My story “Dollar Storing” is featured in the February 24, 2024 edition of Mad Swirl. The story is actually part of an unnamed series I’ve been working on for quite some time, much of which has been published in bits and pieces over the past year, most recently just last week in the February 15 issue of the Hidden Peak Review (“Surviving It All“).

I’m really happy about appearing in Mad Swirl for several reasons. One, I think it’s a very nice, surprisingly clean, crisp professional publication with great material and compared to some other magazines out there, I think it simply looks a lot better. More important, the chief editor and I share many things, most notably in love for Kerouac and other Beat writers and I’ve been meaning to get back to him with some info, pics and other stuff on that subject, but I’ve been having very serious health problems for the past couple months and I’m behind on everything, including necessary correspondence and I feel a little guilty, but I’m hoping he’ll be cool about it — I think he will be. Ah, also can’t forget the short story editor is also cool and a damn good writer/story teller.

As I often do, I listed Mad Swirl in my list of quality publications on my growing Literary Links, Resources & Defunct Legends webpage which presently lists some 173 pretty diverse magazines with links to each as well as a diverse set of 68 resources for all types of writers and a third section featuring about 60 magazines no longer with us, the vast majority of which I was published in and all three sections of which I welcome suggestions to consider adding so I encourage anyone interested to check it out and if you feel like adding something, there’s a form at the bottom of the page you can fill out that will be emailed to me so don’t be shy.

In any event, please too don’t be shy about checking out my story at Mad Swirl and if compelled, leave a comment there — there’s a place to do so there. And you’re always welcome to leave a comment here too. So, counting a couple of unexpected acceptances this week, this makes about 10 acceptances/publications so far for me in 2024 and this year is trending up toward an acceptance percentage I used to enjoy, though it still has a long way to go. Nonetheless, an improvement over 2023 in which I had about 50+ poems, stories and creative nonfiction pieces published, not counting other types of nonfiction, commentary, geopolitical analysis and what not in other venues, but I’ve been enjoying returning to my roots so to speak and I’ve been putting together my first manuscripts in a hell of a long time (years) and will be hopefully looking for the “right” publisher for a book of poems containing stuff largely not seen in book form before, very different from my last few books, and a large chapbook/small perfect bound book of short fiction, most of which have been published in various litmags, few of which I think have been seen and read on a broader scale. Still, things have really changed in the industry since I last was having books published and as I’ve never believed in the self-publishing model and never had to go there, and I won’t consider that now either. I’d rather go unpublished than resort to that model. I’m old school, back when we needed agents for most books.

There seem to be fewer book publishing opportunities in the industry now, at least which aren’t based on the competition model, and that’s another topic altogether, but one I’ve never believed in nor have been willing to be a part of. I remember when publishers started going that route back in the 1980s and ’90s and there were a number of infamous scandals as well as other issues of abuse and questionable financial activity and again, I’d rather go unpublished than take part in something I view as frequently lacking integrity combined with questionable financial issues for many such publishers. Perhaps I’ll write a piece about that sometime. The point is I don’t know if I’ll have any luck placing either manuscript with any publisher, but it’s still a goal for the year while I’ll continue to try and have various different individual pieces published here and there throughout 2024 and beyond. So thanks to those of you who keep up with this and are supportive. I’m very grateful. (By the way, my micro-story, Mon Petit Chou, appeared in last week’s edition of Friday Flash Fiction…) But to reiterate, my story “Dollar Storing” is featured in the February 24, 2024 edition of Mad Swirl. Please consider supporting that magazine by visiting it and thanks in advance to those who do. I hope everyone is having a good weekend and until next time, cheers!

— Scott Holstad