Kaleidotrope #3

I've been meaning to post this for a while now, but keep getting distracted with other things. When I receive a contributor copy of something, there's always a balance I try to maintain between getting the info out that it's available and trying to find time to read some of the other things in the copy to be able to comment on them.

So I've had my copy of this for several weeks now, but things kept conspiring to keep me from reading anything. I read Bruce Holland Rogers's two stories right away as well as your story, Beth (the best, most amazing use of my absolute favorite superlatives...). As of now I've also read the first few stories and poems and quite enjoyed them--there's a bit of meta-fiction that I really liked, some good psychological horror, and a rather light-hearted ghost story among other things. I remember really liking the poetry of #2 but finding the fiction overall not as strong (though with some exceptions), but so far #3 exceeds #2 on that count. So do check it out.

I like to say a bit about the genesis of the stories I get published: this one is a sequel to the story I had in #2, so it shares its origin in a throw-away bit in another story that intrigued me enough to develop the Living Stumps some more. In this case, I'd already written "First Peeling" but it hadn't been accepted yet when a one-hour challenge topic was to devise a courting ritual for an invented society. "Stump Courtship" was the result, though at the time it wasn't all that strong a piece. It was only when "First Peeling" came out in Kaleidotrope #2 that I took that story kernel back out and revised it, polished it up, and sent it out.

In something of a further development, this summer as I was taking a break from my main novel between first draft and revisions, I started playing around with a YA novel that involves one of the Living Stumps. I finished the first half of a rough draft for that before deciding it was more important to focus on the revisions for now, but I do hope to come back to that at some point in the future.

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