More Encouragement

Late last week I got an email from Chuck Reece at Salvation South–he opened with, “No one should have to wait eleven months to hear from a submission.”

I didn’t even remember sending him anything. After some checking, I realized the submission had been sent in April 2025, probably just after they ran a story from my very good friend Ellen Ann Fentress about Dusti Bonge’s second-act reinvention in mid-century Mississippi.

Even though it took eleven months, I was gratified by the fourth sentence where he wrote they liked my story “This Side of Heaven” and wanted to publish it with some trimming being done.

I’m cool with that.

So the first step in that process is a video conference with Chuck, probably this Thursday. (He had to catch his breath from being at the week-long AWP Conference and Bookfair in Baltimore. I could understand that.)

Otherwise, this month I go to William Carey University in Hattiesburg for the Mississippi Philogical Association meeting on March 20-21 where I’m going to read from Looking For Home at a creative writing panel late Friday afternoon. Then on April 6, I head up to Mississippi State University for the Caldwell Reading Series event that I have been looking forward to ever since I got the word that Hurricane Baby had been accepted for publication.

And that’s the last book event I’m scheduled to appear at for 2026. I plan to go to other events, like Possumtown Book Fest in August and Mississippi Book Festival in September. I have a couple of submissions out for other events but not any real expectations to be accepted.

I am doing some thinking about what comes next. I’m still sending out Looking for Home to small presses; the last one on my list is Four Way Books, which opens for submissions on November 1. I’m still thinking I won’t go back into a book project until I have a contract for Looking for Home. But I may change my mind again, too. That’ll be fine, too. Maybe I’ll write more short stories. Maybe I’ll get back into poetry. I also saw a call-for-papers for creative nonfiction, research, or academic work about revisiting childhood favorite books. I’m slowly drafting an abstract for a paper for that project.

Thinking counts as writing. Don’t forget that. Happy March, y’all.

Decision Time

So since I hate indecision more than anything, I’m making the decision that feels the most right for me right now.

I’m not going to work on another longform fiction manuscript until Looking for Home sells or I exhaust all avenues to get it traditionally published.

I’ve been trying to work on What Lies Ahead in fits and starts ever since the beginning of January after I got word that my deal for Looking for Home was cancelled. And that has been really painful and stressful for me. I’m sure you can imagine the stress–the primary thought that goes through my head at this point is WHY BOTHER?

I know all the very good reasons to bother writing–I enjoy it, it’s fun for me, I can’t know if it will be good or not until I actually write it, etc., etc.

But I also need to take care of myself and my own mental health. And right now, writing a longform fiction manuscript is neither enjoyable nor fun. I need to be in a place where I can regain my perspective on why I write and where I know that I am not hurting myself with my process or my words.

This is the pattern I took once I finished Hurricane Baby: Stories and started shopping it. I did not begin work rewriting Looking for Home until I got the offer from Madville Publishing for that first book. Currently Looking for Home has 12 rejections and is still out to 19 publishers, with plans to send to 10 more presses.

So we will see what happens.

I will continue to post here weekly about different thoughts on writing, my adventures in book events, craft articles, what it’s like being a debut author still, etc. I also have my Substack I also plan to continue posting on once a week about what helped make me a writer in the first place.

So I’m not stopping writing altogether. Just stepping back a bit. Please continue to visit and drop a note in the comments when you feel led with encouragement, questions, or requests for information about my upcoming schedule or my availability for any event. Thanks for understanding!

Keeping Records

I watched a college baseball game this weekend and marveled yet again at how absolutely every action on a baseball field is recorded and quantified for the record books–every ball, strike, error, hit, at-bat, catch–every movement has a statistic associated with it. It’s one of my favorite things about the sport–no action ever goes unnoticed.

(Did you know it’s possible to get no hits in a baseball game against the pitcher and still win? It’s happened once in MLB–on April 23, 1964, Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt .45s became the first pitcher to throw a nine-inning no-hitter and lose. In fact, he is still the only individual to throw an official nine-inning no-hitter and lose. The one run was scored on two fielding errors, a stolen base, one ground-out, and one fly-out.)

What does this have to do with writing?

I like to keep records of my writing life. I keep up with daily word count when I’m actively writing. I make lists of what scenes I want to revise when I need to work on a draft. I make lists of what presses I have sent manuscripts to and when and note when I hear back from them.

That tendency comes in handy for two reasons: 1) keeps me from going back over my tracks so I don’t send to the same publishing company twice, etc. and 2) gives me a sense of accomplishment in a trade that so rarely scratches the itch I have to feel like I am accomplishing ANYTHING.

I am wondering though if this recordkeeping is adding to my anxiety around writing, though. I try not to have word count goals, but I definitely set deadlines in my head to be at a certain point by a certain day on the calendar, etc. And I have definitely let myself get incredibly anxious about missing a self-imposed deadline or letting a few days go by without racking up words.

Anyone else have ideas or opinions around such quantifying of writing or any other creative endeavor? I am just trying to sort it out for myself but would appreciate others’ perspectives as well. Drop any insight into the comment section if you would–I’d appreciate it!

Happy writing!

2025 Numbers

GOOD NEWS!

I got my royalty statement for 2025 from Madville Publishing, and . . .

Hurricane Baby: Stories made some money last year, y’all!

I’m not going to get into exact numbers in this post, but sales were over what they were last year, and while I had returns, the number was lower than I expected. Miscellaneous sums for printing, etc. aside, I earned a chunk of change for the publisher, and my percentage of that was high enough that the publisher can actually cut me a check for it (which was not the case last year).

Do the royalties cover what’s been spent traveling to various events, publicizing said events, etc.? No. So as a total endeavor, I’m still not making any money. But the hole isn’t quite as big at this point.

But I still need to fulfill my pledge to the church to give them my first royalty check, since I didn’t get an advance for this book. I will gladly do that once I get the funds in my bank account.

A good day on the author front all around!

HOMEGROWN 2026

I had the pleasure of going back down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast again this weekend and meeting Madville Publishing’s Kim Davis in the flesh for the first time, as well as meeting Micheal Amos Cody and reconnecting with Susan Cushman on our Madville Publishing panel on Saturday. We all talked about our books and read and did a little Q&A after the readings. We had people go in and out of our event–other events were going on at the same time at staggered times, so there was a lot of fluidity in the schedule. But it went well, and I think I sold right at half the books my publisher brought with her so that was good.

I did some chatting as well–I reconnected with Johnnie Bernhard; we had met at the last HOMEGROWN event I attended in 2024 and we talked on and off a good bit throughout the day. I talked with the owner of Pass Christian Books, Scott Naugle; he said nice things about how my book had sold well at his shop, so that was nice to hear! And I got to talk with other authors I had not met before like Micheal Farris Smith.

I also met with Monica Walton, who was talking with authors as a representative of Dogwood Press here in Brandon. I’ve sent occasional manuscripts to the publisher there, Joe Lee, but this project we discussed was something I don’t believe I’ve ever sent to him. So we will see how it goes once she gives him the information about this book. Fingers crossed!

Next on the agenda should be getting my royalty statements soon for 2025 and see how sales stack up, then in March is the Mississippi Philogical Association meeting at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, MS, and then in April, I visit Mississippi State University for the Caldwell Reading Series.

So lots of things still cooking over here. Hopefully the South can continue to thaw out, and we can have seasonable temperatures throughout February! Looking forward to that! Happy writing!

The Land of Ice

So we are just a little too far south in Mississippi for the ice storm as of right now. No telling what’s going to happen in the next twenty-four hours, though.

I was envisioning myself shut up in the house with nothing to do.

Then I remembered the last time I was without power for an extended period–August 2005 after Hurricane Katrina blew through.

An idea for a story hit me a day or so after the impact.

I got out a pen and a spiral-bound notebook. I wrote a story of heartbreak, pain, and decisions with far-reaching consequences, created in longhand on real paper with real ink in moments between caring for my family and watching society crumble into exchanges of gunfire over the last bag of ice at the gas stations.

Those scribbles eventually became the opening story of my 2024 book, Hurricane Baby.

I still have pens, pencils, the ability to write in longhand, and over twenty empty paper journals people have given me over the past twenty years.

I’m going to be fine.

Regrouping

So what’s ahead for me?

I didn’t schedule much for the first quarter of 2026 since I thought I’d be working on publicity for Looking for Home.

So I do have a few events upcoming for Hurricane Baby but not nearly as many as I did for the end of this past year.

Next event is HOMEGROWN: A Storied Exchange on the Gulf Park campus of University of Southern Mississippi the last weekend of January. My part of the now four-day event is on Saturday, January 31, when I am on a panel of three Madville authors and our publisher talking about Madville, small press publishing, and our particular work ad publishing journeys. I will be in and out of events all day and hope to see a lot of friends and colleagues as I’m there.

February is open so far; I hope to ramp back up doing any new writing and querying during that time. I still have my chapbook on submission and will be looking at other possibilities for submitting Looking for Home some new places I haven’t tried yet.

March brings a good event around–the Mississippi Philogical Association is meeting in Hattiesburg at William Carey University. I read Hurricane Baby in public for the first time at the 2024 MPA meeting; I still plan to read from Looking for Home even though I’m not launching it that month like I originally hoped. Lots of familiar faces will be there as well.

Then in April is an event I have been hoping to have ever since I got word that Hurricane Baby was going to be published–the Price Caldwell Reading Series is bringing me to Mississippi State University to talk to students about the book in a graduate workshop that morning then do a public reading from the book that night. Dr Caldwell was my favorite professor at MSU when I was a student there, and reading in his memory is going to be quite the honor.

So I am moving along. Playing the long game. And though I’m probably in the fourth quarter of my writing life, the clock just started, and I have a fresh set of downs to work with! Looking ahead to what’s in store for me. Happy writing for you all!

The 100 Men Hall in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

I went and spoke at this venue this past Saturday–they have a writer-in-residence, Ellen Morris Prewitt, and a writers’ group that meets once a month there for three hours. So I talked about my publishing journey to Hurricane Baby, then we wrote for a while. After we did some reading of our writing, then I talked about setting a vision for writing, setting goals, making plans to meet those goals, and about how those words all mean slightly different processes that give us a roadmap for accomplishing what we want. Then we wrote more about that and wound up the session with sharing what we felt comfortable with about all of that.

I felt very good after the event. I had wondered if I would feel rusty after spending less time doing events after this past August. But I did my regular talks and read from the book for the first time in a while without any trouble. So that was a confidence-booster. And the organizers and writers were so kind and attentive and responsive. I appreciated that.

My next event is back on the Coast–I’m on a panel for Homegrown, the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s literary festival. I will be reading from Hurricane Baby and doing Q&A as far as I know right now. That’s on January 31 at the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Park campus. I’m looking forward to the energy of seeing so many folks I know for that event. I’m hanging in there. Hope you are, too. Happy writing!

News

I have an update after the holidays–my book deal for Looking for Home has fallen through. The press is shutting down, and the publisher wrote me a message saying that it certainly wasn’t anything about my book that caused it–she is just having to close up shop for personal reasons.

I don’t quite know how to feel. I’m disappointed, of course, but she has returned all the rights to me, so I am free to shop it around again. But I’m not sure when I will plan to do that. I’m not licking my wounds over it; I feel strangely optimistic that if it’s meant to sell, it will again. But I’m not in some big rush to make it so.

So we will see what happens. It doesn’t feel like a setback; it feels more like a chance to breathe. Does that make sense? I hope so.