2020 Awards Eligibility Post, Jennifer R. Donohue

 I had five original stories published this year!

"For Thine is the Kingdom" appeared in Truancy magazine in January

"Black Market Cheerios" appeared in Lamplight volume 8, issue 2. 

"Nothing Left But Mud" was published as a standalone by Sword & Kettle Press in July.

"Defend Us in Battle" appears in the Hear Me Roar anthology, released in September

"Know They Will Die, Under the Salt of It" appeared in The Future Fire in October.

Additionally,  I released the third Run With the Hunted novella, Run With the Hunted 3 Standard Operating Procedure, in October

Now Available! "Know They Will Die, Under the Salt of It" in The Future Fire

 My science fiction short story "Know They Will Die, Under the Salt of It" is now available to read in The Future Fire!

I wrote this story in 2018, after I happened across an article in Outside about freediving. So then I read three more. I didn't really know what I was going to do with it yet, but that's just part of my process; I just put as much into my brain as I care to, and stories come out, some sooner, some later. 

The title come from the Carl Sandburg poem "Young Sea" and it is a title that I'm happy with. I feel like it both catches the freediver spirit, and the reality of those who live by the ocean and work closely with it,  and also the reality of what is happening in the story itself. 

This is one of two stories that I've written about not-really-successful space colonies; the other is "Black Market Cheerios," and appeared earlier this year in Lamplight Volume 8, Issue 2. They are not related stories in any further sense; they don't share characters or anything. But they are both stories that I am very pleased with, and I am happy that they have found homes!

Cover Reveal and preorder announcement! Run With the Hunted 3: Standard Operating Procedure

It's that time of year again!

Run With the Hunted 3: Standard Operating Procedure is coming to you on October 31, 2020!

That's right, Dolly, Bits, and Bristol are back with their latest adventure!

In the fast-paced, tech-heavy future, the rich are richer, and even more careless. Dolly is practically legit, recovering abandoned sports cars from parking lots around Dubai, and selling them off after a little tech magic from Bits. When Bristol catches wind of an auction for the most expensive dog in the world, it’s an opportunity they don’t want to miss. What could be more fun than a dog heist? But things really go south when it’s about handoff time, and this super simple dog heist gets a little more deadly.

You can preorder the Kindle version here: Run With the Hunted 3: Standard Operating Procedure 

And you can preorder non-Amazon items here (more stores will populate as the preorder processes through them): Run With the Hunted 3: Standard Operating Procedure

Unfortunately, Amazon does not do paperback preorders, so you won't be able to order that until day of.

Missed the previous heists? There's still time to catch up with Run With the Hunted and Run With the Hunted 2: Ctrl Alt Delete!

Now Available: Hear Me Roar

 Hear Me Roar is now available!

In my previous post, I promised to update for paperback preorders but, there weren't any. But you can buy the paperback now!

There are already a number of reviews for it on Amazon and on Goodreads, which is excellent! At least one of them mentions my story, "Defend Us in Battle", which is also excellent! The response seems to, in general, be positive.

That's a great table of contents, and I'm pleased to be sharing it with these authors! Rhonda is great to work with (see also Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline for my short story "One Hundred Years") and so I was pleased to repeat the experience!

If you don't want to order from Amazon, Rhonda Parrish lists a number of venues on her website! She also makes the excellent point that you can request that your local library order it! And your library doesn't have to order it through Amazon either; it is available on Ingram (I just checked), which also means that if that's how your local bookstore orders, you can ALSO get it through them! Support your local bookstore! Support your local library!

Hear Me Roar anthology pre-orders!

 Hello readers!

I have a short story coming out in an anthology later this month! Edited by Rhonda Parrish, Hear Me Roar will be out on September 22. 

(that's right, sports fans, Rhonda Parrish is also the anthologist for Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline)

It is called "Defend Us in Battle," and is about a girl whose dad is in a dragonslaying motorcycle club. Essentially.

Currently, you can preorder the digital version here; I'm told that the paperback preorders will happen soon, and I will do my best to remember to update here with a link to that!

Coming soon! "Nothing Left But Mud" with Sword & Kettle press

Hello! I have news for you!

A few months ago (March?) I got a story rejection and took to twitter, saying something along the lines of "due to current events, I'm not sure this scifi story is even scifi anymore" and called it a maybe-apocalypse at the Jersey Shore, about horseshoe crabs and stuff. Because I am g r e a t at summarizing things in zippy and compelling ways.

Well, Kayla Allen who owns Sword & Kettle press asked me to send it to her. And then Kayla said "hey, we'd like to publish this, what do you think?" and I said "Yes, please and thank you!"  (further summarizing, of course.

So now, Friday July 31, 2020 is when my short story "Nothing Left But Mud" will become digitally available through Sword & Kettle press, with a physical little book version of it coming sometime after!

Art is by Anna-Rose Schenerman and LOOK AT IT



The title comes from the Rudyard Kipling story "The Crab Who Played With the Sea" (and that crab is not a horseshoe crab, but it was still...thematic, y'know?) and the story is about a pandemic, and being home with your parents at the Jersey Shore, and trying to survive, and trying to maintain hope. I wrote a hopeful store for once, gentle readers! I am very excited for it, and I do hope you read it and enjoy!

 It is now for sale digitally on the Sword & Kettle Etsy store!, and I'll update when the physical copy is available.

REPRINT Publication! "For Whatever We Lose," in Escape Pod

This month, Escape Pod is doing a run of space-themed stories. First up? My short story "For Whatever We Lose," first published last year in Luna Station Quarterly.

It's always interesting listening to one of my stories be podcast; I'm the only one who reads my stories the way I read my stories, if that makes sense. So hearing my words in not-my-voice is a fascinating experience! Phoebe Barton's comments at the end were also excellent.

So, if you missed it last year, or if you just want to revisit, do please go to Escape Pod and give the story a listen! Plus, tell your friends!

image of Phobos from NASA

April.....fools?

So hi

What's been going on?

I hope you are well

Because. Um. Yeah. Lots going wrong in the world, isn't there?

I'm happy to report, for my part, that while the library is closed, my coworkers and I all still have jobs. Many of us even have job duties that we can still perform from home. This is a privilege that I am VERY thankful for; I feel unbelievably lucky.

And we're seeing now just how much libraries can still do from home. There are digital escape rooms, there are livestreamed storytimes (with many publishers and children's book authors generously saying "yes, it's okay to read my books for these." Many ebook lending restrictions have been lifted, and I know at my library, Hoopla, our newer streaming service, has been wildly popular. Run With the Hunted, et al will eventually be added to Hoopla...Draft2Digital started that process back in like, November, and I think both services were unprepared for how many people were gonna say yes all at once.

One of those work-from-home things is my writing group. We've just had a big email ol' email chain, that I kick off each Saturday with a collection of writing prompts, and people who feel up to it send back what they came up with. I've been working on a short story in this way, bit by bit, prompt by prompt. I'm not really sure how it will end up, but that's taking shape. It's interesting to write in that way, letting people read it as you go, instead of after you've ironed out the wrinkles and tacked down the edges and done things like give people names (....whoops...)


I've been putting the prompts on my Patreon, for free. And I'm going to link the ones I've got so far right here:

Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 1
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 2
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 3
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 4
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 5
Digital Writing Group! Prompts, volume 6

In addition to that, I've been working on Run With the Hunted 3: subtitle to be determined, and making satisfactory progress on that. I've even got a coveer in the works! So I'll let you know here, and everywhere, when there are pre-orders for that.

I also plan to do an omnibus that collects the first three novellas under one roof, as it were. I'm thinking hardcover AND paperback for that, which means I'll be wrangling with the Ingram book formatting program. So that'll be a new experience! And then I'll  need a cover for THAT too. So...any suggestions would be welcome!

And last but not least, I've had two short stories published so far this year! The first is "For Thine is the Kingdom", which appeared in Truancy in January. The second is "Black Market Cheerios", which appeared in Lamplight Volume 8, Issue 2, in March.

For news along these lines,  you can subscribe to my TinyLetter, which I send out with slightly more frequency than I blog anymore (I used to blog a lot...I guess now you can tell that I'm writing more!)

Stay safe out there. Stay home if you can. It's a great time for reading, and for writing, if you can. Or baking bread, as so many people are doing. Or cross stitch or doing the plank challenge or binging everything you never got around to on various streaming services.

Until next time!

Welcome to 2020!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a safe and happy holiday, and that you have a good and prosperous year ahead of you!

2019 was a pretty darn good publishing year for me. I tweeted about it, but I'm happy to recount here!

I submitted stories 162 times and received 11 acceptances! 11!!!

109 of my rejections were forms, 39 were personals, and I still have 18 stories pending.

I had 4 original short stories printed: "For Whatever We Lose", "The Pearls That Were His Eyes", "Fundamentals of Search and Rescue", and "One Hundred Years".

In addition, 2019 was certainly the Year of the Reprint!

"Sugar and Spice" and "Daddy's Girl" were both reprinted in audio format. "The Wave", from my Patreon, was reprinted in actual print.

I wrote 4 short stories, and started far more (at least a few of which are pushing the boundary of what 'short story' means and are edging more into novella and novelette territory, which is great, because there are so many places to send those pieces [Narrator: there are not.]) I wrote 1 novella, Run With the Hunted 2: Ctrl Alt Delete. I wrote 1 novel, which I will be querying, after people read it, I polish it, more people read it, and I polish it more.  Oh and after I write a query letter and a synopsis.

I feel like when I was querying The Last Song, far fewer agents wanted a synopsis up front. I don't know if this is because many agents are using Querymanager now, or if in general it's just a better strategy for them. and I knew I'd have to write a synopsis, I just didn't think it'd be immediately.