I’m by no means a prankster (unless you count the time I tried to convince a stranger I had diplomatic immunity to local laws, which seemed like a great idea until she asked for my license and registration), so I’m not going to pull your leg with some false news here.  After all, I have no idea what your medical history is like; your leg might come clean off, and then I’d be stuck with some horror-film version of the “Major Award” from A Christmas Story.

So instead of tempting fate with a good-natured lie, I’m going to give you some real news:  two pieces of it, in fact, because today is a holiday, and this is how we’re going to celebrate.

Firstly, I recently sold a story to The Binge-Watching Cure, an anthology designed to relieve people of their Netflix addictions by getting them to read again.  “The Final Chapter of Marathon Mandy” (which I wrote way back in September of 2012) should be published sometime later this year.

Secondly, let’s talk about “The Black Clover Equation.”  This is another one I wrote in 2012 (August, in this case), and it only ever made the submission-rounds at a few markets before I forgot about it, leaving it to decompose in my trunk of cringe-inducing unsold fiction.  But something made me dig it up in 2015, and after just barely failing to sell it to Unidentified Funny Objects 4 (possibly because I sold editor Alex Shvartsman a different story:  “Champions of Breakfast”), I promptly got distracted by something and let my weird little tale of good and bad luck sink to the bottom of my trunk once more.

This brings us to late last year, when I got word that Flash Fiction Online was itchin’ for some humor stories.  FFO was the site of my first-ever fiction sale (professional or otherwise), so I dug up “The Black Clover Equation” and sent it on its way.

Now, about five years after that first publication, I’ve returned to FFO.  “The Black Clover Equation” went up today, and you can read it here.

Part of me feels like I should celebrate the occasion with a wild and crazy party.  After all, today’s a holiday, and if the neighbors complain about the noise, it’s okay–I’ve got diplomatic immunity.

-Z

EDIT:  Because I’m an idiot (or maybe just because I’m bad at updating my site–but more likely both), I’ve forgotten until now to mention that “The Final Chapter of Marathon Mandy” is not my first sale of the year:  I’ve also sold a piece of flash fiction called “Tessa and the Troll” to Galaxy’s Edge.  This will be my second publication in Galaxy’s Edge (the first being “Tomorrow’s Forecast,” from issue #20), and I can’t wait to see this lighthearted humor tale appear in the pages of Mike Resnick’s magazine.