My essay entry (requisite topic: “family”) has flown off to the Sunday Star Times Short Story competition. At only 900 words, and non-fiction, it was exactly what I needed right now to wedge in between work, volunteering, and working on the line edits that have come back from Stephen at Steam Press (who certainly ain’t phoning it in – challenging queries, I tell you). It would have been nice to enter a short story, and I have a zillion ideas for them, but it’s a form I simply haven’t had time to get comfortable with, with most of my writing energy being directed towards The Sovereign Hand for the last 9 years. I see the stories that win and are lauded, and there appears to be a formula. My short fiction, however, always seems to be wrestling towards a novella, or at least something atypical for Short stories in NZ. I think my subject matter, which tends to be more about “The World” than “Life”, has something to do with that – a question I’ll revisit in a later post.

Regarding The Sovereign Hand, I will be posting a second excerpt, the latest version of  House of Mirrors, previously published in Huia Short Stories 8, some time next month.