Here's my entry for the Official Kidlit #FallWritingFrenzy! Writers select one image to inspire a 200-word story. My image is below! Ms. Wolownik's New Assistant Ms. Wolownik’s house looks like a rotten potato. It's brown and white, and nobody can tell mold from paint. Its roof sags. Vines from overgrown plants spill out the windows. … Continue reading Ms. Wolownik’s New Assistant
Author: J. Federle
J. Federle writes ghosts stories. She's an author of gothic horror and creepy science fiction prose and poetry. Born and raised in Kentucky, she earned an MA in 19th-century Romanticism in Bristol, England—when she writes, big emotions mix with folktale humor. Her years in Peru, married to a supportive Limeño, have improved her Spanish, if not her ability to dance. Her work has been acquired by The Saturday Evening Post, The Threepenny Review, and The NoSleep Podcast.
Writing a Query Letter
Writing my first query letter has been transformative. I have lived the life of a phoenix. The thrill of taking my beak to shell swelled into the emotional glory of flight, tempered next by the exhaustion of age. Death arrived, finally, and my body shivered into flames—a transformative fire, a chorus of mystical chemistry—until I … Continue reading Writing a Query Letter
To Pitch Madly: Feb. 2020’s #PitMad
My second #PitMad! My first #PitMad, back in December of 2019, I was a wide-eyed fawn, brimming with hope and anxiety. You can read about that (and my favorite pitches) at my first To Pitch Madly post. This round, however, I was ready. TweetDeck posted my pitches for me, so I could respect some … Continue reading To Pitch Madly: Feb. 2020’s #PitMad
Warmth: Memory of a Wood-Burning Stove
Going through our basement, I stumbled into an old sketchbook—it's from when I was about 15-16, per my lovely dated signatures. One sketch was a vivid reminder of the cast-iron, wood-burning stove we'd used on vacations. My family grew up in Kentucky, but several winters in a row, we journeyed some 11 hours up into … Continue reading Warmth: Memory of a Wood-Burning Stove
The 5th Floor of Lang
Lang Hall doesn't have a 5th floor. Yet the whole evening, as my roommate and I lugged our stuff across the icy campus sidewalks, I'd been certain that Lang had five floors. My roommate and I were moving to the 4th floor. The top floor of Lang was haunted. The "top" floor of Lang, my … Continue reading The 5th Floor of Lang
Fried: How Do You Finish a Story?
How do you know a story is done? Or if not a "story," a piece of writing—your flash fiction, your novella, your book... how do you know when it's a ready, submission-worthy, finished piece? When I was introduced to the classics in high school, and even in college, I always had this kind of underlying … Continue reading Fried: How Do You Finish a Story?
Cries in the Woods
Last spring, my sister and I drove to a dog park a bit further into the country. This "dog park" is better pictured as a pasture for horses: a wooden fence frames a massive field of rolling grass. The dogs did their dog-thing, and we headed to leave. Before piling into the car, though, I … Continue reading Cries in the Woods
Hearts as Mere Meat: My Sister’s Heart Transplant
TL;DR: My sister got a heart transplant. Be an organ donor. Click this link, damn it. Spend the 30 seconds: https://www.donatelife.net/ Tell others. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━√v^√v^√ ❤️️ In December of 2018, my sister's heart failed. Hearts do that sometimes. No warning. She was 21 years old. Doctors saved her life... but when the fleshy apparatuses of your … Continue reading Hearts as Mere Meat: My Sister’s Heart Transplant
Corporeal Delicacy
I've been meditating on poison—easing my way into a poem, I think, as I work toward completing a chapbook's worth of poems "spoken" by ghosts. Re-reading Browning's "The Laboratory" was a good start... a jealous lover glorifies a chemist's work as he crafts a poison to kill her rival. I'm settling into exploring how poisons … Continue reading Corporeal Delicacy
To Pitch Madly: Dec. 2019’s #PitMad
I did #PitMad! My first rodeo. On December 5th, I Twitter-binged for ~12 hours. Aaaand when logged off at 8 p.m., my eyeballs about rolled out of my skull. Took an hour for depth perception to return... What's PitMad? It's a Twitter event! Writers "pitch" their finished books to agents, who follow the #PitMad hashtag. … Continue reading To Pitch Madly: Dec. 2019’s #PitMad
J. Federle 