Rebecca Senese and I shared a strange place in the history of Storyteller Magazine before we even met. I’d finally snagged the cover of Storyteller in the winter 2006 edition after many attempts, so my mother proudly purchased a subscription for every member of the family, including my aunt.
Unfortunately, I had decided that for my story White Metal I’d let construction workers speak like construction workers. The F-bomb fell more than a few times, and Storyteller chose to stick it right in one of the teaser lines. My aunt, horrified by the profanity, refused to even read her nephew’s story and instead carried on to read the next story in the issue, Brother’s Under the Skin by Rebecca Senese.
It was like pouring gasoline on fire. My aunt, the very committed Catholic anti-abortion activist, read a story about parents who clone their murdered son and try to relive his childhood through the clone. Boom!
Terry Tyo, the owner of Storyteller, got a nasty phone call demanding that he cancel my aunt’s subscription and never send her a copy of his sick magazine again. Terry was gun shy of controversial stories for months. Between us, Rebecca and I had rocked Storyteller’s world.
Now Rebecca is out to rock your world. She read my first post about planning to e-publish all my out of print short stories, but she ran where I walked. I’m still trying to pull together the other stories, get them up with Smashwords for the Sony and Nook, and put together my anthology. But in the last two months, while I was off in another world, Rebecca’s done it.
I’d better hurry. A year ago I was in the middle of the e-book revolution, now I’m playing catch up. So watch here for more announcements and e-publishing. First my Storyteller stories, then my contest winners, then my novel and then…write till I die. I finally have a market, however humble. It’s there for the bold.
Mike, thanks so much for reminding me of that wonderful reaction from your aunt! It’s right up there with the old woman in my writing critique class that told me I was going to hell! I’m sure your aunt would completely agree.
You’re still well on time for the e-book revolution, don’t have any fear there. The wonderful thing about e-books is the long tail of it. Once you get your work up there, people can find it at any time so the feeling of having to do everything immediately or you’ll miss out is false. Be steady and consistent. I look forward to seeing your work up on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords. Viva la revolution!