Tag Archive: short stories

FICTION: Storms

As I blogged previously, this story first appeared in Boston Literary Magazine. Now you can read it here. It’s called Storms, and like a piece I’ll be posting on Halloween called The Symphony, it’s about war. I don’t know why I have two flash fiction pieces about war, but I do. I had just got done reading Cormac McCarthy’s brilliant The Road, and wanted to see if I could steal elements of its style and make them my own, purely to challenge myself. This is the result. Enjoy. (This also appears in a previously mentioned but as yet unpublished collection of short fiction I’ve put together.) STORMS By Eric San Juan A week in a trench. Mud. Every little while a machine gun barked. Chattering…
Read more

Thinking about doing some self-publishing, part 2

Yesterday I posted about self-publishing a local history book. Niche works like that are ideal candidates for self-publishing. An author with the will and skill can more effectively reach his or her target audience than a publisher, even a specialty publisher, and be more financially successful with it in the process. Yet that’s not what prompted me to start yesterday’s post, so let me pick up where I left off: I’m thinking of self-publishing some fiction. A short story collection or three. Digitally. My thought is, why not? These days print outlets for short fiction are few and far between. Most are already digital, and many are fly-by-night. Short story collections are generally only viable for established authors. While I’ll have a second book out…
Read more

50-word fiction: The Machines

My Jersey journalist-in-arms John Saccenti put together a little 50-word fiction contest on Facebook. Had a few moments to spare and thought, why not? So, at exactly 50 words, here is my entry: THE MACHINES We forgot to unplug them. And so the Machines fell upon us while we slept, a storm of metal and gears filling the sky like so much angry cloud. With scraping and thunder and screaming and wheels, wheels, wheels, the Machines tore into us, and all were turned to meat. Fin

Putting together a short story collection

Well, sort of putting together a short story collection. It’s just going to be for me and a few select people, you see. But I’ll still be excited to have this stuff in a nice printed package, even if only to put the stories behind me and get cracking on new work. See, it’s like this. I’ve dabbled a small bit in short stories over the last 10 years. Not as much as I’d like — there will be about 15 stories included in this collection, give or take — but enough to have amassed a good little stack of them. Some have been accepted for publication. Most have not. One was adapted into a comic. Most I’ve just been sitting on. But in 2010,…
Read more

Sometimes they say yes (aka Eric “sells” a story)

It’s funny that I just recently blogged about rejection letters, because over the weekend I got the opposite of a rejection when Boston Literary Magazine accepted a story I wrote called “Storms”. It’s a short short delving into the mind of a soldier about to fight the Battle of the Somme. I look forward to being able to link to it so you folks can read it. You’d think after my long gap from blogging I’d have more to say, but no. No, I don’t. It’s been a busy, hectic time, but none of it worth talking about. I am now trying to fix my laptop, because without it my writing grinds to a halt. So there is that. Tomorrow I will post more preview…
Read more