Category: fiction

Diving

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With a novel being queried to agents and a half-dozen short stories on submission to various lit mags, I find my mind drifting too frequently to that part of the writing business that exists outside of my control. The successes are exciting and exhilarating. But rejections are a part of this journey. Knowing that fact only lessons the sting. It still hurts.

I’m managing my anxiety through time with family and friends—laughter is truly the best medicine—and yoga. Yoga is a practice that melds body, mind, and soul through breath. It is calming and restorative, building strength and balance. Even a few minutes of yoga practice can be centering and grounding, refreshing and reinvigorating.

Yoga also serves as a reminder to me to focus on the part of the writing business that I do control: the daily practice of putting words to the page. The greatest achievement here is simply showing up.

In that spirit, I am diving like a dolphin into my next novel draft. It’s a project I’ve been churning around for a long time. The characters are compelling and keep pulling me back. The plot, as it’s developing, is thickening…swelling. I’m swimming in words. Making waves. I feel refreshed and reinvigorated. I’m writing…a new book.

Tanya

Thrilled…

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Thrilled to have my story named to Fractured Lit’s Anthology Prize Longlist. The titles alone have me excited! Congrats to all the anonymous nominees.

https://fracturedlit.com/fractured-lit-anthology-volume-4-longlist/

The Sixth Annual BookTube Prize

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For the second year in a row, I’m a judge for the BookTube Prize in Fiction. Pictured is my current group of books, which I can’t comment on until the judging is completed. This year, I am striving to read all forty-eight fiction entries. It’s a great list and contains some authors and titles I might have otherwise overlooked.

Coolest of all, I’m joined in judging this prize by several hundred book-obsessed people from more than thirty countries. It’s exciting!

You can learn more at BookTube Prize’s Instagram here (link in bio to the YouTube channel)

Wigleaf 2023 Longlist

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Thrilled to share that this story was selected for the Wigleaf 2023 Longlist! Special thanks to New Flash Fiction Review for believing in the piece. ✨💖✨

Also thanks to Pam Painter, Steve Yarbrough, Katie Williams, and Steve Fuller for all their wisdom and encouragement on this and my upcoming projects.

An Octopus with a Narwhal Tusk by Tanya Cliff — NEW FLASH FICTION REVIEW

New Story Published in Stork Magazine

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So excited to share my latest story, “Joan, Existing in the Hours of Daisies and Sunflowers,” recently published alongside the stellar fiction in Stork Magazine. Special thanks to Taylor McGowan for her editorial prowess and fabulous live read on launch day and to Katherine Fitzhugh for the beautiful illustration. 🌻

Also, heartfelt thanks to Pamela Painter for her skilled guidance. Without her, this story would have never blossomed. 🌻

Read the story at https://issuu.com/storkstory/docs/stork_spring_2022/41 🌻

Hello

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Hello WordPress Friends, 

It's been a long time since my last post. I hope this finds you all happy, healthy (especially given the past few years of global pandemic), and creating many new works. The world desperately needs your art, music, poetry, and stories.

This last fall I started my MFA in Creative Writing - Fiction through Emerson College in Boston, MA. Thanks to Zoom and some highly gifted professors and cohorts, I have been able to attend fulltime from my home in the beautiful Driftless Region of Southwest Wisconsin. The Writing Workshops have been challenging and productive, and I continue to grow and learn daily. I just found out that one of my flash fiction pieces, "An Octopus with a Narwhal Tusk," has been picked up for publication in New Flash Fiction Review. I will share that link as soon as the story goes live. 

Going forward on this blog, I plan to post some short fiction and poetry, share links to pieces picked up for publication, provide updates on my writing progress (because it motivates me and keeps me accountable), and share a few stories from inside my MFA journey and life in general. I look forward to reconnecting with you all. 

In case you were wondering, the new novel of literary fiction just hit 12k words. The first few chapters will be workshopped in two weeks. I am excited and a bit nervous and will probably share a bit about that post-workshop. 

Best Wishes,

Tanya (March 2022)

The High Tower

.Reading time 3 minutes.

“Let’s build the tower high again!” the newly crowned king shouted as he rode his tall steed through the kingdom’s cobblestone roads for his coronation parade.

The subjects cheered, “Rebuild the High Tower! Rebuild the High Tower!”

Stupidity echoes loudly off the walls of stopped ears.

The High Tower, symbol of the kingdom’s former glory, spiraled to a height never before achieved in any other nation. Chiseled stone on chiseled stone, long ago carried on the whipped backs of imported slaves, rose into the clouds. Along the lines of human chains each brick was painstakingly laid. The mortar mixed with blood displayed a uniquely rusty hue. The subjects of the kingdom exported the excess stones at great profit. That was long ago.

The High Tower was built among the Emerald Hills, a verdant, rolling paradise selected after the native population had been culled, its survivors driven off to desolate grounds on the outer edge of the world. Cleared of its original inhabitants, the garden variety slaves were free to dig, plant, weed and harvest an abundant and varied crop of produce, watering the ground with their sweat and tears as they toiled. The subjects of the kingdom grew fat with joy and exported the excess produce at great profit. That was long ago.

“The slaves won their freedom. The native inhabitants won the freedom to live on ‘their own lands’.” That’s what the history books read. (In truth, the slaves won the right to no longer be slaves, and the native inhabitants lost everything important to them; but, if you tell this to the now cheering subjects of the kingdom, it will fall on stopped ears, lost in the continuing reverberations of stupidity. I digress.)

The Emerald Hills rotted, first with overuse, then with neglect. Decaying foliage filled all its stagnant pools. The High Tower cracked and crumbled. The stone steps that spiraled to its peak, providing a view all the world’s kingdoms, was no longer safe to climb. The subjects were embarrassed but not enough to become stone workers or gardeners. They coveted their own sweat and blood, and labor in brick or dirt brings a meager pay. This is now.

“Let’s build the tower high again!” the newly crowned king shouted.

The subjects cheered, “Rebuild the High Tower!”

Stupidity echoes loudly.

~

Words and Photography ©2017 Tanya Cliff ~ to contact me

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