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First Acceptance of 2023

At first, I was skeptical of what my own eyes saw: We’re pleased to accept. . .

I read it and re-read it before YES and Oh my god I can’t believe it came galloping out of my throat. My story Up In the Hills, She Dreams of Her Daughter Deep In the Ground (a short I’d written last year and had already gathered 10 rejections) had been accepted for publication for Strange Horizons. I’d submitted this story to their submissions period earlier this year with the grim resignation that comes with a story that’s already had a difficult journey – merely another place to park the story to avoid thinking about it for a while. This story – inspired by a retelling of a Grimm’s fairy tale, The Juniper Tree – was one I felt was the best thing I’d written so far, and yet not only would it not sell, it had started to weigh on me.

I say this even though when I wrote it, I knew that the combination of its slower pace, its lack of signposting of which fairy tale it was retelling, and it being (as I like to call a lot of my writing) a Bad Time all mixed in a combination that didn’t really fit with what a lot of magazines want to publish. I went in with eyes wide open, you might say, but it was still getting to me. Which is why I’m ecstatic that Strange Horizons decided to accept the story.

It’s due out in about a month’s time, so watch this space for more details soon!