My story, “All the Infinite Variations” is now up at the Minola Review.
This story has a special place in my heart. I started writing this piece 5 years ago when I returned to writing after a long hiatus . I’d drifted from writing after finishing an MA in English, even though I knew I wanted a career as a writer. It just didn’t seem practical. My scholarship was finished, I was fresh out of a relationship and couldn’t afford my apartment anymore, and I was living in the attic of a friend’s mother. At one point, I was working five jobs and just trying to figure out how I was going to support myself outside of academia.
Then, after finishing another degree, and moving cities, moving countries, and establishing a career, I woke up one day and realized it had been seven years since I had written a thing. I knew that if I were to die the next day that my one big regret would be that I’d never written a book. So, I took baby steps. I signed up for the Sarah Selecky Story Course. I followed her exercises, and eventually I had a draft of “All the Infinite Variations.” And I had a writing routine.
The piece has shifted over the years–in one iteration it even included a severed foot found in a bush. But the story’s centre has always remained the same: I wanted to write about how we sometimes deny the most obvious problems in a relationship, and I wanted to write about a woman returning to her sexuality.
It was rejected more than 50 times over the span of 4 years. I kept submitting it because I just honestly liked the story. I was proud of it. A lot of editors liked it too. It received more personal rejections than anything else I’ve ever written. Lots of editors told me it made it to the last round, or that they liked it, but others didn’t. It was one of these pieces where I was pretty sure it just needed to find the right fit. So with every rejection, I just sent it out again.
I’m so grateful to Marta at the Minola Review for her enthusiasm about the story and for giving it a home. Her editing suggestions were spot on. There are few things more satisfying than to have your work edited by a smart reader. I adore the work published by Minola Review, so I’m super proud that this story has landed there. I hope you poke around the site a bit to explore the amazing work happening there.
Elaine van der Geld 