Hey everyone, I was going to do an update post today and explain why I’ve been so quiet but then lo and behold another story gets published! At 7,000 words this is my longest story yet to be published and that’s a great feeling. Thank you to Mr. William V. Ray for seeing value in my work and featuring it in the Winter 2023 edition, released yesterday.
Penance is a story I first wrote way back in 2007/8 and has gone through countless rewrites and reworkings since. It deals with a young man’s fall from Roman Catholicism, where he leaves the priesthood but ends up finding God. It was my way to address the damage done by my religious upbringing, and so the initial draft was very angry, but each rewrite came with more subtlety as my own spiritual journey went from atheism (clearly the extreme, over-correcting response of a man in his early 20s) to Buddhism.
If that’s not your thing, that’s cool, but if it sounds interesting at all I’ve love it if you’d take a look. Check it out here.
As for the lit mag in question, this from their profile on NewPages:
The Courtship of Winds was created in 2000 as an online journal publishing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and music. Publication of the journal was suspended in 2002 and resumed in 2016 with a new web design but the same emphasis on fine writing, art, and engagement in issues of the day.
While there is no narrow aesthetic determining the content of The Courtship of Winds, the hope is that having one editor making all final decisions will give the magazine the distinctive quality of art galleries that are curated by a single person. Issues include widely published poets such as Dolores Hayden, Simon Perchik, Sandra Kohler, Richard Jones, L. Ward Abel, John Garmon, Tim Kahl, and Emily Strauss; poets who experiment with language, such as Peter J. Grieco and Felino A. Soriano; talented but lesser-known writers; an artist with work in major museums—Ira Joel Haber—as well as an artist with deep regional roots, Maine artist Abigail Read. Fiction writers include Denise Kline, Robert Fay, Michael Agugom, and Mark Jacobs.. Recent essays speak to issues of race and culture.
https://www.newpages.com/magazines/courtship-winds/
Words will keep us together 
Very well written- but you are a very talented writer so I’m not surprised! I have heard that artists tend to have challenging situations in their lives and it sure seems like that is often true. Though your path is not mine, I am glad that we can respect each other’s different paths and want the best for each other! The older I get the more I learn that life isn’t about absolutes!
Isn’t that the truth! Many of my problems have been caused by black/white thinking, which is so often reinforced by our culture as it’s much easier than dealing with the subtle pieces that make up every issue. Thank you very much for your kind words – challenges are definitely a good thing (what kind of art could be created by someone who has never known real challenges?) but frankly I’ve had my fill for quite some time! Haha. Yes, we are all on our own paths and the best thing we can do for each other is be there to support whatever that path is.