Riding the Glimmertrain

If you're a writer, you've probably heard of Glimmertrain. But, like most writers, you're probably busy and have forgotten about the opportunities available there.

Check out their Writing Guidelines. Because they've worked hard to shorten up their response time, they have implemented a "theme" of the month. They have also decided to accept simultaneous submissions since "it is so darned difficult to get one's work published."

Glimmertrain's Short Story Writing Contest for New Writers will open November 1st, closing at midnight on the last day of the month. There is a $15 reading fee with first place receiving $1200 and 20 copies of the issue with the winning story.

If you submit a story during their "Standard" months, there is no reading fee. Payment is $700 for first publication and onetime anthology rights.

Order a copy today, familiarize yourself with the type of writing they print, and see if you're meant to submit your piece. Depending upon the month, they accept fiction all the way up to 20,000 words.

Peter T. Masson: up & coming

[Note: This is a continuation of a series of posts on up-and-coming authors. Whether newly published, in the process of selling a manuscript, or still looking for an agent, these are authors who -- through word-crafting, plot-building, or sheer poetry of action -- have captured my mercurial and selective attention.]

A struggle of faith, a war of destiny: Peter T. Masson's second novel, The First Coming, takes a religious question and works it into a classic thriller. When a Chicago policeman, mired in the ashes of a bad marriage and a dead end job, stumbles across an extant Jesus wandering the streets like some homeless man, he finds himself in the midst of a millenia-old battle. The twist? Satan himself is fighting to keep Jesus alive, thereby thwarting any hope for the future of a redeemed world.

A character-driven narrative packed with action and spunk, Masson's novel is engaging, succinct, and descriptive. He draws the reader in without subterfuge, giving us a protagonist we can empathize with, and maintains a break-neck pace interlaced with precious moments of clarity and contemplation. The First Coming is that winning combination of wit and valor, action and relationships, crisis and hope, but even better, it's the midnight read you can't put down.

Masson is currently looking for an agent and can be contacted at p-ter at hotmail dot com