Spinning Whorl #3 already out

When I got my mail, I found what was clearly a magazine in an envelope, but I couldn't imagine what it was. I have no reviews pending (since I just got a review in to Tangent a couple days ago), and didn't think I had any publications already in print. But turns out I did. While this doesn't quite rival the turnaround for Reflection's Edge from acceptance to publication, that was online. So for something to go to print this soon--accepted on April 5--wow. The cover art is very cool. My firewall still isn't liking me to put images on the blog, so I'll just describe it as a man in a top hat and sunglasses, with ZZ Top beard and hair...and tiger-striped orange skin. I haven't read all the stories inside, but what I've read has been good.

My story, as I think I mentioned when it was accepted, is an older one. In fact, it's probably the first story I wrote to be consciously within the speculative fiction genre (apart from my first novel, which I'd already begun by then). But last fall when I submitted it to Spinning Whorl, I took it back out and completely reworked it. The story is of a people whose life span equals exactly half that of the cycle of the moon. So as the moon grows, they know that it means the approach of their death...and yet they love and worship the moon and long for it to grow bigger and be visible for even more of the night. There's more to the story, of course, involving the invention of writing, the rise of a different generation, and the nature of life (or something like that), but that's the kernel that gave rise to the story. I must have been researching the moon cycle at the time I wrote it--the moon cycle is very important to my first novel, so some of the research sparked the story.

Anyway, go check it out!

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