Available today: Healer

I'm pleased to announce the my short story, Healer is out on Acidic Fiction today.

Jillian is tired of being bound to her healing gift. When a desperate mother with a critically wounded child invades her room, she discovers that her gift is both a curse and her salvation. For more details about Healer, please see this previous post. I hope you enjoy the story.


If you're looking to submit a short that sounds like a good fit for this magazine, I highly recommend you give them a try. The editor was awesome to work with, had the fastest acceptance to publication time I've experienced, and on top of all aspects of the publication and submission schedule. I don't usually gush about editors, but really, this was a great experience.

Estate of Waiting Update

I'll have a story to announce next week, but for now, I figured I'd do a little update on the house project. I wanted to share a nice photo of the house, but we're at a point where nothing exciting is happening on the outside and, well, the inside is a friggen mess.

For the last few weeks, this is the first thing I see when I pull in the driveway. What are those? Septic tanks. No the faces aren't really there. Well, the eyes are, but that's what I imagine on them every darn time. I'm tempted to run over there with some spray paint and make it official. But I haven't yet. 

Why are they still there? We'll, that's a good question. The guy who is supposed to install them hasn't gotten around to it yet. After another email, I've been informed that he will be there this week for sure. But he hasn't been there yet. One more week and my imaginary faces on the feces tanks are becoming real.

The rest of the project is coming along slowly. Yes, we're still in the Estate of Waiting theme. Drywall is going in this week and next. The paint is purchased and waiting in the basement. The trim needs to be ordered and I need to pick out tile and flooring next.

Construction debris is building up everywhere and the concrete guy would love the garage to be cleaned out so he can get that poured. However, the garage is full of the doors that can't go in until the drywall is done and siding*. A dumpster is arriving tomorrow to help alleviate some of the mess that's making me twitchy. And yes, that's a temporary furnace in the middle of the family room. Charming isn't it?

*Our siding guy quit a quarter of the way though the project. He was a friend who did handyman stuff and was going to build our deck next spring. Turns out he got a day job and suddenly didn't need the handyman job anymore so he was done. Just like that: done. Neato.

So now my house is stranded like this. Without the ladders. He took those. Which means now we get to hunt down a new siding guy. Or hunt down the old one. Maybe both.