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Don’t just say no

/ Sue Burke / 1 Comment

Rejections and fun don’t mix – except this one time.

I wrote a horror story about vampires and started sending it out. The story made the second cut in an anthology but not the final one. Oh, well. I sent it out again right away and got a response of “close, very close” from the editor. Not bad!

Then … the very next magazine rejected it with a note saying that it was “cruel and evil.” Evil? A vampire horror story? Isn’t that the point? I laughed about it with my writer friends, and for a while I was known as “the evil Sue Burke.”

The next magazine rejected it with (this was by snailmail) a preprinted note saying: “We celebrate your achievement!” Although the editors couldn’t take the story, the note said, they wanted me to know how proud they were of me for having written it and taken part in the furtherance of literature. Or something like that. I think they meant it because they dropped a sprinkle of confetti into the envelope — really cool confetti. I used it to decorate my desk lamp.

I kept sending the story out, got rejections both bland and encouraging, and on the 21st try, I found a magazine that loved it and took it. A few years later the story was even reprinted in an anthology. All’s well that ends well.

I learned four things from this adventure:

1. Confetti should accompany all rejections. Or, now that we send most things out via internet, a picture of a cute kitten. How hard would that be?

2. Rejections are about the story, not about the writer, which is too bad because I’d really like to be evil.

3. As we all know, rejections are a necessary step toward publication. We can even make a game out of them. I wish I could remember who I learned this from so I could give her credit: Try to see if you can achieve a certain number of rejections in a single day. She suggested five, so I made that my goal. The most I’ve ever gotten is three.

4. I need more rejections if I’m ever going to win the rejection game, which means I have to get more submissions out there. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go write something, and as a parting gift, here’s a picture of a cute kitten. Celebrate your next rejection with it. We all deserve a little fun.

Go Ahead — Write This Story: Beginnings

/ Sue Burke / Leave a comment

Here are some writing prompts. If any of these prompt a story or idea for you, go for it! Ideas a free, and you can use these prompts freely any way you want.

“An angry man — there is my story: the bitter rancor of Achilles…” Thus Homer begins The Iliad. When does a story begin? To answer that question, you should understand your story thoroughly. Author John Kessel says a story begins when a situation loses balance. Homer begins his story when Agamemnon insults Achilles at the siege of Troy, they fight, and as a result, soon the souls of champions glut Hell while dogs and ravens feast on their corpses. Star Wars begins when Princess Leia sends a desperate plea for help that falls into the hands of her long-lost brother (spoiler, sorry) who, eventually, tries to destroy the evil Empire.

Here are some possible story beginnings:

• This made-for-TV movie begins when a wildlife biology crew comes to a ghost town on Mars to study the creatures who have made homes in the empty buildings.

• This cyberpunk story begins as artificially reformed convicts try to make their way in a society that doubts their transformations — transformations they themselves doubt.

• This story begins with Rio, the first baby born after the human population exceeds the supply of souls available for reincarnation.

ECO24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction

/ Sue Burke / Leave a comment

Anthologies tend to make less money than novels, yet they keep appearing. And I keep reading them. An anthology offers the chance to read a carefully curated selection, and I love short stories as an art form.

Apex Book Company asked me if I’d like to read an advanced copy of ECO24, The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction, and offer a blurb if I liked it.

I liked it a lot. Like every good anthology, the stories offer a range of approaches, including literary science fiction, magical realism, and dark fantasy. Some are set in the present, such as the war in Ukraine, others in the future, and they feature settings around our planet and beyond. Some are grim, many hopeful.

My favorite is “The Plasticity of Being” by Renan Bernardo, which illustrates the paradoxes of offering help to poor people. I also especially enjoyed “Bodies” by Cat McMahon about the dangers of being a clone, and “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackened Husk of a Planet” by Adeline Wong about the emotional weight of being a student, with hints of poetry. But I could go on. There’s the quiet wisdom of “Batter and Pearl” by Steph Kwiatkowski, and the aspiration of “Father Time Dares You to Dream” by Trae Hawkins — and both stories take place near me.

My blurb:

Each author offers us a unique ecological niche to reveal what our present and future could be, ranging from wrenching disasters to elating possibilities of recovery. These stories are personal and lyrical, and the breadth of imagination and styles make this anthology dazzling. Every story is a gem.

‘Arena Líquida / Liquid Sand’ by Jorge Valdés Díaz-Vélez, translated by Sue Burke and Christian Law-Palacín

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I translated the poems in Liquid Sand / Arena Líquida with my Spanish friend Christian. One of us would draft the translation of a poem, then we would pass it back and forth, debating words, lines, and meaning — the goal of a translation is always to maintain the meaning. We didn’t quibble much. Translation is easiest when the original work is well-written.

In the opening poem, “Nadie / No One,” Ulysses returns to Ithaca to become a specter among his own memories. While there’s no way to summarize a collection of 42 poems, the theme of time occurs often. Time moves, and we move, but in different directions for different reasons, as the poem “Negro Sol / Black Sun” says:

The afternoon weighs heavily
toward its settlement. Ours
is due to a harder sun
and we have had to learn
to walk beneath its burden.

Liquid Sand / Arena Líquida is the first major bilingual collection of poems by Jorge Valdés Díaz-Vélez, one of Mexico’s most respected contemporary poets. Published this month by Shearsman Books and available from most bookstores, it gathers works by Valdés Díaz-Vélez selected from six previous collections that span more than two decades of writing.

Madrid Review Magazine says:

“In these pages, Valdés Díaz-Vélez explores time, memory, and the fragile equilibrium between movement and stillness. His poems evoke the physical and emotional geographies of the Americas while questioning belonging, transformation, and endurance. The English versions retain the clarity and meditative strength of the originals, inviting readers to cross the line between two languages and two sensibilities. To read Liquid Sand / Arena Líquida is to encounter poetry that is precise, reflective, and alert to the unseen rhythms of contemporary life. It is a landmark publication for readers of bilingual and Latin American literature.”