Unicorns

I am enormously pleased to announce that my story “Horn” will be appearing in Issue #3 of Nine. There are no zombies, but there are unicorns.

“Horn” is the first story I ever finished, outside of class assignments, and was my first submission to a fiction publication (in April 2009). It’s been completely rewritten twice, once before and once after Viable Paradise, and went through an enormous number of less-aggressive revisions. I learned a few things during that time.

It’s also Nick’s favorite story; he gets to read everything before it goes out. Finally I won’t have to listen to him asking whether I’ve sold the unicorn story yet every time I talk about submitting things. (Instead, I get to listen to him ask whether I’ve written any more stories about Maggie yet, and why not?)

There is virtue in persistence: it took me three-and-a-half years to sell this story. It only went to five potential outlets, though: one of them is notoriously slow and had it for nine months. The second rewrite was key. More need for persistence: this is the first piece of fiction I’ve sold since I attended Viable Paradise two years ago. The rejections have been piling up, along with a couple of short-listings that ended in rejection. And piling up is what it takes, along with telling the best stories you can, and a generous dollop of luck.

There are things I’m very proud of in this story, and I hope you like it.