Hello again. I'm pre-scheduling today's newsletter a bit earlier than usual because I'll be traveling, then most likely exhausted and not quite used to the time change when it needs to go out. Which is what we do as writers all the time, I suppose: craft something over a long or short period of time, send it out, wait, eventually get it published — or not — then wait again for it to arrive in readers' hands, and maybe a long time after we made we might know that it had an impact on someone who found it. But mostly we trust and hope that it does.

I sound a bit jet lagged and spacey already! I guess I prescheduled that too. But here's what we've been doing this week:

On Monday we published Helena Constance Aeberli's review of Half-Lives by Lynn Schmeidler, winner of the 2023 Autumn House Rising Writer Prize, selected by past contributor Matt Bell. This is Helene's first appearance in our pages but you can find more of her writing through her website.

Then we had the next story in our summer flash fiction series. This week it was "Junkyard Walk" by Elaina Knipple, another new-to-us writer we're pleased to feature. More of Elaina's writing is available here.

And on Friday, previous contributor Nicole Wolverton returned to our site to share some research notes about her novel A Misfortune of Lake Monsters, out this month from CamCat Books.

Looking elsewhere, contributor Shome Dasgupta's new story collection Atchafalaya Darling will be published July 9 with Belle Point Press.

Congratulations to contributor Kat Meads whose essay collection These Particular Women from Sagging Meniscus Press received an Independent Publisher Book Award. Congratulations as well to Laton Carter, Courtney Craggett, and Cheryl Snell whose stories were all longlisted for this year's Wigleaf Top 50. And to our contributors who were recognized in the Top 50 for stories published elsewhere.

And on July 13 our fiction editor, Lacey Dunham, will teach a Zoom class on "Demystifying the Publishing Process" for The Loft.

Remember that submissions close June 30 for our October series of spooky stories with the theme "Dangerous Creatures." General submissions will reopen on August 1.

Finally, contributor Roberta Beary sent along some notes on what she'll be reading this summer:

Dear Life by Alice Munro, a great collection of her short stories, the final four which she describes as ‘not quite stories … that form a separate unit…autobiographical in feeling …’ My husband and I are reading this one together and our discussions are Mars and Venus.  I like what I am learning about her writing chops from my close reads of old favorites like "To Reach Japan," the opening story.

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian, a novel set in 1960 that centers on a budding relationship between two men, reporter Mark Bailey and a baseball player Eddie O’Leary. I’m on my second listen. Thank you Washington Post for the recommendation!

The Details by Ia Genberg translated by Kira Josefsson, a novel in which the ailing narrator recounts four important relationships each of which merits its own chapter. I keep rereading those titled "Johanna" and "Niki" for their feverish intensity.

Thanks to Roberta for those recommendations. If you'd like to send a couple of sentences about what you're reading this summer — for fun, for research, whatever it is — please get those to me in a reply.

Thanks for reading,
Steve Himmer