As I posted earlier this year, I won the March and May editions of Shock Totem‘s bimonthly flash fiction contest. As these folks do every year, the first-place stories from each of the year’s five contests were then given to a neutral judge, who chooses the year’s overall winner. That story then gets published in the next issue of Shock Totem.

This year the judge was Bracken MacLeod, and this wonderful man chose my story “Stabat Mater” as the winner of 2013. You can read about it here. Issue #8 is only a couple of months away, and I’m excited to see “Stabat Mater”–in which I inevitably write about my only real fear, wasps–published in one of my very favorite journals. I was up against four other great stories (least of all another of my own). I’ve expressed my love for ST before–there’s a post here titled “I ❤ Shock Totem,” after all–but I’ll thank them once again for hosting this great prompt-based contest.

This will be my third publication in Shock Totem, following my short story “Orion” in issue #6 and my interview with the great Laird Barron in #7. Good stuff.