It’s been busy around here in my personal life. I’ve been focused on my son finishing up his first year of real school (grade 1 is now in the books) and his first season of organized sports (box lacrosse – two last games of the season tomorrow).

I’ve got stories out there doing the submission rounds and if my rejectomancy (a term I’d only recently heard of thanks to twitter) skills are any good I’d say that I’m regularly (though not always) making it past the first round of slush reading at a lot of markets, but still most often coming up on the thanks but no thanks list. One story in particular I *know* for a fact (due to emails from editors) has been seriously considered, but ultimately rejected, by many a market now and I’m having a hard time deciding what to do with it. That’s small picture though. In the big picture I think I need to strap myself into a chair and write, write, write because I may very well be close to reaching a new level in my storycraft skills.

One of the places that I have made a sale to and been published by, Fireside Fiction, is having a subscription drive right now. Please, take a moment and check it out. They have made meaningful compensation for authors telling great stories one of their founding principals, it would be a shame if they couldn’t keep doing that.

Finally, if you’re on Twitter you should really make it a point to be following Matt Wallace (@MattFnWallace), Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed), Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig), and Kameron Hurley (@KameronHurley). You can thank me later.

So….what are you reading this first week of Summer?