Haunted Words Press!
I got another exciting email on November 10, 2023 from Haunted Words Press.
“Hi Amy,
Thank you so much for submitting Baba Yaga and the Water of Life to Issue Six: Ghoulish Grimoires. We absolutely adore it and are so glad you sent it through our inbox, and we’d love to publish it in our upcoming issue!
If you’d still like to continue with us and have Baba Yaga and the Water of Life published in Issue Six, please let us know as soon as you can so that we can get it into the issue and out to the world!
If that’s the case, then here’s what we’ll need from you now:
· A 50-100 word third person bio about yourself to include in the issue - if already included in your original submission, please double check it to make sure it’s all correct!
· If not included in your bio, then we’d love to add your socials at the end of the issue if you’re comfortable with it, so that people know where to find you and keep up with all your awesome work
· A picture of you (if you’re comfortable with it!) for our Contributor Spotlight posts once the issue is published
· A three word summary of your piece! The template we’d like you follow is: AUDIENCE | GENRE | THEME (for example: MG | HORROR | POSSESSION)
Thank you so much again for trusting us with your work, we can’t wait to get it into Issue Six and share it with the world! We hope you have an incredible and spooky day!
Best,
Haunted Words Press :)”
It was my second accepted short story for publication and my first short story to be published. I had just received a personal rejection on October 22, from Cast of Wonders whose main comments was: “We liked Zelda's arc, but as a whole we felt this story read a little young in places.” Since Cast of Wonders is a YA market, I specifically searched for MG markets I thought would be a good fit for my story which is how I found out that Haunted Words Press was looking for MG stories about witches and other such characters.
The idea behind the story came from several sources. First and foremost, this is a story about loss. On May 19, 2020, my dad died of a heart related issue. It was unexpected and plunged me and my family into a world of uncertainty, principally how to take care of my mom who had advanced dementia and losing a husband made her even more confused, angry, frightened, and upset. Mom’s name was Zelda and I always thought it sounded unique and from a different time.
Another source was a proposed anthology surrounding the interesting character, Baba Yaga. I didn’t craft the story fast enough to submit to that market, but I did submit it to quarter one of WOTF’s Volume 39 where it received a rejection with comments. Looking back at that result and seeing the comment I received from Cast of Wonders, I think it is because the story is more midgrade than YA and WOTF stories need to be at least YA [no younger].
Baba Yaga made me think of Orson Scott Card’s book: Enchantment which I read as a PhD candidate and features a similar character. I also did some research into the different iterations of Baba Yaga and ran across the concept that she is said to guard the water of life.
I was learning how to craft endings from Wulf Moon and Baba Yaga is a type of frame story. I’m proud of how the ending ties in with the beginning. I won’t say any more because I don’t want to spoil the story.
I shared the story with various folks and was surprised that my second major advisor, Dr. Curt Lively, enjoyed the story enough to ask for more. I met Curt at Indiana University and joined his lab in the 1990s as a Master of Arts Student. His research focuses on the Red Queen hypothesis [among other things] and how that may help understand why we have males and sexual reproduction. And yes, it’s the same Red Queen in Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. The one who runs around in circles and can never catch up with herself.
"Baba Yaga and the Water of Life" was published November 25 in Haunted Words Press Issue Six: Ghoulish Grimoires. Not only is it available for free in an e-zine, but it will be my first story to appear in a printed anthology [see picture below].
