Published in SPANK the CARP 2023 February Issue

As promised, I have a publication update for the month. My story “The Temple Fish” has been published in the February 2023 issue of SPANK the CARP literary journal.

If you listen to the DPW Podcast, you’ve no doubt heard me mention how I had a story accepted and was waiting for it to get published to make my announcement. Well, here’s my announcement! I’m sure the name SPANK the CARP piqued your interest. After all, it’s not every day you stumble across a fish pond-themed literary journal.

When I heard about SPANK the CARP I thought it was a goof. Like a satire site or something. And while they do publish humorous pieces, I was excited to see that they also publish more serious things. In fact, I would bet most of their stuff leans toward the serious side of things. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to submit.

Now I won’t lie to you, the sole (like the fish, ha!) reason I submitted was that I happened to have an older story with ‘fish’ in the title. How could I get rejected!? As it turns out, I didn’t. The Temple Fish actually doesn’t deal with fish much. It’s a pseudo-philosophical story that’s closer to a nature piece than an actual story. Though, I did feel it fit SPANK’s style. And again, I was right.

I won’t yammer on and on about the journal or my story. If you’re really interested you’ve probably gone and read it already. By the way, if you have read it, I would greatly appreciate it if you voted for it. The more votes my story gets the more likely it is to end up in one of their print anthologies, which is what I really want. Anyway, it feels good to know I’m taking the right steps on this writing journey. I mean, what’s the point of writing if nobody cares enough to read your work? Well, I can say I don’t have that problem anymore. And that’s a big win in my book.

Cheers!