The Story of My First Short Story

My first ever published short story, “The Joy of Baking,” appeared at Luna Station Quarterly, an online journal dedicated to publishing female speculative authors. I’d published poetry and flash before, but never a longer piece like this one. When I started out writing short stories, it was a long time before I began to feel like I didn’t suck at it. To be honest, I still question myself a lot because short stories just aren’t my comfort zone. A poem? I could write ten a day and they’d be pretty rad. Short stories are much harder for me. I’d like to share with you the story behind the story, because writing is hard. Because persistence matters. Because even if you think you aren’t that great at writing a certain genre, or a certain type of story, YOU CAN. I believe in you. And you have to believe in yourself. So I’d like to show you the different places this story journeyed before it found its home.

​ This story started out when my husband told me he wanted me to write a story about baking. We’d been obsessively watching the Great British Bake Off and mocking the male judge to each other for a while. James has always been my baking buddy — he helps me out when he wants me to bake and sometimes I wonder if I should just make him bake more, but he genuinely enjoys being my baking assistant…