mixed news this week

I'll start with the bad. A flash nonfiction of mine almost made it into a top online journal (European) but the editor asked me to change the last line. I said no and explained why (it really didn't make sense the way he wanted it). He wrote back two weeks later (that is, yesterday) and said that was a deal-breaker and he wouldn't be publishing it after all. I was so surprised and chagrined that I almost cried. But I haven't changed my mind about the last line, and wouldn't have been happy at all if I'd agreed to the change.

And the good. Just read proofs for my three flash about 19th-century Irish immigrant girls, coming out in TINY MOLECULES on Saturday. Looking forward to it.

And more good. Somehow the audience for print journals doesn't quite seem real, compared to the online audience for online journals, particularly for flash on twitter. So I was blown away to get a detailed email from a really good emerging essayist  about my essay "On Hearing That Her First Husband" in FOURTH GENRE.  It was really so uplifting to hear that she'd loved the essay, and what she'd loved about the essay. I compliment essayists on twitter, but really should write to essayists too!

That essay went through a lot of drafts over a period of years. Hearing from an appreciative reader makes me feel great.

It's St. Patrick's Day and we're going to have vegetarian Shepherd's Pie tonight and listen to Irish music online. And Friday I got my second COVID vaccine, which means that a week and a half from now I can finally go out into the world (masked, socially distanced, but much less worried).

Doyle's Rock, Carrickmourne, Co. Kilkenny (photo: James Patrick Doyle)