It’s two days before Christmas and I have three really important things to share with you:
Stories Off the Stack Pledge
Top in Fiction, Live!
The TiF MVW [Top in Fiction Most Valued Writer]
Stories Off the Stack Pledge [for writers]
I want to help as many people as possible take their stories off their publication and turn it into a book that can be held in their hands. Whether you choose to sell it or not is up to you, but everyone should have a chance to hold their work in their hands. To do this I hope to do a combination of things: The TiF Scholarship combined with some workshops to help everyone publish their work even without the aid of a scholarship (because it is possible). But in the meantime, you can take the first step towards taking your stories off the stack by making the pledge. It is quite literally what you think it is. If you’re a writer of fiction just fill out the form letting me know what collection or serial you want to take to the next level in 2025 and I’ll list it on our dedicated page. It’s a way to hold your feet to the fire on something you want to get done, with the backing of the fiction community to see that you follow-through.
Finally having access to go Live on Substack opens up so many possibilities. Chief among them is my idea to take the weekly Monday posts that reveal the featured stories and writers, and announcing them Live before the email goes out. How cool would it be to hear the name and story title spoken out loud? Kinda like hearing the nominees at the Oscars, only in this case everyone announced is a winner! I hope many of you will find this cool and will join me when we kick off this new TiF Live segment on Monday, January 6th at 10am EST. I’m still working out how this will work but I think I’ll send out an email alerting you to the fact that I’m going Live and when it’s done, I’ll take that Draft Post, drop in the usual Monday email format and send it as the secondary email. If that becomes too much to send two emails in one day I may decide to send the alert via the app only. We’ll see.
TiF MVW [Top in Fiction Most Valued Writer]
I’ve got one more thing I want to talk about on this, our second to last weekly issue of 2024. Our first ever award for most valued writer. This year, the prestigious award is going to the person who was Featured the most in these last 25 issues. And as many of you know, I love lists and numbers. In fact, next week’s final Weekly issue will share just that.
But, in the meantime, because I keep records of each and every story and person that is featured week-to-week, I know how many times anyone has been Featured more than once. Now, I try not to be biased or play the favorite in these selections in order to give everyone a chance to be seen, but that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be an opportunity for someone who just so happens to appear more times out of any other. And I just couldn’t let this go unnoticed.
I have it on good authority this person is celebrating a birthday and yes, it was intentional of me to ask him to be the TiF Ambassador last week knowing this recognition would follow.
whose micro fiction has been so damn good he’s been in 8 TiF issues (out of 25 weekly and 5 monthly). The most out of anyone. Earning him 7 medallions! Two of which came from other Ambassadors. I always urge people to check out everyone on our weekly lists but a special shout out (and the below TiF MVW Medallion) goes to Daniel for his tremendous contributions to the world of fiction and especially the art of micro fiction.
We’ll be back next Monday for another amazing list of fiction stories worth reading! And if you enjoyed any of these stories, please consider sharing this post everywhere:
Congratulations and hand numbing applause to one and all! honoured to get a mention. I still havent worked out how to get the medallion though... must try harder!
And thanks again to Erica... we all write stuff...but Erica writes stuff AND she reads all our stuff AND draws it all into one place for all of us. That is the extra mile she walks every week for everyone and anyone.
I'm honored. Thank you doesn't come close.
If y'all enjoyed Abdiel, please consider visiting 9 Story Hotel.
It's a privilege to collaborate with such an outstanding group of writers.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ninestoryhotel?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=h5x57
Congratulations and hand numbing applause to one and all! honoured to get a mention. I still havent worked out how to get the medallion though... must try harder!
And thanks again to Erica... we all write stuff...but Erica writes stuff AND she reads all our stuff AND draws it all into one place for all of us. That is the extra mile she walks every week for everyone and anyone.