A million people I know are doing SmokeLong Summer, and Kim Magowan just told me that my flash "Little Darling" was part of this week's prompt. Which is cool to hear. Patricia Bidar found it for me, and the prompt is from Jasmine Sawers, about "Character Agency in Tragedy: Outside Forces." An interesting context for that story, where a composite of young girls are claiming agency that they didn't have. There are some nice comments from participants, and I love getting new readers.

I haven't gotten into Wigleaf since they published "Little Darlilng" (they've had a flash of mine since last October) and I've never gotten into SmokeLong Quarterly (I very rarely send anything). Two goals for the future, I guess, though flash isn't really my bag these days..

I've barely been to any in-person readings because of COVID, but I went to Babylon Salon to hear my friend Sasha Vasilyuk recently, because it took place on a semi-open patio at The Sycamore in the Mission. Now Sasha will be the featured reader for The Racket at the same place, Thursday, July 25, 7pm, and has invited me to be one of the subsidiary readers. Looking forward to it!

Another heart procedure, a lengthier one, on July 1, but surely I will be recovered three weeks later. Fingers crossed.

A completely unexpected honor: my hybrid piece "(Parenthetical Asides)" (hybrid but more cnf than fiction) made the longlist for the WIGLEAF TOP 50 (VERY SHORT) FICTIONS! Very grateful to Lynn Mundell who solicited work from me for the inaugural issue of her hybrid journal CENTAUR. I don't think I would have sent my strange bird out otherwise, figuring it was too unusual to fly. Part of THE LUNATICS' BALL, as was my previous longlisted flash "The Madwoman on BART." A good sign for my WIP, which I'm steadily revising. It's the third time I've made the Wigleaf longlist, but it's been a long while.

BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS has always come out in November, but everything's different with the new series editor. Today I got a notice that I could preorder this year's. It has a snazzy new cover (after years of identical covers in different colors). The procedure for Notables has become radically less democratic: writers can no longer nominate themselves, in fact you can only be nominated by someone who's already been published in BAE. I'm sure that simplifies the procedure for the editors, and reduces the number of nominations, but it obviously favors writers with connections and perpetuates a certain kind of elite—writers with MFAs and other privileges that many of us don't have. I've had nine Notables and I wonder whether that will be the end of them. I just finished editing "Cross-Stitching" for the book last night. Since it appeared in EPOCH, a very prestigious journal, and they publish lots of extremely well-known essayists, my chances of the magazine nominating "Cross-Stitching" for BAE are reduced. Fingers crossed that it makes a Notable somehow anyway. I really like the essay and haven't published something that substantial since. I'm holding onto my LUNATICS' BALL essays, just working on them for the book. "Cinderella at the Lunatics' Ball" next (similarly substantial, but one I didn't send out). Making slow and steady progress.

Signed a contract for the PAST TEN anthology, and they will have a launch reading at AWP next spring in LA. Steve and I are planning to go, for the first time in ages.

My heart procedure on Tuesday was apparently a success. No blockages found: They say I have "beautiful arteries"! Next up will be a harder one, the ablation, originally scheduled for May 10, then postponed for this and not rescheduled yet.

I wasn't supposed to type after my procedure (in fact the first day my wrist was in a splint; the entry point for the catheter to my heart on my wrist still hasn't healed). Steve took me on a day trip to the coast to keep me away from the computer. The sun came out later, but the gray day was beautiful too.