I hear it’s spring in some parts of the country. It’s trying here in the Pacific Northwest, but something keeps eating the tops of my flowers, so it’s difficult to say for certain.

Regardless, a couple of announcements: First, Mad Scientist Journal bought my Viable Paradise 2012 story “Alphabetus Cymbid.” I wrote the story as a VP exercise and I’ve been repeatedly entertained by comments that the story is somehow sexist because I wrote about a careless and aimless woman finding how to apply herself to her interests. I was once such a woman, well meaning and bumbling in a new environment. This is a character arc — a comedic one, at that — and a cautionary tale from my own experiences. I’m thrilled the piece will appear here in June. Bonus, I wrote the story alphabetically — though very few editors, if any, have caught that on the readthrough.

I also placed a deeply personal and deeply strange piece of nonfiction at Synaesthesia Magazine called “Pros & Cons of Montana.” I spend a lot of time reconciling this strange place that is my home, the pull and the revulsion, the beauty and the brutality. I’ve probably never had more personal rejections for a piece as I have for this one. I am so happy it found a home in such a gorgeous magazine.

This week has been a funny one. I feel as if I’m floundering — putting out fires and making the wrong choices — keystone-copping my way through my task list. But I’m slowly and surely catching up with everything I pushed pause on in January and February. My right arm continues be a problem, but I simply don’t have the time to have surgery to repair the disc that is sitting on my radial nerve until June. I can work for most of the day, with and without help from heating pads and changes in position and other therapies. Neck surgery is terrifying, but I’ll be glad when this nonsense is all over.

That’s the news for now. There is much ahead. Trips and more trips and surgery and trips and more trips. But all that later. xo