There are a lot of things I’m bad at.  I can’t roller-skate, I swim like a cinder block, and there are at least three perfectly normal activities I’m not allowed to engage in without fire-department supervision.  Of course, there are also a few things I’m good at, but they aren’t worth mentioning because fitting an entire pancake into your mouth is not a marketable skill.

One of the things I’m positively terrible at, though, is keeping this site updated.  Which is why there’s a good chance no one knows about any of the following:

1.  “The Woman With the Long Black Hair” was published in Fantasy & Science Fiction.  You can get the issue online or at Barnes & Noble, though the latter will probably only be displaying it for a few more weeks at the most.  
2. After nearly five years of being stuck in editorial quicksand, “The Horror at Hatchet Point” has finally clawed its way to the surface and been published in the Lovecraftian fairy-tale anthology Twice Upon an Apocalypse.
3. I recently sold to Unidentified Funny Objects 6 a story titled “Tyler the Snot Elemental Scours the Newspaper, Searching For Change.”  It’s about exactly what you think it’s about.

(Special thanks to UFO editor Alex Shvartsman for helping turn my hideous rough draft into something publishable.  Without your guidance, the world would never know what struggles a snot elemental faces in its daily life.)

And that’s it for now.  See you all at the next update!

-Z

I’m by no means a prankster (unless you count the time I tried to convince a stranger I had diplomatic immunity to local laws, which seemed like a great idea until she asked for my license and registration), so I’m not going to pull your leg with some false news here.  After all, I have no idea what your medical history is like; your leg might come clean off, and then I’d be stuck with some horror-film version of the “Major Award” from A Christmas Story.

So instead of tempting fate with a good-natured lie, I’m going to give you some real news:  two pieces of it, in fact, because today is a holiday, and this is how we’re going to celebrate.

Firstly, I recently sold a story to The Binge-Watching Cure, an anthology designed to relieve people of their Netflix addictions by getting them to read again.  “The Final Chapter of Marathon Mandy” (which I wrote way back in September of 2012) should be published sometime later this year.

Secondly, let’s talk about “The Black Clover Equation.”  This is another one I wrote in 2012 (August, in this case), and it only ever made the submission-rounds at a few markets before I forgot about it, leaving it to decompose in my trunk of cringe-inducing unsold fiction.  But something made me dig it up in 2015, and after just barely failing to sell it to Unidentified Funny Objects 4 (possibly because I sold editor Alex Shvartsman a different story:  “Champions of Breakfast”), I promptly got distracted by something and let my weird little tale of good and bad luck sink to the bottom of my trunk once more.

This brings us to late last year, when I got word that Flash Fiction Online was itchin’ for some humor stories.  FFO was the site of my first-ever fiction sale (professional or otherwise), so I dug up “The Black Clover Equation” and sent it on its way.

Now, about five years after that first publication, I’ve returned to FFO.  “The Black Clover Equation” went up today, and you can read it here.

Part of me feels like I should celebrate the occasion with a wild and crazy party.  After all, today’s a holiday, and if the neighbors complain about the noise, it’s okay–I’ve got diplomatic immunity.

-Z

EDIT:  Because I’m an idiot (or maybe just because I’m bad at updating my site–but more likely both), I’ve forgotten until now to mention that “The Final Chapter of Marathon Mandy” is not my first sale of the year:  I’ve also sold a piece of flash fiction called “Tessa and the Troll” to Galaxy’s Edge.  This will be my second publication in Galaxy’s Edge (the first being “Tomorrow’s Forecast,” from issue #20), and I can’t wait to see this lighthearted humor tale appear in the pages of Mike Resnick’s magazine.

Hello again, imaginary friends!  Today I’m pleased to announce that Alex Shvartsman has decided to buy my story “Prophet Margins” for his Unidentified Funny Objects 5 anthology.  This will be the third time I’ve appeared in a UFO volume, giving me a 60% success rate.  According to most grading systems, that’s a D-minus–or as I like to think of it, “A noticeable improvement over my junior year of high school.”

I owe Alex not only for buying my story, but for using his razor-sharp editorial skills to shape that dingy lump of fiction into something respectably shiny.  I guess this is why he’s the guy in charge, huh?

UFO5 will showcase a host of great authors, including big names like David Gerrold (whom you may know as the man who invented Tribbles) and Mike Resnick.  And speaking of Mike Resnick, I’ve got another piece of news.

Galaxy’s Edge #20 was published on May 1st, containing my story “Tomorrow’s Forecast.”  The current issue of Galaxy’s Edge is always available for free online, so if you’d like to check out my story there, be sure to do so before July.  (Alternatively, you could buy the ebook or one of those handsome physical volumes–both excellent options.)

And that’s it for now.  Until next time!

-Z

. . . And like any good king, I hibernate every other year.  But now I’ve emerged from my Cave of Reclusivity (it’s a word, trust me–I’m a king), and come bearing a medley of news that’s one part recent, two parts outdated.

– News the first:  Bloody Knuckles has been published, which includes my science fiction/MMA story “The Miracle Man.”  You can check it out here.

– News the second:  I sold a flash story called “The Hornet’s Sting” to Abyss and Apex.  It’s due out in 2015, meaning you’ll see me mention it again sometime in 2037.

– News the third:  Not only did I sell a story to Intergalactic Medicine Show, but as of last night (11/25/2014), that story has been published!  You can read “Eli Whitney and the Cotton Djinn” here, and while you don’t have to be an American history buff to appreciate the story, being a cotton enthusiast would certainly help.

-Z