At Arm’s Length

Huzzah!! ‘At Arm’s Length’ (affectionately known to those close as ‘The Arm Story’) is out today in the latest Tincture Literary Journal.

The feelings engendered by Publication Day never get old. And it’s been a while (for a variety of reasons) since I had a story published in a journal or anthology, thus today is extra sparkly and a beverage or two may be consumed in celebration.

A LONG ROAD

The first words were put down New Years Eve 2013/14 but it took a really long time to find the final form. The premise (a woman wakes up one morning to discover her arm is missing) is a pretty unbelievable scenario. Because the story asks the reader to suspend their disbelief, I had to absolutely nail all the other real-life details and motivations, and that took a while. The story is pretty indicative of how I was feeling at the time: slowly disappearing into invisibility, losing parts of myself along the way, lost in suburban obscurity.

It was also my first experimentation with the metaphysical side of magical realism which perhaps accounts for the length of time it took to hone and home it.

THANK YOU

Many thanks go to my beta readers: Dan Powell, Ben Payne and S.G. Larner. Special thanks to the editors of Urban Fantasy Magazine who provided amazing feedback with their rejection. And last of all, thank you to Daniel for again believing in my work and giving it a home at Tincture.

TO TINCTURE, AND BEYOND

You can read Daniel’s editorial, peruse the table of contents, add it to Goodreads or more importantly, buy a copy of Tincture Issue 11.