What I Read:
Kafka’s Letter to My Father.
Finished Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.
Judith Guest’s Ordinary People.
Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (reread after primary school) & The Poison Belt.
Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Needed a light read, and I’d never read this. This is super-light, touching when it’s not preachy, not a story but a memoir.
Contemporary/modern short stories. All stories are from Electric Lit; since this is new writing, I’ll keep my reviews spoiler-free:
- “First & Second Children” by Matthew Neill Null [sic].
- “Heat Dome” by Kaitlyn Teer.
- “Flip Lady” by Ladee Hubbard.
What I Wrote:
Drafted “The Best Sunday” (100 words).
Drafted “How I Learned About Cars” (18k) from a previous 5k draft. I think the overall structure, which I outlined in detail last month, works, but I need to revisit this and can cut the length back down.
Edited “Forgive” (2k è 3k) with critiques.
Drafted “The Ants Are Thirsty” (1k). Received critiques. Needs work.
Drafted “Better Late Than Never” (5k) from notes from Dec 2021. Received a couple of critiques.
Edited “The City” (4000).
Edited last month’s flashes & micros.
Worked on edits of “Evening” (15k).
Began plotting a couple of new stories.
What I Published:
Didn’t do any subs this month ☹Will have to make up for last month’s missing subs in this month’s submission period next week.
The Penn Review accepted my flash story “Waiting” (650 words) for publication.
Funemployment accepted my literary speculative story, “Last Day of Freedom” (6,000 words) for publication.
Amita Basu 