42 Stories Anthology Presents: Jen Mierisch Interview

 Jen Mierisch won the Story of Excellence Award Winner in the Mythopoeia chapter for

THE DAY FRITZ MCROY GOT OFF HIS HIGH HORSE

Aliases in the anthology: 

Renata LeCroix (THE LADY IN BLACK WITH THE MONA LISA SMILE, Mystery chapter) and Abby St. Paris (THE HARD LESSONS HAPPENED ON THE HALF-PIPE, Sports chapter)

 

Biography

Jen Mierisch's dream job is to write Twilight Zone episodes. Until then, she's a website administrator by day and a writer of odd stories by night. Jen's stories can be found in The Arcanist, the No Sleep Podcast, and in numerous anthologies.

  

BAM: Where are you located?

Jen: Lincolnwood, Illinois.

BAM: Where’s your writing space?

Jen: Home and Library

BAM: Name some books you read recently. 

Jen: 

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia Manasala

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney

^ All excellent books which I highly recommend!

  

BAM: Will check them out. What deceased or living writer do you want to meet?

Jen: I want to meet (1) Richard Peck, because I adored his books so much as a child and still reread them to this day, (2) Roald Dahl, because he seems like such a character and we share a birthday, and (3) Louis Sachar, just to tell him how much I loved the Sideways Stories books and Holes.

 

BAM: Your main distractors while writing are?

Jen: Social media, my kids, and going down rabbit holes of research!

BAM: Very common distractors these days. On editing, do you edit alone, have a friend read your work, or do you hire a professional editor? 

Jen: Mostly alone, but beta readers are the absolute best!

 

BAM: How do you handle story rejection, and celebrate acceptance? 

Jen: I am in a Facebook-based online writing group that does a weekly “Saturday Smackdown” post where we all complain about the rejections we’ve received that week. It’s incredibly cathartic and therapeutic to commiserate with other writers and realize that we’re not alone in our tons of rejections! This same group is great about celebrating acceptances also. We cheer each other on. A supportive writing community is just the best thing.

 

 BAM: "Saturday Smackdown" sounds encouraging. Could you tell me about how you organize writing in your life? 

 Jen: With a day job and two kids, I have very limited free time to write during a typical day. My writing time is after the kids go to bed, and on weekends I’ll also sneak off to the library for a couple hours to write. I’m writing this right now while away in a hotel, having just been to a friend’s wedding! It’s all about seizing what time you do have and then committing to it.

 

Jen's Website

 www.jenmierisch.com 

@jenmierisch on Threads

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What is the 42 Stories Anthology? It started as 42 Stories Anthology Presents: Book of 42², which is a novel of 42 chapters of 42 stories in each chapter totaling 1,764 42-word stories. The stories themselves have approximately 42-character titles and roughly 42-word bios. In addition, each chapter has 42 covers and 42 Stories of Excellence Awards that were judged by 42 judges. Not only is the project a novel, but also an interview segment called 42 Stories Anthology Presents: Interviews. That’s because the point of the anthology was to publish as many writers as possible into one book of 42-word stories. The authors were limited to four acceptances, and only a few of them have that many works in the book. Thus, the novel has over 1,000 unique and extremely talented wordsmiths. Some are world-famous authors, while others are first-time published writers. In this interview segment, I hope to chat with as many of the people involved with the book as possible, so that their words can reach a maximum audience. Far too many great writers remain unknown, and this is an attempt to let the world know about 1,764 of them who are in a single anthology. So, it’ll really help if you watch, like, and share the videos and blogs.

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Until next time, remember to remember

~Bam and the 42 Stories Anthology Team