Subrogation of the Internal Messenger in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet

This is a big one for me and requires some explanation.

In 2017 I attended the Tin House Writer’s Conference in Portland, thrilled to have Kelly Link as my workshop leader. Kelly is one of my writing gods, for obvious reasons, master of the weird literary short story, author of Stone Animals, The Hortlak and many other all time favorite stories. I brought a fantasy story to the workshop. Kelly gave it some love. That was the highpoint of my writing career, such as it is.

I spent some time rewriting that story (whose title ended up as The Subrogation of the Internal Messenger) and sent it out a few times. No luck. I rewrote it again and sent it to Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, which is published by Small Beer Press, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant proprietors. LCRW is old school: hardcopy submission, no simultaneous subs, sit tight, they take a while. They have published Ursula Le Guin, Karen Joy Fowler, Ted Chiang and other luminaries. They are worth waiting for.

Last month I received an email from Gavin asking if the story was still available. It took me a while to remember the story. Three years and three months after I submitted it. Turns out it was still available. Some things are worth waiting for.

LCRW is a hard copy publication, but the link to the table of contents and contributors is here.

The graphic is a woodcut print that I did during the pandemic, the first in many years. Title is Corvid 19. Ha. Crows feature in the story.

This all makes me very happy, which is why I write in the first place. Major gratitude to Kelly & Gavin.