Thankfully, The Puritan Dug It

If you're seeking something "dark," "humourous," and "a little badass," look no further than The Puritan.A few years ago, in the windowless room of a grad school workshop, I turned in the first draft of “Kyle’s Place,” a short story about two thirteen-year-old boys and their obsession with a college girl named Shannon. It was a rough piece, overly fragmented and full of implausible plot twists. It was also dark, and the darkness was polarizing.Some of my fellow classmates loved it. Others said the story needed more baseball, more family, more innocence. They thought a more general audience would be turned off by the content, and they were right. It was hard as hell getting “Kyle’s Place” published—even after I fixed the plot, even after I added more baseball. Most lit journals responded with generic rejections. Others were just as terse, but in a personal way:“The voice is great, but the content is a little harsh for our readership.”“We’re not sure about the cutting off of the bird’s legs.”“Try submitting to pulp magazines.”As it turns out, the ageless axiom is true: A story involving animal cruelty and underage, mutual masturbation is always a hard sell.Thankfully, some people dug it. Enter: The Puritan.I stumbled upon The Puritan by accident. I grew up in the U.S.—in a town of 500 in central Iowa—and I when I finally got around to wanting to be a writer, I knew nothing about the publishing world, let alone the Canadian publishing world. A Duotrope search, filtered through subcategories like dark and humorous and absurd, brought me to The Puritan. After scrolling through the website, I liked what I saw. It seemed honest, down-to-earth, and a little badass—all things I felt my story embodied. I submitted “Kyle’s Place” for the Thomas Morton Memorial Prize. I submitted it to a few other journals, too. I waited.I first saw the acceptance email in my office. I had just taught three consecutive sections of Fundamentals of Public Speaking, was exhausted, and one of my colleagues and I were talking about the exhaustion. He was a fellow writer, too, and had far more publications than me. He did not, however, have a contest victory under his belt, which is why I tried to tone it down a little when I read the email.“Congratulations,” was how it started. It was from The Puritan. That’s all I needed to read.“I won,” I said. Then I said it louder. Then I hoisted my arms above my head. Then I started throwing some vulgar language around—in a celebratory way—and my colleague got up and shut the office door.I can’t remember how I spent the money, but I’m guessing a few Long Islands and pitchers were involved. Then again, those things would have probably been purchased and consumed anyway. The books I received as part of the Morton Prizehad a more lasting effect. I was, and continue to be, impressed with the writing Canadian presses publish. Like the material in The Puritan, the novels, memoirs, and poetry collections I received don’t hold anything back. Stuart Ross’s Buying Cigarettes for the Dog and Tony Burgess’s Idaho Winter especially stood out to me. These writers take a lot of chances and it pays off. I respect that, and strive for it in my own writing.As for my own writing, this spring I finished the first draft of my first novel, which was the grittiest, most taxing thing I’ve gone through since high school football. I am also working on a memoir and a collection of short stories, which will include “Kyle’s Place.”