The PO Visits, Art Show

 And it is Thursday.

Rejections coming in:

Thank you for letting us read your story, "Learning The Passion and Control Twist." Unfortunately, we are not able to accept it for publication at this time. This does not mean that your story is without merit. We receive thousands of submissions each year, and unfortunately, we must reject many fine stories.

We wish you the best in placing it elsewhere.

Best Wishes,

The Fiction Editors

Bayou Magazine

From The Colored Lens:

Thank you for considering us, but we're going to pass on this one. We enjoyed the world-building and noir-like style, but we wanted to get into the plot a bit sooner.

I wish you well in placing this piece elsewhere.

 And another for a different story:

Thank you for submitting your work, "Coing Home." Regretfully, we cannot find a place for it in our upcoming issue, but we wish you the best of luck placing it elsewhere.

At Epiphany we are committed to evaluating every submission we receive thoughtfully and respectfully. Many issues factor into every decision we make either to publish a piece or pass on it, from its consonance or dissonance with other work we've accepted to the simple issue of personal preference, which cannot be anything but subjective. To familiarize yourself with the work we do (and some of the work we've loved best), please check out our website or subscribe to our print magazine.

We value long relationships with the writers and artists who entrust us with their work, and hope you’ll keep us in mind for other submissions in the future.

To keep up to date with Epiphany, join our newsletter or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X, Bluesky, Threads.

Sincerely,

The Editors

Bringing back memories: Not fooling anyone: this storage facility in Anderson used to be…  (Hiding in Plain Sight)

Is there any retail presence more anachronistic than Kmart these days? Once a titan of American shopping, Kmarts dotted the landscape from coast to coast! Their bright red “K” logos beckoned families in for everything from clothes and toys to lawn furniture and layaway deals. Unfortunately, times have changed. Competitors modernized, consumer habits shifted, and one by one, the familiar blue-light specials faded into memory. 

From a prior draft:  The Chili of the Tzadik Nistar (Conjunctions) by Evan Hannon is brilliant. I wish I had the heart to write such a story. 

The PO came up and upset my schedule for writing. The new computer is not set up, nor does he need to be present for doing so. He is to send me a message when I can set up the new machine.

I went to see the doctor. My A1C is down, which is good news. 

Then I partook of Muncie's First Thursday. That got me to see MadJax for  the first time, and then to Cornerstone for a display of local art. I left with a bracelet for CC and a print for myself. The art was so much better than what I saw at Ball State - these artists are striving to be creative, with results that were not insipid.

So, back here, I looked up some things for CC. Then started on cleaning out the email and eating my dinner. Vegetable soup in the crock pot. Not bad.

I suppose a person in my position should not be reading What Is Sex? Ask a Boomer, a Millennial, and a Gen Z and They’ll All Say Something Different (The Walrus). Well, screw that nonsense. The group sessions have gotten the feeling that I have lived my life in a deviant way. That is, I should have been looking at every woman as a possible acquisition, and I was supposed to be treating them with my tongue hanging out and drooling over every female form. Well, I didn't, and I am too old to start now. Reading the essay, I find my feelings about the group sessions validated. That porn flicks have changed how people interact with one another. That they lead to objectifying people and emotions. So, if they're objectifying people, then of course acquisition follows. I grew up finding porn flicks silly, not a documentary. KH and I have talked about this - we had Penthouse Forum and Xaveria Hollander's books; the former more fantasy than the latter, but not nearly as fantastical as a porn flick. I read a long time ago that Americans read The Kama Sutra as a technical manual, while the Indians read it as a spiritual guide. Sex is spiritual, not rote. Being together with another human involves something more like the improvisation of jazz than the rigidity of computer code.

And there I end today

sch