I received a bit of good news today. In fact, it was a double-barrel shot of good news. Rebecca Buchanan, an editor over at NeosAlexandria for whom I’d written a story for last year, asked me recently to contribute to her next anthology entitled The Shining Cities: An Anthology of Pagan Science Fiction. It was the first time an editor has asked me for a story when I hadn’t solicited it with a submissions.
Okay, okay, so it’s a bit of an ego boost.
I wrote a story a couple years ago called The Scroll of Kali, which combines an Indian demigod with a splash of steampunk and details a change in history where the East India Company (England’s mechanism to conquer India) is evicted in the late 1800s. I’d had difficulty placing the story in the past, so I sent it along to Rebecca for her review just to see what she though. I’d added the message that I would still be writing a short story about descendants of the Tuatha de Danann battling an oppressive zealot army, with the whole thing set in a post-apocalyptic steampunk future.
She replied saying that she loved the Kali story but would wait for me to write the new one before deciding on which to include.
To be sure, I’ll be writing the new one this weekend, but I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to have an editor place me in the position of taking an older story or accepting the new one. There are days when I really wonder if I should continue my pursuits as a writer. And then those worries get quashed by even tiny successes, although I have to say that I do not consider this a tiny success.
I consider this a feather in my cap simply because it’s a validation that there’s at least one editor out there who digs my stuff. It’s one thing to have family and even friends say that they enjoy reading my work. But an editor saying this is something else altogether.
I guess I’m just tickled pink. In fact, I’m smoking a cigar to celebrate.
Thanks, Rebecca! Thanks, EVERYONE! Y’all make this journey I’m on a real treat just about every single day.
Q.
