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THE ART OF SHORT FICTION What is it? Author Charles Blackstone tells.

WRITING GREAT SHORT STORIES Elizabeth Kadetsky who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and at Columbia University’s School of Journalism serves up some advice.

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CRAFTING CHARACTERS THAT JUMP OFF THE PAGE Punching up your fiction? Where there's a tipster, there's a way. Discover Robert Gregory Browne's secrets to getting multiple book deals.

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BIOFICTION INTRODUCED Even as she receives 5 stars on Amazon for Trine Erotic while editing/publishing Entelechy: Mind & Culture, Alice Andrews takes time to chat about the esoteric world of this mind-bending read.

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Here's our winner of TOP PICK!

“Duotrope Digest ”

"...think of Duotrope’s Digest as a matchmaker of sorts. If you write fiction or poetry, we can help you find appropriate markets for your work."
--Shannon Wendt, Duotrope creator

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SHALLA CHATS with Katherine Sanger

“From the Asylum Books and Press”

by Shalla DeGuzman

First of all, who’s Katherine?

Katherine was a Jersey Girl before getting smart and moving to Texas. She teaches English at Alvin Community College and Kaplan University, and has published in various e-zines and print, including Baen's Universe, Black Petals, Star*Line, Anotherealm, Lost in the Dark, Death Bus, Aphelion, and RevolutionSF. She functions as the publisher and editor for From the Asylum (www.fromtheasylum.com), an e-zine of fiction and poetry which also produces a yearly print anthology.

Shalla: Hello Katherine, thanks for being here.

Katherine: Thanks for having me here!

Shalla: What is From the Asylum Books and Press?

Katherine: From the Asylum Books and Press is a small press that hosts a monthly e-zine with speculative fiction, flash fiction, and poetry. We host contests on occasion, and we have begun producing themed anthologies.

The first one, Loving the Undead: an Anthology of Romance, sort of…, which was about human/undead relationships came out in March, and we hope to have another one looking for submissions by the fall.

Shalla: Please tell us about your duties at From the Asylum.

Katherine: I do pretty much everything that's related to writing within FTA. Such is the joy of small press. I handle all emails (happy, angry, and strange), mail (happy, angry, and strange), submissions, queries, taxes, publishing, etc. I do subcontract the actual printing and graphic design, but I do all layout, editing, etc.

My husband works for me as my web-master, and our monthly artwork is provided by Jennie Breeden who produces the webcomic "The Devils Panties."

Shalla: Are you a writer yourself?

Katherine: Yes. I began writing before I began publishing - I've been writing since I was about 8. Most of the "early works" will never see the light of day as they are firmly hidden at the bottom of a filing cabinet, but even then I could see the strangeness, both in what I read and what I wrote. My first publication came at the age of 18, in a little local zine called "The Agitator." I produced a zine of my own for a few years after that, and got a positive review in "FactSheet 5," a now-defunct magazine that used to review zines and provide advertising space for independent artists and publishers. After that, I stagnated a bit, and didn't think about writing seriously again until about 2001. I got pregnant in 2001, which delayed the new urges to write, but after my son was born in 2002, I began getting involved in writers' groups, attended workshops and conferences, joined a critique group, and began submitting my work to serious markets. While I haven't made an overnight success of myself, I have begun to see my work making it into pro markets, including Baen's Universe last year.

Shalla: What is speculative fiction?

Katherine: Speculative fiction, to me, is anything that involves anything "strange." Science fiction, fantasy, horror, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, and just about anything else that might somehow not fit into any of the other main genres (fiction, mystery, romance, western) falls into my category of speculative fiction.

Shalla: And what makes it good and publish worthy in From the Asylum?

Katherine: It has to be weird. While we've taken some "straight" speculative fiction, most of the time, I want to find something with a unique angle. Something I wouldn't expect. We've published stories with just about any slant - horror, SF, fantasy, even some mystery. The important thing is for there to be something about it that just isn't normal. Don't send me a story about a guy on a spaceship. Send me a story about a guy on a spaceship who is in love with a woman who is a serial killer who never quite manages to kill someone. And funny is good. Stories with humor are always welcomed.

Shalla: Do you accept poetry too?

Katherine: Yes! We love poetry. We tend to not get a lot of it, though, and what we get is often not to our taste. The poetry we're looking for should be like the fiction we're looking for - strange. And funny, if possible. We get a lot of vampire poetry about death and dark lords. Not what we want. We also get a lot of depressing poetry. Also not what we want. I'd suggest reading what we publish. We do go for a wide range of poetry, so you may be surprised as what you see.

Shalla: What is it like editing for From the Asylum?

Katherine: Busy but fun. Really, I love reading all the work that crossing my email and post office box. It is a lot of work - having to read stories, pick ones for each issue, set up artwork, get everything to my webmaster, and then preparing the print anthology takes a lot of my time. Sometimes the stories aren't what I'm looking for, or they may just not be ready for publication yet - so it can be frustrating to see something so close to being there.

Shalla: What is the process of accepting/rejecting work? Does more than one editor look the work over?

Katherine: At this time, I'm the only editor at FTA. The process of rejecting/accepting work is fairly simple. I normally ignore the bio at first (unless I spot a horrific grammatical or spelling error in it or something that just doesn't belong - like if the author tells me that this is the first time he/she has submitted something, and he/she doesn't think it's their best work, but hey, maybe I'll buy it from them anyway). I read the first few paragraphs of the work, and that's normally enough to tell me if it feels like something FTA would publish. If it is, then I put it in the "full reading" stack (whether virtual or hardcopy) and keep going. Once I have my finalists, I sent out rejection notes to those who haven't made the cut. Then I go back and read all the possibles. So, if you don't hear from me within a few weeks, chances are that you've made the first round. A long wait time isn't a bad thing with FTA - it means that I am taking the time to read all the way through. From then on, any problems that may keep it from being published may be that it doesn't hold me all the way through, I've published something like it too close to it, or any number of things that might make it not get bought, including space.

I have been considering branching out and taking on another reader or two to do the first round so that I have less to review in a month, but at this time, I haven't taken that step. Maybe in the fall…

Shalla: Do you have any tips for writers intent on being published in From the Asylum? Any tips on improving our submissions?

Katherine: Read what we publish, read the submission guidelines, read, read, read, and then write and edit. I normally don't read more than the first few lines if there are any major, glaring errors. I can't think of anything else that will help.

Shalla: Lastly, any writing groups and/or writing communities you recommend?

Katherine: Local groups are best - for a lot of people (including myself), it's too easy to ignore those on the web by simply avoiding going to the website or checking/reading email. If you have a local group, you will have to show up in person, which gives it a whole new level of accountability.

That said, I recommend finding writing groups, workshops, conferences, and critique groups. All of them can help to make a good writer a great writer.

Shalla: Thanks Katherine! For more on Katherine Sanger and From the Asylum Books and Press, please go to http://fromtheasylum.com .

Shalla DeGuzman's short stories have appeared in Poetic Diversity, the Mosaic Literary Journal, the Mad Hatters Review; her articles in The Scriptorium and L.A. Freepress; her skits at the Stella Adler Theatre.

Shalla, a former writer and producer of a health and fitness cable show, is currently writing a new novel. She is President of The ShallaDeGuzman Writers Group; the Senior Editor of SHALLA Magazine where she interviews literary agents, publishers, editors, and authors; and the Publisher for SHALLA Publishing.

News!

Shalla has been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize.

SHALLA Magazine, which features short stories and excerpts from top, award-winning writers, now sold at www.amazon.com!

For more on Shalla: www.shalladeguzman.com