Jennifer Marie Brissett

I heard Tim Seibles read his poem “Midnight, the Coyote, Down in the Mouth” at one of my grad school residencies. I sat there listening and unbelieving my ears. Was he talking about “The” Coyote? Yes, he was. And beautifully, too. I never thought of the Coyote as an existential being before. I suppose if you were living his life you would have to be ... Meep!

Recently the story Singularity Knocks by fellow Stonecoaster Will Ludwigsen was published on the podcast site Drabblecast. That reminded me that another story by another Stonecoaster was published on the site also. The story was The Second Conquest of Earth by L.J. Daly. Check them out and Enjoy!

I’m newly MFA’d and am supposedly a professional writer now. Yay for me! Only my instructors tell me that I was always a writer. It was the confidence thing that was getting in the way. A little hard to hear, but I know it’s true.

So what’s gonna happen now? Who knows? And that’s okay. I learned that from writing.

You can plan. You can organize. But the story will go its own way. If you’re smart, you will follow the flow while believing that you will reach your ultimate destination. I believe in my work. I know I can write. Now it’s time TO write.

Put pen tuh papah!!

That is my goal. I’m working on my second book while shopping around my first.

Life is good!

2011 has started and I’m nervous. So many people said they were glad 2010 was over and that it was horrible. I didn’t think so. I felt blessed. If only because the years before 2010 were so awful, it made last year seem really great. Now the new year has begun and the challenges before me are considerable. I’m a bit scared. I’m working on a new novel that is just wacked out crazy. I kind of love it, but wonder how others will react. That’s not something one can control, a wise teacher once said to me. I accept that. All I can do is write with love. Put all my imagination, craft, and skill into it and hope for the best.

I’ll be attending my final MFA residency at the end of the week. I’m excited and sad about it. I can’t help but think of graduation and the end of the program for me. I’ve loved every moment of my Stonecoast experience, even the hard parts. I think I’m a better writer for it. Well, at least I hope so. Anyway, that’s were I’m at: scared and hopeful for the new year…

I sold the flash fiction piece that I wrote in Ireland. It was also my first story that I read in public. It was Jim Kelly’s idea that we write a flash fiction piece of 1,000 words or less overnight for presentation in the workshop the next day—with our names removed! We would crit the story and then try to guess who wrote it. There was only 5 of us. I got all of them wrong (what a weenie.) But I did end up writing an interesting piece. In the heat of the moment it came to me. Jim had suggested that we limit it to 3 characters and a single setting. While he was saying that the mail carrier appeared at the door delivering something. I got the image and that was it. The result was “Ashes” soon to be published in Halfway Down the Stairs (September 2010) in the forthcoming Beginnings and Ends issue. It’s not a speculative fiction piece. Which is all right with me.

Also, when I submitted to Duotrope that I made the sale, this appeared on my control panel:

Acceptance ratio for the past 12 months: 10.34 %
Congratulations! Your overall acceptance ratio is higher than the average for users who have submitted to the same markets.

Pretty cool, huh?