Folks, I’m not going to lie: the news has been horrifically depressing of late; between the water cannons being used against the #NoDAPL protestors in sub-freezing temperatures and the apparent rise of neo-Nazism in America, it’s sometimes hard to wanna turn on your computer and see what new horrors are in store. But you’ve got to celebrate the good stuff when it happens, and if I hadn’t checked my email when I got off work this morning, I wouldn’t have seen some excellent professional news: I’ve sold my story “If We Survive the Night” to The Dark.

This is awesome for several reasons. One, I haven’t sold anything in a while and that can get a bit discouraging, like, you start psyching yourself out on the bad days: maybe everything I’ve ever done is a fluke and no one will ever publish me again. (Most days I’m not this ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief with my customary I Sold A Story happy dance.) It’s also been Re-Write November, as this is one of two stories I’ve been recently asked to rework, and you never know how those are going to go, like, it’s sorta especially demoralizing to get so damn close to the finish line and then still not place on the podium. (I haven’t heard back yet about the other sub, so eventually we’ll see if I go 1-1 or 2-0. In unrelated news, I have no idea why I’m so fond of using sports metaphors; at least team sports have roots in childhood, but this racing shit, like, finish lines and podiums? I’m like, bitch, the closest you got to a podium was an elementary school spelling bee. Maybe find a metaphor that’s more fitting with your life? And then I’m like . . . nah, that’s too much work.)

I wrote the first draft of “If We Survive the Night” quite some time ago; in fact, I talked about it on this blog while chronicling my Clarion West Write-a-Thon efforts back in 2015. I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to find a home for it. It’s not exactly subtle with its feminism, not to mention it’s meta as all get out, like, it talks about horror a good deal more than it actually is horror. It also has five POV narrators, which I’m pretty sure is Officially Discouraged in the How to Write Short Fiction handbook. But overall I’m pretty fond of the thing and, honestly, kind of proud of it: it’s rather excessively a Carlie St. George story, but my totally charming self-deprecating sense of humor aside, I like to think that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I’m not sure when “If We Survive the Night” will be published, but I will update this blog accordingly when it is. Meanwhile, on deck–I’m telling you, with the sports shit–is “Every Day is the Full Moon,” a story I sold to Lightspeed back in April; that story, which I’m also kinda proud of, is coming to a computer screen near you in December.