I generally don’t post acceptances, but this publication won’t be out for over a year and I’m too excited to wait. HOTEL AMERIKA, one of my dream literary journals! My short hybrid lyric/non/fiction “Half Fish Tale/Half Ars Poetica” will be coming out in volume 16 of HOTEL AMERIKA in Spring 2018. HOTEL AMERIKA has been praised as “the finest literary journal in the U.S.” (Lois Zamora), and embraces transgenre work and expanded versions of creative nonfiction as well as more traditional forms. The roster of authors they’ve published is breathtaking.
 
Here’s editor David Lazar on creative nonfiction in an interview:
'Well, in terms of crossing genre, prose has the ability to combine the fictive and nonfictive, which is a radical combination. It raises the question of what we mean when we talk about nonfiction to begin with. We're fairly clear with what we mean when we refer to fiction, when we refer to invented literature, when we refer to narrative and story, even if story has some element of the autobiographical. But nonfiction has this fraught quality in relation to what we might call truth value. Merging elements of the fictive and the nonfictive, elements of story connected to actual experience, is something transgeneric literature can do in interesting and potentially wild ways. It's not that the essay or existing forms haven't always done this, haven't always included the imaginary, but certain kinds of transgeneric work can bring together fiction and nonfiction in hybrids we haven't seen before."

So thrilled to hear yesterday that my short story "Nola" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by MONKEYBICYCLE. This morning my husband Steve Gutierrez heard that UNDER THE GUM TREE has nominated his essay "Spiritual Direction" for a Pushcart. So we have lots to celebrate (including my birthday) this weekend. I think of myself as primarily a creative nonfiction writer, but all of my honors and awards this year have been for fiction and flash fiction. Steve thinks of himself as primarily a fiction writer, but was nominated for Pushcarts two years in a row for his creative nonfiction (last year by FOURTH GENRE). We're grateful.

So honored that QUARTER AFTER EIGHT has nominated my flash fiction “Hula” for BEST SMALL FICTIONS 2017, to be edited by Amy Hempel. A big thanks to QUARTER AFTER EIGHT editors Claire Eder and Kirk Wisland.
 
I also have a new flash out today. “The Psychic Fucked Everything Up” appears in the newest issue of JET FUEL REVIEW, which includes work by the experimental essayist Jenny Boully and poet Maggie Smith and so many talented writers. This story turned out to be strangely autobiographical, considering I’ve never been to a psychic.