Storyglossia

STORYGLOSSIA Open for New Submissions

2008-07-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

STORYGLOSSIA has re-opened to submissions with new guidelines. Reading during July and August for the September issue. Submission deadline is August 31st.

After much consideration I have decided to no longer provide feedback when rejecting stories (although there will surely will be some rare exceptions). Simply put, there are only two reasons a story gets rejected: either it wasn't to my taste or it wasn't as strong as the other submissions it was competing against. It's really that simple. A no is a no. Does it really matter why?

Comments?

Matt Bell's story in MWA Top 10

2008-06-18T21:49:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Matt Bell! His Story Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken from STORYGLOSSIA 23 was selected as a Top 10 story in the Million Writers Award. Check out the top stories and cast your vote.

Dogzplot Rocks the Pound

2008-05-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

The new issue of DOGZPLOT is up with poetry, artwork, a sharp novel excerpt from Yu-Han Chao, and stories by Elizabeth Ellen, Dawn Corrigan, Caroline Kepnes, J. A. Tyler, and my piece "Sisyphus, the Snowball, and Hell." Barry and Jamie are doing great stuff with this new zine so check it out.

STORYGLOSSIA's Notables

2008-05-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

The Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2007 have been announced and four stories published in STORYGLOSSIA made the list:

Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken by Matt Bell?
The Man in Africa by Michael J. Davis?
Watch the Flashlight Girls Run by Stephanie Dickinson?
Louder Gospel by Anthony Neil Smith?

Congratulations! Great stories all.

And for an interesting analysis of the overall results check out Jason Sanford's blog.

Storyglossia Issue 28 is a Crime

2008-04-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

For STORYGLOSSIA Issue 28 I'm exposing a dirty little secret—my love of crime/noir fiction—and have enlisted Anthony Neil Smith as guest editor to help me deliver a STORYGLOSSIA crime wave.

Some of you many know Neil from his story "Louder Gospel," which appeared in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 21 and was just named a notable story in the 2007 Million Writers Award. But he's also the author of the novels Pyschosomatic, The Drummer, and the recently released Yellow Medicine, and the editor of the re-emergent online noir e-zine Plots With Guns, as well as the editor of a few stellar crime/noir issues for the Mississippi Review. But enough about Neil, except to say thanks for assembling an absolutely kick-ass issue!

In jail the first question they ask you is "what are you in for?" Your cellmates want to know what kind of criminal you are, yes, but more than that, they want to know what you are capable of, what boundaries—either voluntarily or involuntarily—you'll cross to get what you want or to thwart someone else getting what they want. Your character is measured by the crimes you have—or will—commit and the style with which you commit them. Crime is not new to literary fiction. Character equals Raskolnikov plus his axe. And just as Dostoevsky used crime to reveal the depths of human experience, so to do the nineteen authors in Issue 28.

Dig in of you dare.

Kats and Dogs

2008-04-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

Katrina Denza has a flash piece - "Soap" - up at the recently launched Wigleaf. I liked the contrasting images of the boy with the two dogs and the hushed expression of parental love. Check out Kat's piece and the other fine work at this new zine.

Interview with Katrina Denza

2008-04-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Katrina Denza, who as guest editor selected the stories for the awesome Issue 27, shares her thoughts on the experience and on what qualities moved her in these 15 wonderful stories.

Steven McDermott: What surprised you the most about your guest editing experience at STORYGLOSSIA?

Katrina Denza: Well, a couple of things. First, I had no idea of the amount of work reading that many pieces from beginning to end would entail. Not to mention, responding to the work, and later, editing when needed. So I guess I�m surprised you�re still sane after all this time.

That being said, I enjoyed every minute of it.

Another thing that surprised me was the fact that every time I printed out a story and started to read, I was rooting for it. I�ve heard writers say they suspect that editors read looking for an excuse to reject, and probably that�s true for some, but that wasn�t the case with me. With each piece, I was hoping desperately that this would be the one. It was rare that I knew without a doubt a certain piece fit my sensibilities, but when it did, the moment was sweet.

SM: You mentioned in your introduction to the issue that the submission pool was strong and a lot of good stories were passed over. What factored into your final decision for those stories that were close, but ultimately rejected?

KD: The pool was strong. This answer�s probably not very helpful, but the bottom line is my gut. If I read a piece and it didn�t make me stop breathing, then it didn�t get in. There were about three, near the end, that did affect me in that way. The decision then became a matter of which fit the overall tone of the issue most, and regretfully, I had to pass on stories I admired.

SM: Did a theme emerge as you were selecting stories?

KD: Yes, I�d say that all these fictional people have an aching desire for connection. I suppose you could say that�s true of most, if not all fiction, but in these stories this desire was strongly visceral. Another common quality is the honesty of the writing and of the characters. It takes a great deal of courage to be honest at that kind of level. It�s a way of life: to live without apology. I admire that in fiction and I�m drawn to that kind of honesty in real life. One more important quality that makes each stand out is the apparent respect, if not love, the writers clearly have for their characters. I don�t know that every writer is successful writing about such flawed, raw, characters with the same kind of reverence or care, but these fifteen were.

SM: Among the submissions that you didn�t select were there any trends or themes you noticed?

KD: There were a lot of really good stories I considered but passed on for various reasons. And there were a few that didn�t really have a chance with me from the start, but I read through anyway. Those few usually turned me off from the first page by a lack of respect: for their characters, for humanity, for life. For instance, I�m not interested in reading a diatribe, disguised as fiction, on fat people. In fact, I�d advise those writers to come up with a description more imaginative than simply fat. That kind of laziness tells me more about the writer than the character. I also wasn�t interested in misogynist tales, or woman-as-victim stories, or gratuitous violence.

SM: What are some of the magic moments in the stories you selected?

KD: I like this question. Because you�re right, each had that one magic moment, or several, when I let go of the breath I was holding and said to myself, yes! Most of these stories brought me to tears. It might be easier if I list what I loved about each, because I want to include all of them.

In �Hook,� the soft, lulling narration, and then the surprise of what the narrator is asking for. Claudia Smith is a gifted writer in that she�s always plugged in emotionally. There is always this lovely reverence for life that I can feel in her work and this piece blew me away. There�s this moment in the motel when the narrator tenderly holds the man�s head in her lap, such a surprise that was, and yet, truthful, and then her pragmatism in the last paragraph. Pure magic.

In �Passengers,� the magic for me was when the narrator knows he�s learned something about his girlfriend, this interesting yet unpleasant story about why her father did jail time, that underlines how different they are and that they don�t really have a chance, and she takes his hand and asks him not to let go and he squeezes her hand hard, almost willing the inevitable not to happen, but you know it will. Loved it.

Myfanwy Collins has long impressed me with her work because she�s not afraid to show us the underside of the rock, so to speak. It�s as if in her stories, she�s saying to the reader, Look, you hold back your judgment and I�ll show you something you didn�t know about humanity. In �Timmy is Dead,� the narration is witty, it�s mannered, and wonderfully paced and yet there�s plenty of good stuff to be found under the rocks.

In �Wanda,� I was charmed by the simple humanity of it. Here�s this couple trying to hook up, and they�re a bit awkward and out of practice, but they go for it anyway. And Keat�s descriptions are beautiful. In particular, this passage slayed me: �The new road ran along the ridge, above the old road, which wound down the middle of the valley, the town bulging around it like a rat half digested passing through a snake's belly. Like some day the old road would finally shit the town out, a wet heap of dirty bricks, broken bottles, and unemployed old men.�

�I See You in the Bright Night,� is a gorgeous story of acceptance. I doubt many could include child sexual abuse and pull it off with the amount of class and subtlety Prato did. What makes it work is that the abuse is mere history. The narrator does not define herself by it. Instead of focusing on the past, the story is about acceptance on all levels, and of both main characters. To really see a person and still accept them is a gift, and Prato�s story is a gift in that way.

I fell in love with �Bad Ideas� immediately. I laughed out loud in so many places, the characters are wonderfully, heroically flawed and I loved them both. And in the end Ehle doesn�t tie things up neatly and that works for me.

Miriam Cohen�s �To Cure a Hardened Heart,� takes on both how women deal with aging, and the inevitable separation that starts to occur between mother and daughter when the daughter hits adolescence. The way Cohen does this is totally magical and fresh. There are many, many, emotional layers underneath this amazing, absurd premise.

In �The Golden Dragon Express,� what impressed me was how van den Berg managed to create both a technically exquisite piece and a heap of emotional tension in so few words. For anyone wanting to learn the craft of writing short-shorts, this is a piece to be studied. Complete magic.

Terri Brown-Davidson�s piece �Seven Reece Mews� is also magic for me on many levels. The poetry of her sentences, the fearlessness of her subject matter, and the complexity of her characters. Right from the very first, I had an urge to read her sentences aloud, to hear the musicality of them, but underneath all that beauty is a heartbreaking, humane, rich story.

In Kathy Fish�s �Orlando� I was so hypnotized by the precise, exquisitely crafted sentences, and the richly drawn characters that manage to make seemingly ordinary moments extraordinary that by the end of the story I was completely in love with both characters. Her ending, that photo of the two of them that will never be seen by either of them, ever, is a gift to the reader. It�s like the photo is saying, �We were here, we had this moment, and it was enough.� Isn�t that what we all live for?

In �The Cone of Possibility,� Lambert shows us this wonderful microcosm of people whose lives are difficult and yet they help each other out. There�s something so hopeful about this story, something that says �Nothing, not poverty, not destructive forces of nature, not deep emotional pain, can stop our willingness to care for one another.�

Right away, Elaine Chiew charmed me with her hilarious and at times, heart-wrenching story, �Leng Lui is for Pretty Lady.� I laughed out loud, several times. There�s this terrific cadence and rhythm to Chiew�s voice and I dare anyone to read this passage and not fall in love: �My lot could be worse. It could be like Eliza-Eunice who got spanked in the head with a frying pan because her employer thought she'd stolen thirty-two Hong Kong dollars from an ashtray—Eliza-Eunice who died in the hospital a week later from a bloodclot in her brain caused by a concussion. Even if her employer rots in jail, who do you think is the loser? Lucky for me, Mrs. Kong isn't really too much into using an apparatus to give one a whipping. She likes the knuckle maneuver, a sharp and hard rap to the side of the head. Mr. Kong hardly seems to notice I'm around.�

This incredibly imaginative image of an ex-husband sticking out of a woman�s foot like some sort of splinter, is what made me fall in love with �Splinter.� Purcell writes about letting go, and the strength of friendship, with this fresh magical flair and it works. I loved it from beginning to end.

In Matt Baker�s �The Oldest Story in the World,� the narrator is flawed, knows this, and is about to be tested in ways he knows he shouldn�t be. He�s got this wife at home whom he loves, and who loves him—there�s nothing wrong with their marriage—but he�s in some far-off hotel room with an old girlfriend grieving the loss of a mutual friend, and ultimately grieving the loss of his youth. Like so many writers in this issue, Baker doesn�t flinch from the truth and that�s what gives this piece its magic.

I defy anyone to read Alicia Gifford�s �Back Wash� and not be moved. It�s an incredibly well-crafted story, yes, but where it really shines is in its ability to give us an every-man character in Jake, who�s in dire, desperate need to go outside the glittery box of this life he�s worked to create and connect. I suspect we all have a Jake inside us, this stripped down, aching need to be touched, to be loved, to be considered.

If this issue as a whole had a voice it would say �You and I are impossibly fucked up and I love you.�

Issue 27

Katrina was previously a member of the SmokeLong Quarterly editorial team, including guest editing their Issue Thirteen. She is a four-time Pushcart nominee for her short fiction and her stories can be found in recent issues of New Delta Review, The MacGuffin, SmokeLong Quarterly, Cranky, The Jabberwock Review, REAL, Emrys Journal, elimae, The Emerson Review, and are forthcoming from Confrontation and Passages North. Three of her stories have appeared in STORYGLOSSIA": Here's My Hand, Take It" appeared in Issue 13, "Snake Dreams" was awarded first runner-up in the 2006 STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize contest and appeared in Issue 16. Her story "Honeymoon" appeared in Issue 25.

STORYGLOSSIA authors garner more MWA nominations

2008-03-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

As the nominating process for the Million Writers Award heads into its final week, five more stories from STORYGLOSSIA have received nominations:

The Cabalfish - Benjamin Buchholz
Reading to the Blind Girl - Paula Bomer
Nowhere is Close - A. Ray Norsworthy
Alex Tribeck Doesn't Eat Friend Chicken - Matt Bell
Stories I heard when I went home for my grandmother's funeral - Jamey Genna

And I've made my three Editor's nominations:

Watch the Flashlight Girls Run - Stephanie Dickinson
Darlene Descending - John Allman
The Man in Africa - Michael Davis

Stories from Issues 18-25 are eligible, so if your favorite hasn't been nominated yet, nominations are open until March 31st.

Seth Harwood Hits Top of Amazon Charts

2008-03-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

Booyah! STORYGLOSSIA contributor Seth Harwood's crime novel Jack Wakes Up—first excerpted in Issue 15—has hit Number 1 on Amazon's Mystery Bestseller list!

Keep slaying them Seth!

Seth Harwood Wakes Up

2008-03-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

To help promote the release of his novel Jack Wakes Up (an excerpt—Ralph's House—first appeared in Issue 15), STORYGLOSSIA contributor Seth Harwood is making the entire novel available for free in PDF format:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/sethharwood/JackWakesUp.pdf

So check it out and if you love what you read, help Seth shake Amazon down on Palms Sunday.

Million Writers Award Nominating Season

2008-03-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

storySouth's Million Writers Award is open for nominations for this year's awards. Last year 16 stories published in STORYGLOSSIA received nominations, which ultimately led to STORYGLOSSIA being named best online publication. That recognition was much appreciated and generated more exposure for the 217 writers who have appeared in STORYGLOSSIAs 27 issues.

Although I'd bet against a repeat, STORYGLOSSIA was even better in 2007 than it was in 2006. Following the MWA recognition we were flooded with extremely high-quality submissions. Rather than reject a bunch of great stories because of some artificial limit on how many stories we would publish, STORYGLOSSIA put out three extra issues during the summer of 2007 to showcase the incredible talent that submitted. If you haven't read through all of last year's issues, I urge you to visit the archives, where you will find a stunning collection of short fiction.

Reading through the nominations so far, props to Kevin Hardcastle, whose story An Appointment in Word Riot has seen a cascade of nominations. Such a strong network of fans should do him well if the story makes the notable list. Props also to Eclectica—a journal certainly deserving more recognition—whose fans have been busy nominating just about every story published in the past year.

STORYGLOSSIA has been well represented with ten stories nominated so far, and based on what hasn't been nominated yet, I'm sure there will be more. Nominations are nice, but what I really want to see is that these great stories are being read and that their writers realize a growing readership.

STORYGLOSSIA's nominations so far:

Worm Daddy - Lance Levens
The Ataturk of the Outer Boroughs - Jacob M. Appel
Louder Gospel - Anthony Neil Smith
The Pet Palace - Clifford Garstang
Orange Crush - Myfanwy Collins
Prom - Gina Ventre
Tattooed People - Seth Harwood
Hook - Claudia Smith
Rutting Season - Larry T. Menlove
On the Edge - Barry Graham

Storyglossia Issue 27 published

2008-03-01T22:27:00.000-08:00

STORYGLOSSIA Issue 27, which was guest edited by the awesome Katrina Denza is now up with stories by Claudia Smith, Eugene Cross, Myfanwy Collins, Brandon Keat, Liz Prato, Rob Ehle, Miriam Cohen, Laura van den Berg, Terri Brown-Davidson, Kathy Fish, Gavin S. Lambert, Elaine Chiew, Amy Purcell, Matt Baker, and Alicia Gifford.

Great emotional depth in these challenging stories. Enjoy!

Benjamin Buchholz's The Cabalfish

2008-01-17T11:36:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Buchholz's "The Cabalfish," which appeared in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 22, has also been selected by Dzanc Books for inclusion in their Best of the Web anthology scheduled to publish later this year.

Congratulations to Ben on this recognition for his excellent story and thanks again to Dzanc for supporting online literature and everything they are doing to promote literature and literacy.

Seth Harwood's Tattooed People

2008-01-16T19:41:00.000-08:00

Seth Harwood's "Tattooed People," which appeared in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 18, and received recognition as a notable story in last year's Million Writers Award, has also been selected by Dzanc Books for inclusion in their Best of the Web anthology scheduled to publish later this year. If you want to listen to Seth read the story, just click this listen link or head on over to his podcast at sethharwood.com.

Congratulations to Seth on picking up more recognition for his fab story and thanks to Dzanc for recognizing this story and for all the other great things they are doing to promote literature and literacy.

STORYGLOSSIA Crime Wave

2008-01-14T21:00:00.000-08:00

For STORYGLOSSIA Issue 28 (May 2008) I'm exposing a dirty little secret—my love of crime/noir fiction (movies, too)—and have enlisted Anthony Neil Smith as guest editor to help me deliver a STORYGLOSSIA crime wave.

Some of you may know Neil from his story "Louder Gospel" which appeared in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 21 (check it out if you haven't). But he s also the author of Psychosomatic, The Drummer, and Yellow Medicine and the editor of the re-emergent online noir e-zine Plots With Guns, as well as a few kick-ass crime/noir issues for the Mississippi Review. He's currently a professor of Creative Writing at Southwest Minnesota State University. Loves Louisiana Hot Sauce and Mexican beer. He's already warned you once, which means next time you won't see it coming.

The guidelines for Issue 28 are simple: We're shining our flashlights into the darkness to find what's hiding there. We want hard-hitting crime and noir stories that walk the line between the worlds of literary fiction and genre. Push the envelope, see what pushes back. Word count max: 4000 words (no exceptions).

Neil is reading submissions from January 15th until March 15th with the issue publishing May 1, 2008. See the complete guidelines for submission details and send in your best work.

Storyglossia Issue 25 is up

2007-12-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

STORYGLOSSIA Issue 25—a special issue devoted to flash fiction and short-short stories—is up now.

As those of you who have submitted flash fiction to STORYGLOSSIA over the past couple of years know, I have been a tough critic on flash fiction. Prior to this issue I've only accepted 8 shorter pieces in the previous fifteen issues. Nothing against the form per se, although I must say that a lot that I see published—and certainly this is true for the vast majority of submissions I've received the last two years—just don't work hard enough or take enough risks. Perhaps it's too easy to get them published? Too many online journals with 1000-word or less maximums? Too many writers cranking out short pieces? Certainly there are superb flash fiction venues publishing top-knotch examples of the form and STORYGLOSSIA has no intention of playing in that territory.

So why a flash/short-short issue? Material for one. Guess I threw done the challenge enough times that some writers decided to see if they could break through. So I held some edgy pieces over until I had enough for a full issue.

What excites me about these stories is that the writers are taking risks. Risks with subject matter. Risks with voice. Risks with what the stories say, and what they leave out. All of them fulfill a STORYGLOSSIA prerequisite: a heart's cusp, an emotional wound, sometimes foregrounded, sometimes lurking in the back capillaries of meaning, but always present and causing a hitch in the breathing.

Enjoy! And if you're fidgeting in your chair as you read these, all the better!

STORYGLOSSIA Reopens to New Submissions

2007-12-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

STORYGLOSSIA is open again for new submissions. The guidelines have changed, so be sure to read them over before submitting. We are currently reading submissions for Issue 27 (March 2008) which is being guest edited by Katrina Denza.

Katrina's story "Here's My Hand, Take It" appeared in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 13 and her story "Snake Dreams" was awarded first runner-up in the 2006 STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize contest and appeared in Issue 16. Her story "Honeymoon" is upcoming in Issue 25, which is a special flash fiction issue scheduled to publish December 15th.

She is a four-time Pushcart nominee for her short fiction and her stories can be found in recent issues of New Delta Review, The MacGuffin, SmokeLong Quarterly, Cranky, The Jabberwock Review, REAL, Emrys Journal, elimae, The Emerson Review, and are forthcoming from Confrontation and Passages North.

Katrina was previously a member of the SmokeLong Quarterly editorial team, including guest editing their Issue Thirteen, and STORYGLOSSIA is excited to have her editing our Issue 27!

Read the guidelines and send her your best work.

Storyglossia's Pushcart Nominations

2007-11-16T19:25:00.000-08:00

With 67 stories published so far this year in STORYGLOSSIA choosing six to nominate for the Pushcart Prize was difficult. The task was made somewhat easier because I've heard through the grapevine that a few other stories are being nominated by Pushcart consulting editors. After considerable thought I settled on a couple of nominating criteria I wanted to emphasize this year: pushing the boundaries of convention and reflecting the current state of our culture. And, of course, they wouldn't be in STORYGLOSSIA if they didn't also deliver an emotional kicker. So here they are, this year's Pushcart nominees:

�The Man in Africa� by Michael J. Davis, Issue 18, February 2007
�Keeping Up Disappearances� by Darby Harn, Issue 19, April 2007
�Dr. Mechanic� by Sabrina Tom, Issue 20, June 2007
"Worm Daddy� by Lance Levens, Issue 22, August 2007
�Watch The Flashlight Girls Run� by Stephanie Dickinson, Issue 23, September 2007
�Stories I heard when I went home for my grandmother�s funeral� by Jamey Genna, Issue 24, October 2007

Good work and congratulations to all of you!

Storyglossia Issue 24 is live

2007-10-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

STORYGLOSSIA Issue 24 is out with ten new stories by Jamey Genna, Barry Graham, Donna Vitucci, Janet Freeman, Patricia Abbott, Mikael Covey, Joseph Kim, Aimee Marcucilli, Jessica Colomb, and Bruce Overby. Enjoy!

Shhh!

2007-09-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

The STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize Issue is live, so get busy reading!

Storyglossia Fiction Prize 2007 results

2007-09-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

The winner of the STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize for 2007 is:

Stephanie Dickinson for "Watch the Flashlight Girls Run"

First prize is $1000 and publication in Issue 23. The following finalists receive $50 and their stories will also appear in the prize issue:

Matt Bell for "Alex Trebeck Never Eats Fried Chicken"
Lydia R. Cooper for "My Brother, the Snakes, and Me"
Elizabeth Farnum for "Turtle Eggs"
Larry T. Menlove for "Rutting Season"

You'll have a chance to read these great stories on September 15th when the Fiction Prize issue goes live.

Worm Daddy

2007-08-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up STORYGLOSSIA Issue 22 is Lance Leven's madcap romp "Worm Daddy."

Lance Levens has published in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Adirondack Review and other magazines. He has a chap book coming out this winter with The Puddle House press.

STORYGLOSSIA Submission Update

2007-08-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

STORYGLOSSIA will close to new submissions on September 15th and reopen for submissions December 1st with new guidelines.

Submissions are currently being read for inclusion in Issue 24 (October) and Issue 25 (December).

Responses will start going out shortly to those who sent in regular submissions while the Fiction Prize contest was open.

If you entered the Fiction Prize contest and haven't already received notification, I'm sorry to say your story was not selected for publication. Contest results will be announced September 1st.

Feels like the First Time

2007-08-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

One more writer seeing his first published story appear in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 22 is Brian Kornell with his story "This Time it Will Be Different." Jason is conflicted with doubts and regret about his past actions, his girlfriend is pregnant, and then he finds those words etched over and over into a door. What's he going to do?

Brian Kornell lives with his wife in Cleveland, OH, but will soon be moving to pursue an MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Brian's blog, briankornell.blogspot.com, is currently searching for a name.

Catalog Fever

2007-08-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

Time for some flash fiction in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 22: Here's "Bounty" by Thomas Cooper.

Thomas Cooper is a PhD student in the creative writing program at Florida State University. He has fiction and nonfiction forthcoming in Pikeville Review, Johnny America, Southeast Review, and Duck and Herring Literary Field Guide, among other places. Additionally, he has won several awards for his fiction, including the 2003 Suncoast Writer's award and both the 2002 Edgar Hirshberg and 2003 Ruth Coleman awards, each given to one graduate student at University of South Florida annually for his or her efforts in fiction writing.