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By Tgreen, March 12, 2011 2:13 am

Yes, I know I should’ve posted this 2 weeks ago, but I was busy. So busy that I couldn’t take 5 minutes to slap together a blog post? Perhaps. So let’s not waste another moment. Here’s the deal. I’ve got a story, Cog in the Spring 2011 issue of The First Line. Until March 13, you can get a free PDF download of the issue. So click here and look for the Free Issue link. You’ll get a free PDF that has my story and several other fine pieces of fiction. And if you get there after March 13, you can buy the PDF, or a hard copy of the issue, and not only will you be entertained, but you’ll be giving some nice folks a couple of bucks. You can’t lose.

And to give you an idea of what you’re getting into, here are the first 2 paragraphs of my story:

Sam was a loyal employee. This wasn’t saying too much in an age when a loyal employee was mostly one who didn’t steal office supplies or badmouth the company on Twitter every other day. Still, such employees were getting harder to find in an age when a loyal employer was one who didn’t lay off half the staff every other month. Sam realized that for many it was all a game now, with some of his coworkers trying to screw the company before the company screwed them, but Sam didn’t play that game.

For one thing, he didn’t have time. His role as lowly cog in the great Transglobal Endeavours machine kept him busy for nearly 50 hours a week. He constantly referred to himself as a lowly cog, but in truth he’d worked at Transglobal Endeavours just shy of 5 years now and had officially figured out a long time ago that his entire division, and possibly the entire company, was made up of nothing but lowly cogs. He often wondered if it was appropriate to refer to anyone as lowly if everyone was lowly. He didn’t know what he was, really, and so he said cog because it was somehow comforting.

Wanna see the rest? Head on over to The First Line and get yourself some short stories. Thanks for stopping by.

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By Tgreen, September 2, 2009 12:52 am

So I’ve got two new bits of writing news to share here.

First off, I’ve got a story, Black & Blue, coming out in the Fall 2009 issue of The First Line. The First Line is a literary journal that’s published a couple of my stories over the years, and I’m happy to have a new story in their current issue. The way The First Line works is they provide the first line of the story and the writer takes it from there for 3,000 or fewer words. If you’d like to purchase a copy, you can do so here. If you’d like to know what other publications available on that page have my work in them, drop me a line and I’ll clue you in.

Now, if you’re not interested in parting with $3.50 and would instead enjoy seeing an example of a story The First Line rejected, I’ve got you covered there too. Floating Home, a story I submitted for the Spring 2009 issue is now available on the website here. There’s a short explanation leading into the story to give you an idea of what might have been if I’d maybe worked a little harder at the end of 2008.

I’m hoping to avoid that pitfall at the end of 2009, and plan to have some more writing news coming up soon. Until then, happy reading!