A Promise Made. Finally Kept.
Back on July 12, I made a cryptic post on my Facebook page that said “Got a lit mag acceptance in the mail today. Sa-weet! A nice way to end the week. Details as soon as I can share!”
And then tick-tock, calendar flip, no details were to be shared.
Recently a friend asked, “oh hey, what ever happened with that?”
Well, here’s what happened: I wanted to lay back on details so as not to tick off the editor of the magazine. They like having first crack at this stuff, so I kept it to myself.
My story was supposed to be published in the Winter (Oct/Nov/Dec) issue, so I was biding my time.
Turns out the editor decided to push up the publication, so my story actually appeared in the Fall (July/Aug/Sept) issue.
Editors are going to do what they need and I have ZERO problem with that. The editor chose to publish MY little ol’ story. With ink. In a literary magazine. Yes!
And since the publication date has come and gone, I don’t feel bad about sharing that story with you now.
Without further ado, here is my story “What Leibniz Never Learned” as published in The Storyteller magazine.
You can also click on the magazine cover, seen in the right column section title “As Seen In” on this page.
Yay!
: jumping for joy :
Happy leaping lamb image found here.
Comments
Frank
No no no, little lamb Karen isn’t leaping for joy, she’s pouncing. A sundress with flowers and a pair of steel toed boots in your heart of hearts.
But then, anybody who is isn’t thoroughly disillusioned these days should be. You’re just a delight to read. I said your writing is economical — it’s more than just economy of words, it’s that the words chosen evoke certain associations, and feelings and thoughts, in the unconscious, that gather and build and accompany us on this little journey you lead us on, like an impresario wielding a baton. Those few words do, like, a lot.
I was listening to Willa Cather’s O Pioneers last week — on my nightly drive to Holbrook and back — because I’d read someone quoting her: “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”
Enter Karen Fayeth: “You don’t say. Well watch this. How about I let you write your own story. Go ahead. Make your assumptions. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
That was the beautiful part, to me. Letting us in on his emotions and not how he expresses them literarily — in the manner of ol’ dumb Leibniz. Which the title plainly states, suggests, forechuckles. We should have known. We should have surely known. I’m no Greece call girl but that’s a very good story.
Karen Fayeth
Frank – Your very kind words make me blush deeply all the way back to the roots of my hair. It’s always nice to know that someone read my story. Double happy when a reader likes it. Thanks for passing along something real nice.
And you know, I haven’t worn my steel toe boots in years. I should go find them. I always did like wearing them.
Also: Holbrook? Really. That’s quite a ride. Nightly you say? I thought you lived in NM? You are a road warrior.
Frank
You’re welcome.
I do live in Albuquerque (on the west side — we don’t care if we live or die — in an apartment complex on Los Volcanes) and do a nightly relay, they call it. I meet a truck coming from Phoenix, at a truck stop in Holbrook, and we trade trailers. It’s stuff for an “expedited package company,” something like a niche Fedex or UPS. People are waiting at a warehouse (out toward the airport) when I get back to Abq between 6 and 7 a.m., they sort the truckload out and go deliver it in vans, to pharmacies and clinics and such. It’s about 487 miles a night. I’m heading in to work now. It’s 12 or 13 hour work days. I’m trying to whittle it down to 1 or 2.
Karen Fayeth
I have to say I have some kind of romantic ideas about traveling the open road like that. I know a guy who was a long haul trucker and he’s the most philosophical guy I’ve ever met. I like the image of tuning in something good on the radio and letting my mind go.
I’ve done some of my best thinking while driving New Mexico’s fairly empty highways. I get into a meditative state and creation flows.
Something about night driving though…I once had my brain go down a real weird place while driving from ABQ to Las Cruces in the dark. I will never forget that night.
Anyhow, intriguing!