End of May Double Header: I’m Dreaming, Marcie Accepted by Hawk and Cleaver, The Rabbit Hole

Messing with minds — mine, or yours? We go weeks without any new news of note, then, Bang!, two acceptances on the same day. Ah, the writing life.

So, no time to waste, both with contracts attached, signed and sent back this p.m. The first from British publisher Hawk & Cleaver for THE OTHER STORIES PODCAST plus possible year’s end anthology in print and/or electronic. The email (from Editor “Kez”) was thus: We loved this story. Fun and bonkers and gory!/ We’d love to run it on the main feed./ I’ve attached your paperwork. Could you also confirm your Paypal email address?

The story a reprint, “I/m Dreaming Of A. . . .,” originally published by Untreed Reads in December 2011, and met again on these pages just last month re. the Hurricane Ian relief anthology MONSTROM (see April 22, et al.). The tale, perhaps to come out around Christmas?, is as implied in the wording of its acceptance about mad, bad weather. As well as gory.

Then for the second, another reprint originally appearing in BlackWyrm Publishing’s 2015 cinema/horror anthology REEL DARK, “Marcie and Her Sisters” (cf. April 28 2016, November 15, May 19 2015, et al.). The call for the Writers’ Co-op’s annual THE RABBIT HOLE anthology, this year’s (Volume 6) theme “Destination: Journey,” explained, [i]n a simple sense, the journey itself being the destination can be taken literally or as a metaphor for life. On the other hand, as a non-sequitur it can mean almost anything — think Kafka, Bierce, Serling, or Lovecraft — and we’re really looking forward to your interpretation, because falling into the Rabbit Hole is always a strange and different experience. What we’re looking for are odd, unusual stories where the journey can be the destination, or the destination the journey, anything at all — happy, sad, good, bad, or even indifferent. Stories can emphasize whatever floats, or sinks, your boat. Just remember to keep it weird as befitting a trip down the Rabbit Hole.

That seems simple enough! (THE RABBIT HOLE also, I might add, like MONSTROM with a tie-in to charity, this one with option for royalties to go to the Against Malaria Foundation.)

And as for mind-melting, “Marcie and Her Sisters” decide one day they might marry zombies — or do they? In any event, the journey (ah, now!) is not one wholly filled with flowers and butterflies. Oh, no! Nor is the narrator entirely reliable. . . .

The bottom line, from Editor Tom Wolosz: Congratulations. The editorial committee has reviewed your story, “Marcie,” and would be very happy to include it in our upcoming anthology, THE RABBIT HOLE VI. I must say, we all enjoyed it very much.