I’m pleased to announce that I’ve published my first book on Amazon Kindle, GRANDMA MESSNER’S MEMORIES OF ALZHEIMER’S.

GRANDMA MESSNER’S MEMORIES OF ALZHEIMER’S echoes the disconnected recollections of a family matriarch as the filters of her life are lifted, casting her on a metaphysical journey amidst several generations of her relatives as they seek to reconstruct her collective meaning.

My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease, and this novella is a series of short stories and poetic passages written from her point of view as well as that of various family members, nurses, and fellow Alzheimer’s patients.

You can buy Grandma Messner’s Memories of Alzheimer’s from Amazon.com for only $0.99.

There are no restrictions on it, so you can download it onto anything you want (Kindle, computer, iPhone, etc.), transfer it between various devices, or do whatever you want with it, plus hopefully read it.

Here’s the opening chapter for your reading pleasure:

GRANDMA MESSNER’S MEMORIES OF ALZHEIMER’S

1

When she was young, Elizabeth counted the beads of her rosary endlessly. She uttered prayers to the rhythm of her heartbeat — slowly and surely, but slightly stuttered — with an irregularity that followed her beyond her Hail Marys through the repetitions of her life.

The abnormality of her heart hovered above her on the bus when she was fourteen as her mother told the tragedy of their life to unwitting strangers. Elizabeth would cry later at home alone, because hearing the stories in public made them truer, but there in the uncomfortable seats, she just stared out the dirty windows at the streets going by, the same two-story brick houses, grimy gas stations and bars she saw every day on their way to St. Mary’s church where her mother brought her to pray for her soul.

Her unpredictable heartbeat followed her into the pews, where every third syllable of her Our Fathers fluttered off her lips. Her mother filled in the spaces with her moans, calling for the curse that had caused the affliction of her daughter’s heart to stagger and loosen its grip. She chanted healing hymnals next to Elizabeth, but no cure would come, not for years later when she finally learned how to forget.

It was later, after they had returned by bus and Elizabeth had helped her walk the six blocks home, when her mother made her count the walnut rosary. In her bedroom alone, she sat stammering until sundown when her mother called her for dinner at the wooden table that rose to her shoulders as she sat square to it. It was there that Elizabeth finally relaxed while she spooned steaming stew which stilled her lips as she blew over it.

That was one thing that never changed about her mother: her cooking; because when she stood at her stove, she was back in Italy before the war, back with her sisters and parents whom Elizabeth had never met. There, within the foggy-windowed sanctuary of the kitchen, she was home again in Salerno; she had never left, and her husband, Elizabeth’s father, had never died.

This is where Elizabeth loved and where she felt love, so she counted her rosary silently within the simmering prayers of her mother’s herbs, waiting to forget.

End chapter 1

If you enjoyed this, please check out the rest on Amazon Kindle.

If you haven’t tried Amazon Kindle and want to publish your book, it’s a free and easy alternative to publishing online.

Thank you very much, and as always, please feel free to leave comments below, whether they’re good, bad, or ugly.

Every writer who encloses their words into an envelop and sends them off to agents, editors, and publishers must learn to face the eventual return of a rejection letter.

Rejection letters come in many shapes and sizes, but they are mostly form letters with little personality, which is wise, as there is danger in treading the emotional waters of rejection.

If an editor ever chooses to grace your rejection letter with actual handwritten words, or if the gods are willing, a bit of inspiration or encouragement, then you must not consider that to be a letter of rejection, as human contact within a rejection letter is actually a form of victory.

However, most rejection letters are short and apologetic, and they usually point to the massive influx of new authors they receive every day as the reason your work could not be considered, which is really disconcerting if you understand that to mean that there are just too many people with more talent than you.

If you think about it, the very idea of the rejection letter is unique to writers alone, as other unknown artists are simply allowed to go unnoticed and are not directly subjected to a written form of deliberate rejection.

Not many budding rock stars would jam in dimly-lit bar stages if they knew they would actually receive a direct rejection from the audience after the show and not just be ignored, although it’s true that writers don’t usually have to worry about beer bottles flying at them while they’re writing.

How you handle your rejection letter is the most important aspect of the publishing process, as it could easily discourage you from otherwise pursuing your art.

At first glance, it’s easy to feel slighted. I mean, you spend years putting together your novel of over 400 pages, you slave over the crafting of every sentence exchange until the words bleed into your eyes off the page, and then you take the care to send a perfect copy to an editor or agent, only to have it dismissed summarily without so much the decency to even sign a name onto the rejection letter.

It’s enough for any writer to want to self-publish their work, but we must dismiss rejection letters as easily as they dismiss our work, because it’s just business.

It’s a numbers game, and it’s the writers job to submit our work to as many valid markets as possible, and it’s the publishing industry’s job to filter out what is viable for publication.

Of course, we may not agree with their opinion, but it’s how you disagree that makes you stronger.

Don’t write your editor back denouncing their knowledge of literature or demanding they reconsider your work. First of all, that’s crazy behavior, and second of all, maybe you didn’t deserve consideration at this time and you need to look further into your writing.

Just keep writing and accept your rejection letters for what they are, an initiation into the secret society of people who tell stories in isolation and invite others to listen.

Rejection letters are a symbol of your loyalty to your art. They are as important as your writing itself, because without them, you are only a diarists.

So keep writing, work harder, and continue submitting your work for approval, because without running the risk of receiving another rejection letter, you are removing the possibility that you will one day be published.

Article originally published by The MAG Zine.

Science fiction writers have a variety of publishing opportunities, and there seems to be an ever-revolving door at the sci-fi conventions bringing in new readers.

If you’ve been polishing up your science fiction manuscript until it’s as fierce as The Sword of Kahless, then it’s time to submit your story to these science fiction magazines.

These sci-fi magazines accept new authors, but they have also published some of the best science fiction writers working today, so submit your best writing and edit it to the bone.

Review this Manuscript Preparation Guide to make sure you’re formatting your manuscript professionally and also review the submission guidelines for each magazine closely, as nothing will get your writing tossed in the trash quicker than ignoring the editor’s requirements.

If you haven’t written in the science fiction genre before, then you should definitely consider taking an adventure, as it’s not all alien battalions and laser beams.

Many science fiction magazines are looking for character-driven stories that have some element of science fiction to them, so it’s a great way for literary writers who hope to touch on the human experience to expand their arsenal, and good science fiction authors can always find a market, which isn’t necessarily true in other genres.

It’s also a good idea to subscribe to these magazines or to at least purchase one or two issues to see the type of writing they tend to publish.

Analog

Analog Submission Guidelines

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Fantasy & Science Fiction Submission Guidelines

Asimov’s Science Fiction

Asimov’s Science Fiction Submission Guidelines

Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest

Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest Submission Guidelines

Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine

Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine Submission Guidelines

Publish your science fiction stories in these magazines, and the fans will follow.

Just be careful of the characters you create, as they may come back to haunt you, literally.