Hot! Hot! Hot! Rejections; Indiana Basketball

 It remains too bloody hot.

Yesterday, I made it to church. That was about as far as I got outside. Did I go to the convenience store for anything? I forget.

I did talk to Joel C for a few minutes - that was after my nap. He is sending me one of his stories.

During and after dinner, I worked on adding my prison journal to this blog. I also drafted a few other posts.

Nothing submitted, but I scheduled some submissions for next month. Need to get back into that game.

I finally got email under control - only to lose it a little tonight.

Work about killed me today. More damage done throwing out trash. The worse problem was a serious pain in my stomach. That woke me earlier than the alarm clock. Whatever was troubling me, I think has passed.

More work on the prison journal, but no laundry done. I have some sort of rash around both ankles. Walking hurts. I managed to get to the post office and to the convenience store.

Stuff from the emails, my rejections:

Thank you for your interest in Leavings. If this is a submission of poetry, prose, art, or photography, we look forward to engaging with your work!

While we try to respond to all submissions, we are a team of volunteers with limited resources. Because of this, please consider your work as no longer under consideration if you do not hear back from us within a year. Of course, we encourage you to resubmit whenever you are ready to do so.

Thank you for your understanding and patience. We hope you are well.

Sincerely,

Leavings

Leavings Literary Magazine

www.leavingslitmag.com

***

Dear writer,

Thank you again for taking the time to submit your story to LIT Magazine. We realize that we're taking well over our estimated six months to notify you of our decision. Please know that at this time we are facing a large backlog of submissions, and with a very small team of volunteers, we are moving through submissions as fast as we can. 

If you have not yet heard from us, please be assured that we have NOT lost your submission. It is still in the queue and we will read it as soon as we're able.  

As always, feel free to submit your work simultaneously to other publications, and remember to withdraw it from our queue if accepted elsewhere. We look forward to reading your work and thank you again for your patience.

Warmly,

Lauren and John

LIT Magazine Fiction Editors

Okay, that was not a rejection.

About Indiana basketball, Hoops in the Heartland: How Indiana Got Basketball Fever (Midstory)

At the time, Indiana had a weak sports scene. Both baseball and football, popular sports at the time, required ten or more people to field competitive teams. Indiana, a predominantly agricultural and rural state, had tiny schools that could not support big teams. 

“What makes [basketball] different than, say, football is you have to have five guys or girls. That’s it. You know, not 11,” Matt Martin, executive director of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, said.

Basketball also supported the existing farm culture in Indiana, with the season played in the winter when little farm work needed to be done. So when temperatures plummeted and dwindled, Hoosiers were all too happy to hit the court. 

In Naismith’s words, “Basketball may have been invented in Massachusetts, but it was made for Indiana.” 

***

As basketball gained popularity, the spectator count began to climb. Especially in rural Indiana, where there was not much else to do in the cold winter, Friday night basketball became part of the social fabric. Games became a time for townspeople to meet, have fun and root for their own. 

In 1911, the IHSAA established the Indiana High School State Tournament. By the 1920s, more than 600 teams would compete in a winner-takes-all bracket to be the Indiana state champion. Each win mattered, and rivalries began to take shape. High schools would compete with each other to build the best courts — today, 13 of the 15 biggest high school arenas in the country are located in Indiana. Rich fans would reward coaches and players with cash, and coaches who saw a tall boy with talent would sometimes even recruit them by offering their parents a job in their school district. 

From Monday:

 Thomas Kemp is still missing - my latest rejection of "Thomas Kemp Went Missing" came from Necessary Fiction:

Thanks for sending "Thomas Kemp Went Missing" our way for our October spooky series. We appreciate your interest in publishing with Necessary Fiction but unfortunately this piece isn't quite for us. We're sorry for not being able to reply more personally, but sometimes the number of submissions makes that difficult. We wish you the best of luck placing this piece elsewhere.

Best,

NF

And with that I am done with the blog for the night.

I thought it was going to rain today. No such luck.

sch