Queen of diamonds, the third in my trilogy of really-long-stories-written-in-the-middle-of-the-decennium, just bagged its 17th rejection. What’s up with that? I wrote it between Conversation with a mechanical horse (Writers of the Future published finalist) and Meeting the Sculptor (WotF first place winner), and love it as least as much as those two. It made WotF quarter-finalist in 2004, and was very reluctantly rejected, after a bunch of rave remarks about the proze, by Cat Sparks for her Agog! Ripping Reads anthology in 2006, but that’s it.

The story has a cool hero, a beautiful heroin, an evil mastermind, corporate shenanigans, clairvoyance, leopards, and even the Manhattan Hard Rock Café!

But perhaps I shouldn’t have written 11,600 words of it all?