My first reader came back with only two little recommendations for “The Feast of Stephen,” so I thought I was pretty much ready to send it in. I reread the story in hardcopy with my omnipresent pen and started making little scratches here and there. Before I knew it I had the whole thing marked up with copious changes, and now I have a 3rd draft that I hope is clean and close to finished. It’s down to 4200 words, 12 pages, and is completely devoid of apostrophes. (No, I don’t have an aversion to apostrophes, but the story requires that there not be any.)
My new essay (Will you read my book?) is now up at Storytellers Unplugged. Go read it—it has footnotes!
Cell fever is building. Scribner will text message you (at your own expense, of course) promotional snippets about the book in the coming days. Here’s a Wall Street Journal article about the campaign.
