Mouse: Mini-Collection Acceptance by Alien Buddha

Things move very fast sometimes. This one started actually in early October with a call by a different publisher for queries for a short fiction collection, from 40 to 60,000 thousand words (for a point of comparison, 60,000 words is the absolute lowest I was allowed for THE TEARS OF ISIS, some ten years ago, and books if anything are trending longer). But — speak of the devil — I’d just pitched TEARS to yet another publisher a few months before, to try to get it back into print, and the thought now of attempting a new, shortish book as a kind of backup if TEARS was turned down was at the least tempting. Or even more so if TEARS wasn’t turned down. So I put together a 43,000 word potpourri of “weird,” answering one theme of several this new call cited, and sent it on in.

Within about a week it was turned down.

But on almost that same day, connected obliquely to Alien Buddha Press’s having taken my story “Crow and Rat” for ALIEN BUDDHA LOVES YOU (see October 24, August 8), I had run across a notice: Alien Buddha Press is now accepting submissions across all genres, for poetry chapbooks, novellas, short story collections, nonfiction books, and more. With a note that “short” manuscripts were preferred. So I tinkered a bit with the MS I had back, removing one story I thought didn’t quite fit and swapping another for a slightly shorter piece I thought worked better (this with a sort of Lovecraftian tinge which for the earlier call would have been a “no-no”), bringing it down to 38,000 words, and under the title of its final story (originally published in ZOMBIE JESUS AND OTHER TRUE STORIES, cf. June 14 2012; also August 11 2018, et al.) combined with a brief overall description, AVOID SEEING A MOUSE: TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL, and noting as well that “Crow and Rat” was one of its stories — that is, that I already had sort of foot in the door, since I knew they liked that one — I sent it in Sunday.

Yes, November 19! And yesterday, Monday, I received an answer from Editor/Publisher Red Focks: I am enjoying your collection, and would be happy to work with you. . . . Attached is our standard publishing contract. If the terms are agreeable for you, give it your digital signature, then send it back, and we can get the ball rolling.

Then, wrestling with Adobe to figure out how the “signing” thing worked, sent that in later yesterday afternoon with, shortly afterwards, this reply: Attached is the first revision as both a PDF and a word document, and also a cover.

Feel free to go into the word document and make a revision of your own. I only ask that you leave the press pages, paper size, and margins all as is.

Let me know what you think of the cover art and review on the back.

So, for the last I sent back an enthusiastic “yes!” and will share the cover here in time. Whereas for the PDF and .docx I promised to get back before the week’s end.

And that’s where we are now.