Yup. Available here.
This is particularly nice for me because it marks my first sale to a prozine (by the SFWA, a magazine that pays at least 5 cents/word), a designator that probably means exactly zero. To me as a writer, though–if the hypothetical day comes when I’ve “made it,” and I’m looking back on all the steps it took to get there, this sale would be one of those steps. Not the biggest of them, I’d imagine. Individual short stories rarely prove that critical to the outcome of a career; it’s mostly about books. But it would mean something to me, at least, a moment when I could know I’m not just flailing around over here.
Given these circumstances, it’s a coincidence that “Founding Fathers” is a semi-sequel to the first story I ever sold, “All Man’s Children” at Reflection’s Edge. I mean, it’s not a total coincidence. I like writing in this universe. I’ve set an entire book there. I’ve written other short stories in it that may or not show up in other magazines one day. On that hypothetical day when some editor is sorting the stories belonging to this as-yet-unnamed universe, she is going to find plenty of material to work with.
Still, it feels like something of a bookend, the opening and closing sentences of a story in my life. I’m just hoping that story is the chapter of a much longer book rather than a complete work in itself.
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