Kurt Pankau Dot Com

Last week I got Lasik. I was looking forward to not having to deal with glasses getting smudged by my kids or slipping off my face. I figured that not needing them would be pretty convenient. However, the words I heard over and over from other people who'd already done it were: "life-changing." That seemed to be overstating a bit. Convenient, yes, but life-changing? I didn't get it. I get it now. I've had some kind of vision correction, either glasses or contacts, for the last thirty-odd years, which is nearly as far back as I can remember. And what I hadn't realized was the extent to which this had become part of my identity. It's not that I thought glasses were cool because I wore them--although I did and they are. It's that the ability to see was, for me, artificial and temporary. And my vision was pretty bad, so my natural state was one of... not so much "blindness" as "isolation." There was a layer of vagueness that sat bet...

I've got a couple new flash stories out now. First, a sad one, Papa Bear in Nature Magazine's "Futures" section--also available in the print version of issue 559. Ask me if I'm excited about that! (spoiler: I am) Second, a light-hearted one called The Toastmaster which won the Escape Pod Flash Fiction contest . The linked episode has the top four stories, and the others are excellent as well--by Karen Osborne, Maria Haskins, and Paul R. Hardy. So don't stop listening after mine is over. ]{p

In what was a first for me, a reader reached out to me through my website to tell me that he was a fan and to ask where I got my inspiration from. I wrote back with an answer, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked my answer, so I've decided to reproduce it here. Inspiration... So, to my way of thinking, storytelling is a marriage of three elements: you need a good character, you need a plot/setting to place that character in, and you need some kind of external conflict that mirrors the character's internal conflict. Characters are usually inspired by people I know or by characters in other media--I'll take a handful traits from different individuals and mix them together. I usually will have a guiding philosophy in mind for this person. It won't be obvious in the story, but it helps the writing to be able to say fundamentally, quirks aside, this individual is a humanist/hedonist/narcissist/etc. Story/setting are the weird ideas that occur to you a dozen time...

As 2017 comes to a close, I wanted to do a quick post with the current state of the writing. First, I need to mention my biggest sale ever! I placed a piece called " Dry Run" in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show and the new issue went live on Christmas Day. The content is paywalled, so you'll need to subscribe to read the whole thing. If I can log-roll for just a second, it's only $15/year and it gives you access to all their back-issues, which you can get as ebooks. (And no, I don't get any direct benefit from you subscribing, just the warm fuzzy of people supporting a market that actually bought my stuff.) End log-rolling. So, all in all, it's been a good year for me re: short stories. I won't recount everything (relevant links can found under the  Fiction  tab), but altogether I made two pro sales and netted two other acceptances, one semi-pro. I received two honorable mentions for submissions to the Writers Of The Future conte...

Hey, y'all! Exciting news! First off, a piece I mentioned a few months ago  is now live in NewMyths.com issue 41 . The story is called Alienation , and it's about dating. While being an alien. Scroll down to the Flash section to find it. (Or fine, here's the direct link .) Next up, I can finally announce that I'll have a piece called Dry Run coming out in Issue 60 of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show , which should be out soonish-ish. I'll have more details when they land. Happy reading! ]{p

This amusing piece showed up a few weeks ago in Escape Pod . I'd recommend listening to it rather than reading it because the narrator is amazing . I'm very proud of how this story turned out, considering I started writing it with nothing but a zany idea for a title and a dumb joke about bananas. Bananas feature prominently in the story--rather, a recipe for a banana cake features prominently. Prominently enough that I baked one to celebrate. The recipe for this beauty can be found at Averie Cooks . Anyway, I hope you enjoy. The story that is. Or the cake. Both really. ]{p

I'm pleased to announce that I will have a short story titled "Alienation" appearing in the December issue of NewMyths.com . Stay tuned here for more information. Or, you know, subscribe to them. You do you. ]{p