Candle, Flame Acceptance for DarkFuse; Vampires Abound at Last Sunday Poetry

The end of November is getting exciting!  Books received, TOMBS early-listed on Amazon, freebies for EVERYDAY STORIES II, a new story accepted, and now another.  And this by a higher paying market!  The word came Sunday morning, sneaking vampire-like in with the mist at 12:17 a.m., “Thanks for sending ‘The Candle and the Flame’ to DARKFUSE.  I have finished my review and have decided to accept it and offer you a contract.”  In fact the contract had arrived a few minutes before Editor Shayne Staley’s email, but that’s the way the internet goes sometimes.  Suffice to say I opened the contract later that day, signed it, and now it is back in DARKFUSE MAGAZINE’s clutches.

“The Candle and the Flame” is a steampunky, fairytaleish story of a little girl at Christmas time selling not matches, but candles.  But nevertheless coming to grief in a friendless, ultra-capitalistic Victorian England.  As for DARKFUSE, to go to the guidelines:  Here’s what we’re looking for . . .  Horror, thriller, suspense, crime, sci-fi, bizarre — anything with a dark slant.  500-2K words paid.  They go on to say they will take longer stories, but the emphasis in on the short, with “The Candle and the Flame,” for instance, coming in at about 1700 words.  And one more note, publication is scheduled for January 13 2017 to help start off a happy new year!

Then Sunday afternoon brought the Bloomington Writers Guild’s “Last Sunday Poetry Reading & Open Mic” (cf. September 25 et al.), co-sponsored by the Monroe County Convention Center.  Featured poets were Indiana University Education PhD candidate Julia Heimer Dadds with, to paraphrase, perilous poems for perilous times among others, followed by first generation Sierra Leonean-American poet and MFA candidate Yalie Kamara.  No, neither read poems about vampires, and in fact the only such ones were read by me, one of eight walk-ons at open mike time in a well-attended session.  But both that I read were about vampires:  “Her First Time” from BLOODBOND, which we just met (see November 27, 7, et al.), and a just-written poem for the coming season, “The Vampire Before Christmas.”