kaylaiswriting

Pages

I made it a goal this semester to complete a full first draft of my manuscript for the novel.   I started the semester with about fifty pages of material.  Decided to write ten pages a week.

Currently, I have about 160 novel pages total.  I’ve stuck to this 10-page-a-week goal so far; there are four weeks left to the semester.

I am not ashamed to say I struggle with sadness.  And need reminding that I can still make things.

2015 has been kind: January in San Francisco, March in New Orleans, April in Minneapolis.  And the novel, though it feels like a mess, is at least a mess with some kindly discernible edges.

“Chimp” in Tahoma Literary Review

This final day of 2014 just so happens to denote the launch of Tahoma Literary Review volume 1 issue 2, which includes my short story, “Chimp,” on page 75! There’s also a recorded reading of the story.

Not a bad way to end the year, I gotta say.

Creative nonfiction

Over the summer, an essay of mine about my Nana, “Coronation of Mrs. Presley,” was published in print in Soundings Review‘s Spring/Summer 2014 issue.

presley

Yesterday, another of my creative nonfiction pieces, “Still Writing About Grief,” was published online in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg review!  It’s live on their website now, and so is my “Selfie Interview,” y’all.

Gesture//Monsters//Animals

Gesture Literary Journal published my short story, “When the Animals Turned on You,” today in their “Monsters” issue, available online here.  I wrote it last semester for a class on American Gothic, and I plan to incorporate it into the beginning of my novel.

Yesterday, Gesture invited me to read at their “Monsters” launch party in Fort Collins, Colorado…digitally!  It was a strangely lovely experience, reading from my apartment via Skype while sippin’ PBR.