Annual Writing Report - 2022

 

Another year and I'm still writing! Much of this activity has been fueled by this stuff (*coffee*) and supported by lots of long walks and runs, which is where I get a great deal of my writing and thinking-about-writing done.

This year I published four short pieces (two flash fiction stories, one poem, and one creative nonfiction piece) as well as a book. In that sense, it was a very good year, but the publication list is only that: a list of the things that were finished and made it out into the world. 

It doesn't include the many pages of things I'm still in the process of writing: one novel, for which I have a finished draft, another novel, for which I have an unfinished (!) draft, and about two dozen short stories and poems. At least. There may be more than two dozen, but this count is an ephemeral one, since the number of items changes each day.

It also doesn't include the finished items that I've submitted to various places for publication. These include a number of short stories and poems, but also one science fiction novel and a novella, Silver Rush. The latter is a companion piece to my novel, Belle o' the Waters, and tells the story of Maggie and Silas, who are secondary characters in that earlier story. 

Since this is my annual writing report, though, I need to list the new publications. First, the two short stories, one of which (Solve for X) was actually a reprint of a piece that was published by a journal that went defunct:

Solve for X, Linden Avenue Literary Journal (September, 2018); republished by Doubleback Review (April, 2022) 

The second short story is a funny take on an all-too-familiar situation that anyone who has worked for a place with an HR department will probably recognize:

Team Building Exercise, Intrinsick Mag (October 2, 2022)  

I was also thrilled to have a poem published by Whale Road Review. This is only my second published poem ever, which (again) shows me that I need to start submitting more of my poetry:

The Great Red Spot, Whale Road Review (September 15, 2022) 

Finally, I was grateful to have a piece of creative nonfiction published in the long-running literary magazine Gargoyle, now Gargoyle Online. I'm especially proud that this piece was picked up by the first place I submitted it to. That almost never happens, and to have it occur for a genre I really don't write in much, is especially nice:

Pillar of Salt, Gargoyle Online (October, 2022)

As discussed in earlier posts, I made the decision in the spring to pull together all my published short stories as well as a handful of new ones and self-publish my second short story collection. This decision came about when I discovered that several of the literary magazines that had published my work had gone out of business, taking my stories with them, and making it impossible for readers to find my work.

The resulting book, Motherhood and Other Magical Realms is now available in both paperback and e-book format. You can find it online wherever books are sold (Amazon, B&N, Bookshop.org or IndieBound.org) or I can send you a signed copy for just $10. Send me an email at raima (at) raimalarter (dot) com or visit my online bookshop here: https://raima-larter-books.square.site/s/shop.