Look for Me in Cactus Heart Press! (w/gifs)

I was trying to hold this news in until Friday for Freeday, but forget it!

My short story "Origin" will be published in the Speculative Fiction issue of Cactus Heart Press this March!

So, how it happened. As you may have seen, I did a live write-up of "Origin" here 2-1/2 years ago (really? It was that long ago?!) based on the song "Origin of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch (which I finally sat down and watched last week and LOVED).

Late December, Kate Sheeran Swed e-mailed me. She will be the guest editor for Cactus Heart's Speculative Fiction issue, and she had read "Origin" and invited me to submit to the publication. I immediately turned into

then asked if I could submit "Origin." She spoke with the main Cactus Heart team, and as long as I removed the story from here, I could submit. No problem there! So last week, I received the confirmation that they accepted my little short story.

(I can't even pretend like these aren't my actual victory dances.)

This is big for me, as it would be for any writer, so I'm extremely excited, and having bought Cactus Heart Press's last issue and seeing what they are about, I know it's a perfect fit. I'm playing it cool, but:

About Cactus Heart Press:

"Cactus Heart is, of course, a metaphor for how we believe literature and art should be. It should shock and wound and delight us; it should fill us with delight and terror and mystery. It should survive.

We are devoted to spiny writing & art—sharp, relentless, coursing with energy and able to thrive in the harshest of places, all while maintaining a vulnerable, succulent interior."

About Kate Sheeran Swed:

Kate Sheeran Swed loves hot chocolate, plastic dinosaurs, and airplane tickets. She has trekked along the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu, hiked on the Mýrdalsjökull glacier in Iceland, and climbed the ruins of Masada to watch the sunrise over the Dead Sea. Following an idyllic childhood in New Hampshire, she completed degrees in music at the University of Maine and Ithaca College, then moved to New York City. Her stories have appeared in Writing Tomorrow,Verdad, HOOT Review, and Words and Images. She recently completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Pacific University.

You can find her on:
Twitter @katesheeranswed
Facebook.com/KateSheeranSwedPinterest.com/KateSheeranSwed