Thursday, July 22, 2010

"Adagio in the Dark" now in hard copy!

I wanted to kick off this new blog with an announcement: Lady Jane's Miscellany (a literary magazine published by San Francisco Press) has now published my literary short story, "Adagio in the Dark" !

http://sanfranciscobaypress.com/ladyjanesmiscellany

Accepted for publication in April 2010, ADAGIO is a story about two violinists finding elusive love in rainy-day Chicago. The piece itself was submitted in October 2009.

"Adagio in the Dark" was inspired by listening to KD Lang/Tony Bennett duets, of all things. Yet, the story was a hard sale and had to undergo several major revisions since its first conception in Fall 2000 (as you can see, some period of time has passed since the first draft being penned and its first publication).

Even though set in Chicago, I had written it while living in a small studio apartment in Reno, Nevada. The first draft had a liberal twist to it, meaning that the object of the main character's (Julian) love, Amber Lewinski, was gay. This was the great barrier that kept the straight male from realizing romance with Amber, an insurmountable obstruction to his personal life coupled with his struggle to make it as a professional violinist. The homosexual twist to the story was an interesting topic, introducing how two very different individuals could still find a romantic love that was not physical, bound together by their mutual devotion to music. However, I changed the later draft to reflect that Amber had given her love already to a man and was now married - yet, as one can read, there seems to be a melancholic, lonely view of this marriage. Both violinists are lost, lonely, despite their finding each other in the gray wet of the Windy City.

A reader who enjoys moody, artistic stories should enjoy ADAGIO very much.

Lady Jane's Miscellany is a new literary magazine, with Jeff Hewitt as the Editor-in-Chief and Mac McKinney as the managing editor. Issue #2 is on sale now for $14.99 and is well-worth the cover price for quality literary fiction and other features.

2 comments:

  1. "Adiago in the Dark" is a lovely, poignant story -- well worth the "price of admission"!

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  2. I've been a serious fan of Mikey D's since the first time I ever read his prose. His point of view is so original that it turned my mind inside out. He's poetic and funny, moving and innovative--just what the world needs in a mature, yet youthful author. I'm a die-hard fan!

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