NOTHING LIKE ACCEPTANCE - except publication

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Yipeeeeeeee!!  I can finally announce that my short story (title under consideration for change) has been accepted in Open Heart Publishing's next anthology An Honest Lie Vol 4; Petulant Parable.  Isn't that awesome :)  This isn't a publishing date yet, or cover, but the first hurdle has been passed; the story has been accepted.  You can see the list of accepted authors here.  Check it out, I'm on the list of Alumni Authors.  Sweet, huh?

If you scroll down a little on that list, down to the New Authors, you'll see our very good blogger friend DL HAMMONS of Cruising Altitude 2.0.  DL paid me the exquisite honor of e-mailing me when he got his acceptance e-mail, and I'm as thrilled for Don as I am for myself.  If you missed DL's Cross Pollination post on June 21, I urge you to go read it; its all about how important "connections" can be on the blogs (or any other social network) and I found the post not just encouraging, but true from my own experience.

Don discovered the submissions prospect through visiting my blog; and I discovered An Honest Lie anthology series through another blogger friend, Eric W Trant (Digging With The Worms).  I had been friends with Eric for a while when he announced that his short story One Small Step had been accepted in An Honest Lie, Vol 2: Delusions of Insignificance.  I had read several of Eric's writing excerpts, and enjoyed his author voice and style so much that I bought the anthology.

I had some difficulty purchasing the book (I'm not technically skilled and was even less so two years ago) and the publisher Debrin Case was extremely helpful in setting up a special purchasing link for me, and even walking me through the Pay Pal set up.  Is that cool or what?  I enjoyed the anthology so much I wrote a  review, and eagerly awaited the release of AHL2 (I know I wrote a review but can't find it.)

Which is (eventually) how I became aware of the submissions call for AHL vol 3; Justifiable Hypocricy, and led to my second short story publication.  I don't know how Eric discovered Open Heart Publishing, but you see how blogging cycles - or as DL puts it Cross Pollination.

And, to further sweeten the honey-pot?  This was in my e-mail today:

"My name is Eric Trant, and I am one of the editors who will be working with you on An Honest Lie 4: Petulant Parables."

Working with the staff of Open Heart Publishing has been one of the greatest experiences in my writing career, and I am thrilled to be working with Eric on a professional basis.

I'm sure you all will share my joy in wishing DL and Eric both much success in their new ventures.  And me of course, as I embark on the editing process.

Speaking of editing; I better get back to editing my story for Second Hand Second Avenue or it will never have a chance in the submission process . .