We have just about 450 submissions in the inbox so far. It was really exciting to wake up on New Year’s Day and do The Twilight Zone marathon and see all of these wonderful subs coming in. I’d forgotten how joyful opening up that inbox and seeing it all is. It’s like another Christmas. At the end of Day 1, we had about 250. Nothing that really floated my boat on that first day, and on January 2 Anne and I had a meeting—by then, I had found one. It was so good I made her read it right on the Zoom call, and she agreed: “it’s a wow, for sure.”

I reminded Anne that now we really have to be careful about what we purchase because I don’t have a job to pay for this anymore, and she reminded me that we need to only take pieces that we are so out of our minds excited about we want to run screaming in the streets. But it was good to get back to basics, what it was like when I started this mag back in 2020. If it didn’t set my heart on fire, I said no. Every sub window I need to be reminded of that, because emotions and other considerations can sometimes really get in the way.

I found two more stories that blew my mind—one about cow abductions that’ll make a great fit with our Autumn issue, and one about a woman and strange deer threatening her newborn baby. The deer one had such a killer opening line that when I was reading it over the phone to my friend Kristina, she was like, “oh my God. More. Gimmie more.” We read the whole thing together over the phone. I wrote an acceptance note immediately. Our readers are going to freak out at how good both of these stories are.

On the rejection slip side, I got a really nice email back from one of the first stories received in the inbox from a writer in India. The story seized me right away and I was really excited about its tone, its atmosphere, its originality, the power of what it was going to say. But then, about halfway through, it dropped the thread and didn’t have an ending that matched the beginning. But this story had so much potential. So I wrote to her and shared my thoughts. She was really grateful and thanked me for taking the time and said that she was going to work on it, that my guidance felt less like critique and more like mentoring. I really appreciated hearing that. It made me feel like I put some good in the world. She said she would resubmit next window, and I hope she does. I really would love that story if it works out. Our vibe is so hard to nail. That story had the vibe. It just needed some technical work. But I’m going to print out her response for my scrapbook. It reminds me that this is something I’m supposed to be doing. All that positive doesn’t come if you’re on the wrong path.

My story “All the Silent Nights” got accepted in April to Christmas Spirits, Volume 2. I was excited, and it turns out my story was also selected for illustrations. But then I never heard a thing. The editor had actually called me in July to go over some things, and said it would be out by October 31. After that, though? I heard nothing. I got no email that said it was available, at which point, I was supposed to be paid and given a free copy. I kept waiting, hoping that I’d hear something in time to promote it for Christmas. Anyway, on December 28, my writer friend Bert and I were talking about it, and she actually dug deep into the internet and found that the book had indeed been published on BookBaby! It seemed odd, though. The editor, Nicole, had nothing anywhere about it—not on her socials, and not on the project’s website. I suppose this’d make lots of writers’ hackles go up, but maybe something bad happened to her. I mean, why would you have all this passion, enough to CALL THE WRITERS, put out a volume and contract artists, and then just vanish and never tell anyone it’s published? Something’s off. And I don’t think it’s deliberate fraud. So I ordered a couple of copies to check it out.

They arrived and it’s as gorgeous as I thought. I mean… wow. And the artwork. My story got a two-page spread, plus an additional illustration. I’m going to order several more copies, and I’d like to promote it. It’s just sad I couldn’t have promoted it for Christmas. But, you know, it’s winter. I can make it happen. Maybe do an additional post for this year’s season. I can preschedule that post now.

Also, there was yet another club fire on New Year’s Eve. This one in Switzerland. I just don’t understand how people don’t learn. I mean, here, it was a basement bar with only one exit, up a flight of stairs (just like the Cocoanut Grove). It had flammable foam on the ceiling and was set alight by people using sparklers/pyro in an enclosed space (just like The Station). People waited too long to get out (so many). This one really disturbed me. Aside from all that, it brought back the horror of what Nathan was doing the day after Christmas night. He was seasoning one of his cast iron pans on the back porch and the grease in the pan caught on fire. It was raging. He poo-pooed my fear, but I sat there in my dining room as this grill was under the overhang of the house and the flames were coming out the back of it. “The cover’s closed,” he said. “It’ll go out.” But it wasn’t. It was snowy and windy, and the wind was getting under that cover in the back and fanning those flames. I finally started crying and begged him to put it out. He did, with a fire blanket. Thank God. All it was going to take was one lick of flame hitting the synthetic webbing on the porch furniture and the place would’ve gone up like a torch. I’m still having nightmares about that.

I’m planning on sending out four acceptances/contracts today. One for Cyrus Green’s story that we made arrangements for over a year ago for Autumn 2026, and three we just found for the 2026 issues. Also, I got a sub from someone I know about a chicken that sucked me right in (the opening has me so excited I can’t wait to read the rest). I also want to FINISH at least the draft of the apocalypse story that’s due Jan. 15. I’d really like to get that in earlier so I can start working on my submission for Wicked Westerns.

The other thing I have to get to today is finish putting away New Year’s Eve. I also have to do some laundry. And I’ve discovered the power of DAWN PowerWash for cleaning deep stains. The kitchen sink was really bad, but now it looks clean! People kept telling me about that stuff and for some reason I shrugged it off. I bought it for the house in upstate New York simply because it was way cheap up there, and that’s still the bottle I’m using now. I’m trying to de-link it from that traumatic experience. Maybe my cleaning the sink every day with it, associating it with a new memory, will help that.