Flight and The Fiddlehead

About a decade ago, when I first found out that the literary magazines I nicked from the library and read samples from online accepted submissions from pretty much anyone, I made a hit list of the magazines where I most desperately wanted to be published one day. In the top three was The Fiddlehead, Canada's longest living journal. Given its reputation I figured I had not a chance but continued submitting anyway, since regular rejection letters are like strength training for the soul.

So I am pretty well ecstatic to say that "Flight," one of the pieces that was cut from the final edit of The Shore, appears in the Winter 2016 issue.

This issue, in fact.

"Flight" was one of my favourite stories. It was probably the most difficult to write and definitely took the most research - it involves rockets, NASA, and the 1950s - but since it's about an outsider coming to the Shore for the first time, and since the book was more than a little over length until the bitter end, it fell prey to the red pen. The book mostly focuses on one family, and this was one of the few pieces that could be taken out without disturbing the threads that connected all the rest.

But that doesn't matter now, because rather than languishing in a desk drawer the story is snugged up in an issue of a magazine in which I thought I'd never be good enough to have a place. And just in case the prospect of getting another nibble of the islands and the ponies isn't enough to tempt you over to The Fiddlehead's website for a copy of the issue, here's a glance at the opening:

It's probably time to invest in a new camera...