The Empire State Building Strikes Back!

Hey! My latest story, The Empire State Building Strikes Back! (number 119 of The One-Thousand) is available today on The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine! It's a fast-paced, crazy-ass science fiction story with lots of funny stuff. Go listen here: http://dunesteef.com/2014/09/24/episode-164-the-empire-state-building-strikes-back-by-matthew-sanborn-smith/

Let me be straight with you. I ran this story by editors at pro markets for which I thought it would be a good fit. When they all rejected me, I skipped the semi-pros and went straight to the Dunesteef. Why? Because, for them, I thought it was the perfect fit. Yes, I went for the money first. I am trying to make a buck. But you know what? Even if I could have possibly sold this story to The New Yorker, they couldn't have given me what the Dunesteef has. (It's always the Dunesteef to me. Get over it.)

None of the big markets would have given my story the audio treatment with a full cast reading, sound effects, and music. None. You might see the Dunesteef as a small market, but they give you something, with passion, that the pros won't. As they explain in the show, due to a series of mishaps, my story broke their record for the longest time on their hard drives before being podcast.  But I'm delighted with the final product. It was worth the wait.

Catching Up

I had the official list of my completed One-Thousand stories on my laptop (which is gone now, in case you're just joining us). I spent the last couple of days piecing the list together again and realized that I hadn't mentioned my last three stories.

117: The Girl with the Halo
118: Introduction to Olfaction (Page One)
119: The Empire State Building Strikes Back!

The first two were done back in August, the third just ten days ago.