I’ve received what was effectively a “please wait” email about a short story I submitted recently. The place I submitted to want a specific number of stories and they’re waiting until the end of their submission period before they decide which ones they’re accepting, which makes sense.
I’m not sure if they send out the same email to everyone about making the decision when the submission period closes or if they do a first round of reviewing the stories. I’m hoping the second, and I think it makes sense given that there was about a week between me submitting the story and receiving the response. It’s plausible that they go through initial submissions to divide into no and maybe piles, and then go through the maybes when they have all the submissions. In which case, it would mean that they read my story and didn’t reject it right away and I’m now in a short list pool.
So I’m being optimistic about this story and its chances. Fingers crossed.
Later this month, Mischief Corner Books will release their next quarterly and one of the stories included will be mine. Reading Between the Lines is a little different from what I usually write, and not just because I very rarely write short stories. It’s a contemporary romance about two boys falling in love as they argue about books – one likes sci-fi and the other reads classics. I got to have fun with references to some of my favourite books in their debates.