Jack of Harts

The Martian Affair did not advance to the top 10 finalist level of consideration for the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest. I got the word today from the contest organizer. He did say he liked the story, so that is good. But in the end there were many good submissions to the contest, as I expected. I am disappointed that my story did not make it to the final round of judging, but it is not the first time a publisher has declined to accept one of my stories.

The silver lining is that I will get to publish this short story myself in the near future. This is in fact the second completed story in my queue ready for publication. The second Wolfenheim Story is ready, complete with cover design. I had intended to publish it last year, but production issues cropped in and slowed me down, which is why The Thunderbird Affair got the honor last year. Wolfenheim Emergent will come soon, though. Have no worries on that account.

I have a third story roughed out and heavily written. It was actually fully written some time ago as part of another story but was cut for word count and the fact that it just wasn’t needed to tell the story I was telling. I am now working to make it a self contained short story of its own and will publish it when done. It has had a number of names over time, but I think I have finally settled on The Audacious Affair. The other names died because they telegraphed the story too well. And I like this name. It doesn’t have the same bite as the original name, but it has teeth.

And I learned long ago that when your name is on the lips of others, you should make certain it has teeth so they will not forget you. 😉