It’s new fiction day! A short story set in the Melanie!verse that I wrote back in 2013 back when I thought I might try to sell Melanie as part of a chapbook with other Greek myths. It’s weird to think that when I wrote it the idea was still relatively fresh but now in 2018 you can find whole blogs and magazines dedicated to fairy tale and myth retellings.

I suppose I could try to sell it somewhere but it is very Toronto-centric and the Venn diagram of (Greek Myth (Retellings) Toronto Navel Gazing) yields fewer results than you might suppose but this here blag happens to be at the very centre! Plus it is currently very hot out and the story features an amusing use of the word ‘humidex’ (which none of my spell-checkers will accept) so it is all timely and I can spend more time drinking cold drinks without worrying about condensation on my laptop. Enjoy!

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In other news, I have finally redone the query letter to Creampuffs. I’ve thrown out everything that makes it sound like a romance and shifted the focus to the relationship between the siblings, which is the actual focus of the book. I’m hoping it sounds more zany adventures and less rom-com/YA now, because it is definitely none of those things and having it thrown in the romance/rom-com/YA bucket of publishing doesn’t do it any favours. I’ve still got some time to tweak it before Pitch Wars, but it feels like a solid draft. (Fingers crossed.)

Next week we’ll have a guest post for Things I Wish People Asked Me At Parties, so keep an eye out for that on the 15th.