Rhonda Parrish

I had a good day yesterday, no, actually, it was a great day. Days like that don’t come along very often.

First, my short story Axe was chosen to appear in the first ever print edition of Demon Minds. Yay! I was very excited about having it accepted for the online version a few weeks ago, but I’m one of those writers who love, love, loves to see their work in actual print. Axe is the most disturbing story I’ve ever written, though, so it’s exciting and nerve-wracking to know it is going to print.

Also in the category of nerve-wracking is that I heard back from one of the agents I’d queried about Blood and Stone (which I’ve renamed Swamp Story). She requested a partial. *squee* I’m so excited, but nervous too. Keep your fingers crossed for me…

But wait, there’s more!

The day before yesterday I got an email from Carolyn Clink inviting me to read some of my poetry at an open mic event during World Fantasy. I don’t intend to read, but I hope to attend and listen, and I did do a little fan-girl squeal and bounce in my seat at reading the email. It was sent to me and a few other people, but we were all mentioned by name in the body of the email. Yes, I really did think ‘Oh my god, Carolyn Clink wrote me an email, she totally knows I’m alive!’. Yup. For those of you not familiar with Carolyn, she’s a very talented poet and she is married to Robert J. Sawyer. Yup. So full of awesome.

But, more about yesterday…

I’d entered a contest a few days ago and I got the email yesterday that I’d won! I would include a link here to the book I won, but um…I don’t have the link yet. Once I do, I’ll share it

Last, but certainly not least, my copies of Lost Innocence arrived yesterday. They look amazing! I can’t wait for people to see them, they are so gorgeous. Now I just need to figure out how to get them to the post office (I don’t drive and 40 books are heavy). I suspect they will be being mailed out in waves.

So yes, I had a fantastic day yesterday. Have you ever had a day like that? I’d love to hear about it.

I received my contributor’s copy of Abominations last week and it made me -so- happy, you can’t imagine. Allow me to tell you some of the reasons I, quite literally, went ’squee!’ when I got it. In no particular order:

• The cover is amazing. Amazing. Bart Willard is one talented artist.
• The front cover has a quote from Nate Kenyon saying, “…a knockout collection from some very talented writers.” I’m one of those writers. Wheee!
• My story, Spoiled Picnic, is one of the stories blurbed on the back cover.
• Spoiled Picnic is the very first story in the anthology. The first one. That, hopefully, means that everyone who buys the book will read my story first. How cool is that?

So yes, I was blown away by Abominations before I even started reading, but now that I’ve devoured it, from cover to cover, I love it even more. Every author’s take on the idea of Abominations was unique and interesting. I think my two favorite stories were ‘WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY CHARLES?’ by John Teehan and ‘STARVELITO’ by Lon Prater. Both of them are absolutely brilliant.

If you haven’t done it already and you like horror stories, you really ought to pick up a copy of Abominations, and trust me when I say I’d tell you that even if my own story wasn’t in it. Really. It’s a killer book

Well, we finished up Lost Innocence and released it for sale yesterday — a day early! How’s that for awesomeness? The book is brilliant, even if I do say so myself. It’s filled with thirteen stories and thirteen poems that will knock your socks off.

Lost Innocence

It’s available now by clicking the cover image above. Check it out, you can see the first ten pages completely free and I’d love to hear what you think about the layout which is slightly different than what we use for the magazine.

I’m obsessively checking the page for sales and reviews as well (we’ve had some of the former, none of the latter yet) and the only rating so far is my own LOL Not that I’m biased or anything, but I gave it a six out of five

I know this post is going to show my nerdiness in beautiful technicolor, but I don’t seem to be able to stop myself.

Arcane Whispers is available on Amazon. This excites me greatly, far more than it should perhaps, but it feels like a significant step forward.

Someday soon a book with my name on the cover will be on Amazon, but for now, I’ll count this as progress and revel in it

My flash fiction piece, Wrong Turn, is included in this anthology You can pick it up from LuLu, or just admire the cover. I must say, however, I think the stories are well worth reading…not that I’m biased or anything

Sister Margaret joined the ranks of awesome short stories at Anthology Builder today. If you’re not familiar with it, Anthology Builder is a website that will allow you to create custom anthologies filled with only the stories you want to read. I think it’s a brilliant idea and I’m excited to be a part of it.

Swing by and create your own anthology of up to 350 pages for less than fifteen bucks — and be sure to include Sister Margaret…or at least review it Reviewing is free