Pitching & Catching: The Odd Fate of “The Girl From Alberta”

Back in 2017 I scribbled out a piece called The Girl From Alberta which, after a suitable period of reflection/editing, I entered in Puritan Magazine’s annual Thomas A. Morton Memorial contest. It long-listed, but did not place. Only slightly impoverished by the submission fee, and emboldened by the spot on the long-list, I began to sub it out.

It has never placed as a complete piece.

Feverish, dejected, impatient, (and impious), I broke the piece up into segments (it lent itself to that, being written, in a way, in serial) and began to place it as flash fiction. More rejections came, for sure, but also, some acceptances.

Aquarium ran on Spelk’s website. A Shotgun and a Shovel on the Molotov Cocktail. Soon, Republicans, Catholics, and the Entire State of Texas will run on Sledgehammer Lit. All of these are drawn from The Girl From Alberta, which I have also pitched, unsuccessfully, as creative non-fiction, because it’s basically biography with just enough fabrication to avoid litigation.

Does this mean that TGFA failed because it’s basically stitched-together Flash in the first place? Or because it’s between fiction/non-fiction/goddamn prose-poetry it belongs nowhere? Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t think you can draw any hard conclusions from this save that writing is writing and that as long as you are working on it, working on something, it will prove useful.

Who knows, maybe some day TGFA will appear in the whole. Until then, you get it in serial, over a period of years, and not in the order it was written. And so it goes …

Four New Poems

I have four new poems up at Terror House Magazine. They are:

For All of the Suicides on Christmas Day

Fuck Yeah

Ascension

The Man in the Wheelchair Outside of the Post Office

You can read them here.

Much thanks to Matt and the crew at TH for putting these up.

As an aside, I cannot seem to edit on WP anymore, I don’t use it much. It’s basically my bibliography while I write (I am concentrating on longer works now.) All I wanted was to number and single space the poems and I couldn’t do that. Must be gettin’ old. At any rate, enjoy – or don’t enjoy – the poesy.

New Poetry Up: “Silence Reigns in the Garden”

I have a new poem up at Revolution John – it’s called “Silence Reigns in the Garden”

“… The high times, they are too few, and not quiet enough.
There are too many other people around,
but … “

You can read it here

Much thanks to Sheldon for putting this piece up. Revolution John publishes excellent work – and you can follow RJ on twitter @RevolutionJohnM

The Ogre (#1)

I have a new story up at Bull: Men’s Fiction called “The Ogre”.

You can read it here.

The story runs 2k-ish words and is a quick and ruthlessly efficient read.

“Do it again and again and soon enough, you’ll be good at it and there ain’t anything ever what is ever going to mess with you.“

Much thanks to Ben and the Bull team for putting this up.

I actually had written a series of stories I tiled “The Ogre” and then numbered in the numerical order I’d written them. Three of the four have published – two of them under other titles – but they’re all about monsters made from men.

Give it a read and let me know what you think.

“Starseed” is Launched!

My pseudonymously written novella “Starseed” was launched November 17 to the admiration of tens of people via Zoom from the Owl’s Nest book store in Calgary, Alberta.

Why write using a pseuodnym?

Well, it’s genre work (erotic horror) and I thought that by using a pseudonym I could keep the “genre” stuff separate from my literary work.

At any rate, I’m proud of this novella. There are no holds barred. Like the blurb from Canadian Indie Horror Legend Eddie Generous says:

Bold. Horrific. Erotic. Unexpected. If Arthur Machen had somehow written stories for Red Shoe Diaries, I have no doubt they’d have looked something like Stephen Guy’s Starseed. This one takes you to the unknown and harvests your sticky bits. ~ Eddie Generous, Unnerving Magazine (and so much more!)

There is a Tab above for Starseed that will direct you to all the fine places you can buy the book. So go one out an buy it – in any format.

Thanks!

Steve

Fug

I have a brand-new short up at Red Fez today in Issue #139. It’s called “Fug” and clocks in at a little more than 1,000 words. It’s about that guy you know, and those other guys too.

“They put their eyes towards their shoes, but you can’t unsee something like that. It runs from the peripheral straight into the primary and stays in the memory, vivid and terrifying, like roadkill come to life.”

You can read it right here at Red Fez: https://www.redfez.net/fiction/depravity-fug-1000

Much thanks to the editorial Crew at Red Fez for putting the story up.

New Poetry Up: I Love KISS, and Van Halen Too

I have a new poem up at the Rye Whiskey Review.

It’s titled I Love Kiss, and Van Halen Too. Click here to read it.

You didn’t ask but yeah, I do love KISS, and especially Van Halen. I’d have put Cheap Trick in there too but I didn’t have room. AC/DC? AC/DC will get their own chapbook some day.

Much thanks to John Patrick Robbins ans the Rye Whiskey Review for putting I Love Kiss, and Van Halen Too up.

Read on – and rock on.

\m/ \m/

 

New Poetry up @ Anti-Heroin Chic: Here You Are/Then a Dog Barks, or the Phone Rings/Fire of the Pleiades

I have three pieces up at Anti-Heroin Chic in their June issue today:

  1. Here You Are
  2. Then a Dog Barks, or the Phone Rings
  3. Fire of the Pleiades

You can read them here.

Call ’em poetry/call ’em prose – call ’em whatever you like. I call them semi-, demi-, or hemi-fiction – but there they are.

Much thanks to James at AHC for putting these up. I love the photograph that goes with the pieces – it’s from Alexander Rabb.