First Contract of 2016 Signed and Mailed; Year’s First Mammoth Writing Payment Received

Two brief items for Saturday.  First I’d received the contract for my story “Chocolat” from Third Flatiron Publishing (cf. December 11, below) on New Year’s Eve which, today, I signed and put in the mail.  Third Flatiron does quarterly themed anthologies of which the one for spring, to be out in mid-February, is about small items with big consequences.  The title:  IT’S COME TO OUR ATTENTION.  And so my story, about a change in the European Union’s official definition of chocolate (this much is real!) and one horrific, if unlikely result.

And one more item, today I received the first of a probable string of several mammoth royalty payments for various past stories.  This one (I won’t say which publisher it’s from) arrived as a check for $0.68.  Yes, that’s sixty-eight cents — royalties for anthologies, for instance, get divided up among many authors.  But it’s the art, not the money that counts, right?  Or in any event, the writing life for the new year has begun.