Out of all the publishing I've done, this book has also really been useful for me as a creative writing teacher. For one thing, writing one hundred short-shorts sure did polish up my editing skills and I bring those to my paper commenting. But it's in flash fiction workshops where it's paid off the most. Shortly after 100 Jolts was published, I performed a reading to my class from the book and asked students to critique a few stories. I like to think it worked nicely because putting my own "neck on the line" by offering my work up for criticism helped students to see that no fiction is perfect, even after its in print, and that even a teacher and professional writer can learn things from workhshop. I've also used prompts and strategies from the teacher's guide to go along with stories I've copied out of the book for my classes and graduate writing workshops our MA program in Writing Popular Fiction, too. Overall, this book has really been a success and regardless of how the Stoker nomination pans out, I'm very proud of it.

(I guess I should add for any horror fans reading this that my dark alterego's weblog, The Goreletter, is also a finalist for the Stoker award in "Alternative Forms" -- an award it won last year!)

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