He reads his own story in a way that no one else could…such a fun one! Episode 30 with a new Contributor Appreciation winner arrives tonight!
Gabriel Congdon lives in Seattle where he is one of the creators of the web-series &@. His work is work has appeared in Inklette Magazine and his play The Biz can be found on A Pocketful of Plays.
Happy listening,
Kris
This was a fun one to read.
Sean P. Antoniak is an author/illustrator from the rolling hills of rural Tennessee. He has self published several titles including Trunkless, Fibs Rigsby, and I Don’t Know How It Happened. When he isn’t writing, he enjoys spending time with his family outside, designing and creating various projects, reading, watching documentaries, and gaming. Sean currently has several projects in the works. For more info, go to www.SPAntoniak.com.
Happy listening,
Kris
Question I got from a submitter this morning: “Are you looking for stories along the lines of any particular themes?”
I’m a writer, too. I submit my own work to slush piles, and it’s frustrating to get the feedback “Love your story, but we aren’t the right fit for it.” It leaves you wondering…what ARE you looking for? And why can’t you just tell me?
Disclaimer: I have no idea how any other editors navigate their slush piles. I can only tell you how we do it here.
Some things are auto-rejected. Didn’t follow directions? Delete. Sometimes, if I’m feeling generous, I will send you an email and let you know that you’ve been auto-rejected so you can resubmit.
Some things I know in the first pass aren’t going to be accepted. Poor grammar, confusing storyline, boring opening, or the dreaded “I’m halfway through it and I’m confused.” Delete and send form letter.
Every now and then, we get something that I know we will find a place for. It speaks to the show, it is a gorgeous piece of writing, and in our case it is usually really short because we specialize in flash fiction.
Everything else? Lands in the “maybe” pile and then it becomes a puzzle.
We’ve got X number of episodes to fill, and each is going to have somewhere between 2 and 4 stories. How long they are is a factor for us, not for all markets. Longer stories are much harder for us to place. We’ve accepted to date 76 stories out of the slush pile and less than a dozen of them are 1,000 words or more. So for us, shorter is better. Other markets have their own biases, and checking out prior issues really does help. You know, like you hear in writers workshops? But please, don’t lie and say you have researched us if you haven’t. This irritates editors. They can tell.
Once we get past all that, then there is the chance factor. A lot is going to depend on what else is being submitted. That’s your competition, sure, but it’s also your tribe. Stories have to play nicely together. In order to make it out of the “maybe” pile, you not only have to be good (you won’t stay in the maybe pile long if you aren’t good,) but you have to fit with what is developing, and what is developing depends on what else is being submitted.
So, yes, Submitter, we do have themes, and no, I can’t tell you what they are and I know that is so profoundly unfair because I hate getting those emails as well. I can tell you spending some time as an editor will help you understand your own work better and I recommend it. In the meantime, keep writing. It’s all any of us can do.
Happy writing,
Kris
Getting excited to share this wonderful 4 story episode with you…just a few days left!
Jeff Bakkensen is an author living in New York. You can find his work in Smokelong Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, and Straylight Literary Magazine.
Happy listening,
Kris
For the fourth time in NEW history, Episode 30 will feature four stories by four contributors. These episodes always end up being among my favorites, and really showcase flash fiction which is what we do best.
Julie Christine Johnson is making her second appearance on the No Extra Words Podcast. Her short story “Granny” was featured in the Thanksgiving episode, and we are delighted to welcome her back.
Julie Christine Johnson is the author of the novels In Another Life (February 2016, Sourcebooks Landmark) and The Crows of Beara (September 2017, Ashland Creek Press). Her short stories and essays have appeared in several journals, including Emerge Literary Journal, Mud Season Review; Cirque: A Literary Journal of the North Pacific Rim; Cobalt, the anthologies Stories for Sendai; Up, Do: Flash Fiction by Women Writers; and Three Minus One: Stories of Love and Loss and featured on the flash fiction podcast, No Extra Words. She holds undergraduate degrees in French and Psychology and a Master’s in International Affairs.A runner, hiker, and wine geek, Julie makes her home on the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington state with her husband. Visit her at www.juliechristinejohnson.com
Happy listening,
Kris
April is National Poetry Month. I’ve always loved National Poetry Month. In my days as a school librarian I devoted all my lessons that month to poetry, without asking permission from any administrator or curriculum guide.
We will devote one slot in each of our April shows to poetry. We will still do short stories, but we have room on our calendar for just a little poetry. So we are taking poetry submissions. But here’s the catch: we are releasing just four shows in April so we have exactly four slots for these. If you don’t follow the submission guidelines, you will not be considered. These are the rules, read carefully:
Hint to submitters: We are delighted to bring our listeners poetry for the month of April, but we are ordinarily a short story podcast. When thinking about what to send to us, think of what might fit in to a show like ours. While we are happy to consider any poem you send, we are looking for strong narratives and are particularly interested in prose poetry.
Who decides if it’s a poem or a story? Well, as one of my students once said, “A poem is a big pile of words that somehow relate.” This isn’t a literature class. Free verse, blank verse, rhyming, non-rhyming, prose, lineated…if you wrote it and you think it’s a poem, it’s a poem.
We will send you one email letting you know your submission was received and a second email in early March letting you know if your work has been accepted.
Unfortunately, we are not a paying market (maybe someday!), so are unable to offer compensation for accepted poems. As with all our contributors, we will publicize you on our website and social media, give you full credit, and you retain all reprint rights to your work. For information on some of our previous contributors, please check out our Contributor Bios.
Poetry not your thing? We are open once again to standard story submissions. January and February are full, but at the present time we are scheduling stories for late March, April, and May. Please click on the link to Submit Your Story.
Kris
It’s perfectly reasonable to have a thing that lives inside your closet. And when a suspicious character shows up at your doorstep demanding, of all the horror, productivity, it’s perfectly reasonable to invite him in for a sandwich. Right?
“The Thing that Lives Inside My Closet,” by Brandon T. Madden, is copyright 2015 and used with permission. Read Brandon’s bio here.
“The Poet’s Resistance,” by Jason Walker, is copyright 2015 and used with permission. Read Jason’s bio here.
This episode also launches Contributor Appreciation Month! Each week in January we will draw live on the show the name of a former or future contributor and honor them with a Channillo subscription and more. Thanks so much to channillo.com for sponsoring the promotion all January long.
Happy listening,
Kris
Getting excited for a New Year of episodes and thrilled to feature Jason’s story “The Poet’s Resistance” this week.
Jason Walker currently teaches composition at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Measure, Think Journal, The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology, and others; his short-shorts have been published in Monkeybicycle, Oblong Magazine, Nap, and elsewhere; his reviews appear in Birmingham Poetry Review.
“The Poet’s Resistance” was originally published in a slightly different form in The Cafe Irreal, Issue 54.
Happy New Year and happy listening,
Kris
New year, whole new slew of episodes. I love love love this story of letter writing, mischief, and mystery.
Brandon T. Madden has been published in various graduate, and professional journals including “S/tick”, “The River and South Review”, “Flyover Country Review”, “The Write Time at the Write Place”, “Gravel Literary Magazine”, “Empty Sink Publishing”, “Sediments Literary Arts Journal”, “Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal” “Arlington Literary Journal”, “Torrid Literature Journal”, “Balloons Literature Journal”, and “Gone Lawn”. His political theory piece “Do Americans Still Believe in the Principles of the Declaration of Independence” was published by the international journal: The Transnational in 2015. In 2011, he published his first novel, “V.S.A.” for more information please visit: brandonmadden.webs.com and to view his other works please visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-t-madden-5954896b. He hopes to one day become a competent writer.
Happy New Year,
Kris
I promised myself I would not do this. I really like reflection, but I really dislike it when it feels arbitrary. Like, oh, I don’t know, on New Year’s Eve. But I think reflection is catching. And there’s something to be said for taking a minute to reflect on where you’ve been.
I will run down what happened in 2015 in just a moment, but before I do I would like to take a minute to celebrate what’s ahead. We will celebrate Contributor Appreciation Month in January, sponsored by Channillo.com, and get to give things away, which is fun. Honored contributors will get to be interviewed, which I’m super excited to share with you. Submissions are once again open and in a week I will announce a special submissions announcement related to some plans for springtime episodes. And it is still a ways off, but I have some fun stuff in mind for our first birthday and 50th episode at the end of May/early June.
Thank you to this community of writers and listeners. I am so excited to bring this show to you every week and continue to be grateful to all who have pressed play. Now…for some history!
In April of 2015 I participated in Camp Nanowrimo and got inspired to write and share flash fiction. In May I prepared to launch the podcast and on May 29 released Episode 1, featuring 2 original short stories by me. A couple of days later I released the Everyday Writers episode and we were off to the races.
Episode 3 on dyslexia got us our first iTunes review and Episode 4 featured our first ever contributor. For Episode 5, the Summer Camp episode, I broke format and solicited feedback from the listeners, and for Episode 6 got three contributors! A scheduling snafu released the ever hilarious Episode 7 early, forcing me to hit the public domain for content for an unexpected Episode 8. Episode 9, Ask the Locals, was our first explicit episode and took listeners beyond their comfort zones in all kinds of good ways. And after that we became a weekly show.
Episode 10 featured the wit and wisdom of three talented contributors right out of the slush pile and we left summer behind with spooky stories in Episode 11. Episode 12 asked us to mind our step and Lucky #13 featured our first story read by a contributor. Everything was a first in 2015.
We checked out Gen Y in Episode 14, learned hindsight really is 20/20 in Episode 15, and for Sweet #16 went back to adolescence and got picked on. In Episode 17, we were living in our own future, in Episode 18 we thought about our mental health and in Episode 19 had a great family storytelling session with our first episode to feature four stories by four contributors.
Episode 20 was legendary in more ways than one, with two stories read by contributors. Episode 21 honored Armistice Day with a poem and two minutes of silence in addition to a story, and Episode 22 tried to take us to Fantasyland but as life so often does didn’t get us there. We celebrated a bittersweet Thanksgiving, as so many of them are, with my lucky Episode 23.
Episodes 24, 25, 26, and 27 were our Christmas Serial specials, a delight for me to bring to you. And we rang in the New year just yesterday with Episode 28, featuring new theme music and intros.
Whew! All told over the 28 episodes of 2015 we aired 63 short stories, one poem, and the longer 4-part Christmas serial. 46 of those stories were by contributors, the rest were by me or from the public domain, with one by a listener. And it’s been awesome. Lots of lessons learned, lots of literature shared. Bring on 2016! I’m ready.
Happy New Year,
Kris
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