Well, everyone, Summer is unofficially over… cooler weather is creeping in as we enter the -ber months.. .some of my favorite days are ahead… but before autumn settles in, let's do a quick review of August at Micromance…
Well, we did it!! We surpassed 10,000 views (10,139) in only our second month!! That's 3500 more than July. And each contributor post averaged 200 views, with many having much higher numbers.
We also broke 200 subscribers, reaching 213 by August 31, which is fabulous and also surpasses where I thought we'd be at this point.
I want to thank all my subscribers, my readers and the Substack community for all the great support and for pushing us over that 10,000 views milestone - it's absolutely amazing… now, let's make September even greater!
In August, we also had the Name the Micromance Lovers Contest… we received 6 awesome entries that are currently in the process of being narrowed down by the Micromance staff to the three that will be presented to you, the readers, to vote on.
See you in September…
September is gearing up to be an awesome month, kicking off on Sept 1 with an all-too-appropriate Labor Day story by returning contributor and social media manager,
… followed by a month of delightful stories and beautiful poetry… and let's not forget our first Serial, Blowing It, by Nina Miller begins on the 15th.But don't take my word for it…check out this line up:
9/4 Never Say Never by
9/6 Words Like Coloured Glass by
9/8 Guess Who? By S. Bee
9/10 There's No Going Back To Louisiana by Jonathan Cant
9/12 (5 )Haikus by
9/14 Overtures and Eyelashes by Lin Morris
9/15 Blowing It, Part 1 by Nina Miller
9/17 Into A Sea and I Will Be A Stone by Emmanual Umeji
9/19 The Error by
9/21 On Track To Philly by Anthony Vernon
9/22 Blowing It, Part 2 by Nina Miller
9/23 Wave by A.J. Brown
9/25 Wedding Anniversary by S. Bee
9/27 Roses In Bloom by Linette Rasbatt
9/29 Blowing It, Part 3 by Nina Miller
9/30 Down Girl by
Something Exciting Coming Soon…
We have something exciting in the works. Hint: Valentine's Day 2025… another hint: an award/prize… details to come in the next couple weeks… and if you're thinking of submitting a story for publication at Micromance in 2024, you just might want to go beyond thinking about it and just do it!
Author Alley Is Now Open… (a recommendation)
We're all flash fiction, short fiction, microfiction writers here… and we all don't just write romance. So why not check out authoralley.co.uk… many of you are familiar with Fictionette, and Author Alley is run by the same terrific folks, including our own contributor, Emily Dixon.
Author Alley runs monthly contests in multiple fiction categories with awesome prizes available.
Many may also know it's through my time as a poetry judge at Fictionette (and later poetry and drabble judge at Secret Attic) where I got my behind-the-scenes literary experience and caught the editorial bug. Deb and Emily are my friends, I thank them for “taking me in” and giving me the chance to work beside them at those journals and encouraging me in my endeavor to start Micromance.
I highly recommend and encourage everyone who writes flash fiction to check out Author Alley. Especially if you like the 100 word stories - with a couple drabble mags dissolving and another one getting a bit wonky in how they do things, Author Alley is a perfect alternative - and, unlike those others, you might win some cash!
And readers.. they receive work from some talented writers…. You'll have a great library of stories to read each month… you just might see me there!
Until next time…
Thanks again to everyone for such a successful month… I have gotten a bit behind in sending out acceptances for July submissions, and I apologize. No excuses except to say you know how life can get… but I'm getting better organized and promise to do much better at communications moving forward!
Thank you and Happy Writing, Happy Reading…
Gail Lynn, EIC 😁