“Ghost Dancer” Now Up at The Writer’s Eye


She shelved books like an accusation…

Yesterday I came back from lunch (one should always go out to lunch on Halloween, especially if one is dressed as a princess) to a lovely acceptance letter (few acceptance letters are not lovely) from Amber at The Writer’s Eye. This pro-rate online magazine is celebrating its first year of publication. As a writer who loves to dabble in other creative outlets form time to time, I found The Writer’s Eye an interesting venue. All submissions must be accompanied by a jpeg file — a photograph or piece of art also by the author, specifically illustrating the story or poem.

I don’t have as much time as I’d like for art anymore, but those of you who’ve friended me on Facebook know my passion for photography. As it happened, "Ghost Dancer" was inspired by a photograph taken by

, when I visited his new SF digs and automatically took over organizing his new, fabulous bookcase (shelving books is just muscle memory at this point). With Nick’s permission I monkeyed with the photo a bit, giving it the same sense of eeriness and mystery as the flash piece, and submitted it. Then, like most submissions, I promptly forgot about it.

Amber apologized for the lateness of the acceptance, following it up with "…and the new issue will be going live tomorrow." Hah! That kind of promptness I have nooooo problem with. Instant publication. I do love the internet.

[Pop-Up Trivia: the first line of "Ghost Dancer" is actually a joke. Earlier this summer, Nick graciously let me try my hand at reading slush — the only kind of editing I *don’t* do. The first two lines of two completely unrelated stories involved the main character doing something "like an accusation," and in neither occurrence did it seem natural. "Hah!" I told him. "I’m going to write a story with that in the first line too." And so I did.]

[Pop-Up Trivia 2: the word "ersatz" appeared on my GRE. I had no idea what it meant. Thanks to Lemony Snicket, I do now.]

"She danced in front of the TV like an accusation, spinning and swaying and butt-wiggling in the space between his monitor and the television. The bottoms of her white socks were gray with the dust and dog hair hidden in the ersatz wood grain of the laminate floor. She wrote a secret code into the steps, much in the way of bees, scolding him for squandering her brief visit and reminding her, even a little bit, of another man who had squandered her soul from behind a similar flat screen."

Read the rest of "Ghost Dancer" here.