My Broken but Undaunted is part of a promotion via BookFunnel that’s featuring short works.

I think it’s the only collection in the group, but don’t quote me on that!

My mom was a big fan of short stories. She repeatedly took a class via our local Osher program (well, one of them, as both Pitt and Carnegie Mellon have their own) that was all about short stories. And she wasn’t wrong; short stories are an art form of their own. When you take creative writing classes at the university (or graduate) level, that’s one of the first things that becomes blatantly apparent.

Now, this promo features a lot of novellas which are, again, their own art form. More complex than short stories, less complex than a novel. They can have subplots or not; it’s all a matter of what the piece demands and the skill of the reader.

So I’m glad to be part of this promotion. I love that it’s about short work.

But there’s one other thing that has me excited to be part of this: It’s multi-genre. And that means exploration is imminent.

I went and explored what was on offer. I downloaded a bunch of books, and I hope they’re all good. Some are tie-ins to existing series. Some aren’t. It’s a wide, exciting grouping of short works — perfect for this time of year when we’re all so time crunched.

Go and find something for yourself.

And as always, if your book budget doesn’t allow for everything you want, you can take my book out of your local library via the Overdrive/Libby app. (It’s not on Hoopla yet and I don’t know why, especially because Maybe the Bird Will Rise is) OR you can hit me up for a review copy — just remember to follow my rules of review copies (You must post a review online — and let me know! — within one year. One-star reviews are fine; people are treasures too and that means your opinions are valid and respected, at least by me and my team. But you only get one book at a time, and if you don’t get a review up, don’t ask for another review copy.)

If you choose the library route, I’m more than a fan of that — I still get paid! It’s not a lot, but who cares? It all adds up.

Also, remember to check out my books for others you may like. With the Sheep Farm coming out relatively quickly (Populated releases on Tuesday! Are you ready?), I’m going to be asking you to do a lot of reading. Go ahead. Use those library apps.

But mostly, check out the books in this promo with Broken but Undaunted. Expand your horizons with a good short story or novella — or collection of short stories, like Broken but Undaunted!

The Lucky Charms anthology was filled by a call for submissions from the members of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Honestly, I don’t go looking for places that are seeking submissions. They are easy enough to find via Submittable, and that’s a site well worth having an account with. I find all sorts of cool stuff listed there.

But I rarely tell you about them. Rather, I bring to you the calls for submission that I hear my friends and colleagues actively talking about. There’s buzz in my community, and I’m glad to make something buzz a little bit harder and help bring parts of my community together.

Today’s call for submissions, to Delmarva Review, crossed my radar in such a way. And since cool people I know in some form or another (in this case, I believe it was a local writer’s group) are talking about this, it was worth bringing to a wider pool of potential submissions. Because you all LOVE increased competition!

So. Delmarva — that’s a geographical area and while your fiction or poetry doesn’t have to reflect the area, it’s still good to know something about your potential audience. I’ll let you research that and just tell you that they’re looking for fiction of length up to 5k words or flash up to 1k. You may submit two flash pieces, each under that word count.

They don’t pay cash, if that’s your aim. It’s a literary magazine that pays the standard two copies, so this one’s great for exposure and an ever-lengthening list of publications. Don’t discount the value of that list! If you work in short fiction at all, you know how valuable it is.

The deadline is March 31, with publication in October. They hope to get back to everyone by May.

I’ll let you read more about it, like what sort of fiction they’re looking for — and what they’re not.

If you’ve got a piece (or two, if you write flash), go for it! If not, what’s stopping you from creating something? The best part of fiction is that if it doesn’t fit here, it may fit somewhere else.

As always, if you want eyes on it before you submit, drop me a line and I’m glad to help you bring it up to snuff. And as always, if you do submit, let us know. And if you are selected, definitely let us know — not only do we want to cheer you on, we’d love to host you for a Featured New Book Spotlight!