Waiting impatiently for issue 77 of the print journal SONORA REVIEW, which I expected last summer, and which announced about a month ago that they'd finally be out in 3 weeks. Love my LUNATICS' BALL flash "Charcot's Monkey" that will be included, and I'm eager to see the cover.

​And I just read proofs for the National Flash Fiction Day 2021 anthology, which won't be out until June. The cover and title reveal will be sooner. They sent a draft .pdf of the entire anthology, and I love all of the flash, several by friends, many others by writers I know and admire. Instead of a launch party, they're posting youtube videos of authors reading their flash. I did one of "Spelling Lachlan" (that is Steve was the cameraman). We used flash and it's too brightly lit (aging me ten years, I'm afraid), but I enjoyed reading "Spelling Lachlan."

Excited to make my second appearance in MIDWAY JOURNAL with my very short story “Life Without Randall.” There’s an unexpectedly happy ending. And a pterodactyl. This was so much fun to write!

​Today's publication and the prospect of an overnight trip to Monterey this weekend offset a disappointing rejection. And our son got his first vaccination yesterday, months earlier than we figured he would.

I just finished a new short story which my writing group hasn't seen yet (six drafts so far), and a short new lyric essay (ten drafts) that I'm really pleased with and just sent out. I did two versions with my writing group and learned something in the process about preserving the mood and lyricism of the original draft of an essay like that. Really love my San Francisco writing group, The Leporine Conspiracy, who also pushed me to aim for a publication I probably wouldn't have. I just sent it out. Worth a try.

And since the publication wanted a pitch and clips, and I was looking for essays that revolve around literary texts, I made a couple of useful discoveries. One is that the link to the essay that Steve and I wrote in Grist has changed (glad to keep my links updated), and the other is that Electric Literature eventually gets rid of the comments section (I hate comments sections). The new essay is partly about revisiting past selves by revisiting a book you've read long ago, and revisiting my past essays has also been interesting.

Got my first haircut in over a year (probably since February 2020) and it feels great. Starting with long-postponed appointments, now that I've been vaccinated. Next week, the dentist. Steve gets his second vaccination at the end of the month (the first already gives greatly increased immunity). Ben's not eligible until next week and I have my fingers crossed that he'll land something soon. Either way, we're thinking about a short trip to the coast, maybe overnight.

 
​Grappling with technology, never my forte. Last week, a crisis when I lost my email account. It turned out to be easy for IT at CSUEB to fix. (They were great.) This week, I need to make a video of my flash "Spelling Lachlan" for the 2021 NATIONAL FLASH FICTION DAY ANTHOLOGY. Poor Steve has filmed me reading my flash outside and then inside twice, and the lighting has been wrong, or the reading not right. And now I've realized that it needs to be horizontal, not vertical, since they're going to post the videos on Youtube, so we have to do it again. I did figure out how to upload a video to Google Drive and turn it into a link in an email, though, another first for me.

I also volunteered to do an audio version of my lyric essay "Haunting Houses" for NEW OHIO REVIEW, which is posting the issue online later this month. I've used Garage Band on my Mac before, but I'm pretty sure it's changed since then.

Woke up to an acceptance for my flash nonfiction "Ready or Not" (the one that missed the boat last week in a European quarterly because of the last line). It will be coming out in GONE LAWN, a magazine I admire that's rejected me many times. Very exciting!

We had a nice dinner and brunch (at home) on Easter, and my husband got his first COVID shot on Saturday, but the weekend was marred when I lost access to my university email on Friday. I managed, miraculously, to get hold of IT, but they were unable to locate the problem. I retired last June and never processed my "separation" paperwork and it looked like that might be the problem; the IT guy couldn't even find the account, which he said might have been disabled or even (gasp!) deleted. I realized that I have no copy of all my contacts (I had to look up Alia on her website to send stuff for my writing group this week), that my email is my user name on countless sites, that my email functions as a vast filing cabinet for all of my submissions in progress (especially important for those that don't go through Submittable) and all of my publications. And journals do get in touch with me after the fact: I'm corresponding with NEW OHIO REVIEW right now about them putting up my print pub from a couple of years ago online.

So I was a wreck. They solved the problem Monday morning (I hadn't re-activated my net id at some point, which I don't remember ever being asked to do) and I got my email back, and discovered 127 new emails, including two rejections and important correspondence with MIDWAY JOURNAL about my story coming out with them in a week or so. Sigh of relief that everything's back to normal.

GONE LAWN is online, but they do nice art for their covers. The pic above is their logo, drawn I think by one of the editors, Owen Kaelan. I've been following fiction by the other editor, Maura Yzmore, for a long time, and GONE LAWN has published tons and tons of writers I admire. The current issue just came out and they're quarterly, so I think issue 41 will be the summer solstice issue.  June maybe?