Wednesday Words: Cactus Heart Press vol. 11

Happy Earth Day, Admin. Professionals Day, and WEDNESDAY!

As an administrative assistant, I am now stuffed with breakfast and presents (I didn't eat the presents), but that won't stop me from sharing with you all what I am reading this week!

This week, I'm finally reading the Speculative Issue of Cactus Heart Press, the edition in which you can find my short story "Origin"! I can't stress enough how much I love the tone of this press, and I'm so glad I was given the opportunity to become a part of it.

But enough about me! Using Random.org, I will choose one of the 155 pages in this edition. Random has chosen..........................page 148.

LOL. That's the cover page for the Bios. Let's try again....................page 86.

That's better. The short story is "The Lies Trees Tell," and Kate mentioned this one in the introduction, so I'd been waiting to read it. A young woman ran into a tree, and the tree seemed to swallow her!

There are about 19 lines on this page, and Random has chosen.......................1. So here's the whole paragraph. lol

Alex had started to cry. She hadn't meant to, but the conversation had turned from one of Aunt Bev's charmingly silly Old World folktales to scary. And her dad was dead, and she didn't want to deal with this.

This was right after her grandmother told her that trees lie, and her father didn't escape them. It's a very interesting and eerie story.

Wednesday Words: Cactus Heart Press vol. 10

I'm still reading during this A-to-Z Challenge! lol

Welcome back to Wednesday Words! This is where I use Random.org to show you all a piece of what I'm reading.

I have a few compilations I need to finish, one of which I discovered when Kate Sheeran Swed invited me to submit for it: Cactus Heart Press!

I immediately purchased Volume 10 so I could see if this press was a good fit for me, and I was not disappointed! It's probably one of the best places for my type of writing.

So, now that I'm finished all of my library books, I'm taking a break and reading these compilations.

There are 138 pages in this volume, and Random has chosen........................122.

The short story is called "Whatever You Can Spare," and there are approximately 21 lines on this particular page. Random has chosen....................line 16.

That's why people work, after all. If Tyson could break his bad luck, we'd be eating better than Hamburger Helper every night.

Ah, Hamburger Helper. Memories.

Express Yourself Weekly and News

Happy Tuesday! Welcome back to Express Yourself Weekly, brought to us by Jackie @ Bouquet of Books and Dani @ Entertaining Interests! Each week they have a question for us to answer, and this week's is:

If you could try out one occupation for a week, what would you choose?

I would love to be a WWE Diva for a week. It's always been a dream of mine to wrestle, but I think I'm even shorter than the average Diva and have no flexibility. I think I'd be a hard-hitter, though, and could do some good submissions.

In other news: TODAY IS THE DAY! Cactus Heart Press Issue #11, The Speculative Fiction Issue, is out today! My short story "Origin" is now a published piece of work! I'm so excited. This can only be the start of big things for me, so I can't wait to see what else happens. :-D

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