tale inspired by Robert W. Chambers's The King in Yellow (especially the fictitious book within these loosely connected stories), to an anthology of stories inspired by its themes... and the anthology more or less vanished. No reply from the editor in over six months, and when I went looking for the site that had hosted the call for submissions, I found it had closed (I'd give further details but I feel shy about that, lest it give too much that might identify it). I even tried sending a query but the email sent back and automatic daemon message saying that the address no longer existed. That left me a bit disheartened, but it opened a door: I'd run across another King In Yellow-inspired anthology seeking submissions, and the silencing of the one call left me clear to heed the other.

It's like the proverbial saying, that when one door closes, another one opens; it's just a matter of finding that other door. How do I find these calls for submissions? Networking. Some come via the Facebook page of the New England Horror Writers, some via a lovely pair of blogs that I follow: http://horrortree.com/ and https://coffintreehill.wordpress.com/. I've found a lot of inspiration this way, maybe not a lot in the way of sales, but I'm told the success rate I've experienced is a typical rate, which gives me hope. On that luck, as always, wish me luck on the stories I've submitted recently, and on the ones currently in the pipeline to be submitted.