Paradox

I’ve been writing for many years, but I only started submitting my work to literary magazines on the suggestion of my talented writer friend Dave Brown. Dave and I both compete in the NYC Midnight writing contests, and he began taking his completed stories and finding places to publish them.

When I first started submitting my work, I received many form rejections. I made the cardinal sin of submitting to magazines without first understanding what sort of work they publish, and in doing so I wasted editors’ precious time.

Finally, I got an acceptance, from Emma Kalson, who was compiling an anthology of flash fiction pieces titled Escaped Ink: Tall Tales and Short Stories. She enjoyed my story Paradox so much, she placed it at the beginning of the anthology, which means it’s available to read for free as part of the preview designed to entice readers to purchase the entire anthology.

Compared to many of my other stories, I hadn’t spent much time on this one. It’s rather simple and the acceptance actually caught me off guard. But it lands on a note of situational irony, which my talented photographer friend Marcela Kadanka says is a hallmark of my writing.

If I could change one thing about this story, it would be the title. Paradox was always a working title, one I meant to go back and change, but I never did. Too late now. Live and learn.

Thank you to Emma for taking a chance on my prose. I hope you will check out her collection.