Oh wow! So this summer I wrote an essay about menopausal Edith Wharton's midlife reinvention, linking it to All Fours, which had just been shortlisted for National Book Award. A dream publication said they wanted the essay...and then the editor ghosted me (this was before the fires); I nudged the editor all to no avail. Sigh...then remembered that it was Edith Wharton's birthday in Jan, so I sent the pitch to LitHub and ... they took it! Lessons: write the thing you love, be patient, search for news pegs... and here is the piece: https://lithub.com/edith-wharton-and-the-clarifying-rage-of-the-menopausal-writer/
Thank you for writing the article and I look forward to reading the book; I can't wait to read Custom now. I got my MFA while going thru menopause. I loved All Fours but I'm more intrigued by how you link it to Wharton and Undine.
Oh, congratulations! Very much enjoyed your essay, including the brief comparison between Undine Spragg and Lily Bart. Hadn't thought of them quite that way and was glad to see it. Glad you aimed so well for LitHub.
Having just finished All Fours, this is a wonderful read, being myself 30 years past the "change" and having a 39-year-old daughter who reports that All Fours & menopause is the talk of the town (er, Internetl...) just now. Happy belated birthday to Edith Wharton. And thank you, Deborah, for writing the thing you love.
So sorry I missed you and the rest of the gang. Wednesdays are tough for me; I'm hoping that our schedules align and that we're both on a chat session soon!
I have an essay "Collecting Fabulous Trees" out in Wild Roof Journal Issue 28 https://wildroofjournal.com/issue-28/ It's the second time I've published with them. The editors are great at communicating and I admire the community they are trying to build with their substack, podcast and all. I really liked this essay about trees and climate change and was happy to have it land with them.
I have also been following the It Ends With Us Drama! So many twists. A better story than the movie, imho. I don't really know what to think of it all except that the Hollywood publicity machine is gross!
Thanks so much! I know when I was in school we did a whole assignment one year about learning how to identify trees and making a scrapbook of different leaves. That was now thirty years ago though.
What a pretty journal. I like that they have twice published your work. I haven't resubmitted to a journal that has published mine. I keep trying to find new places, but authors often find a home where they feel comfortable. BTW, I hope your tree survives!
Congrats, I like that journal, they published one of my poems about trees a year or so ago and the process was easy peasy. Haven't sent them anything else, maybe it's time.
January has been very very good to me...well, except for changes in administration. Maybe, the gods of publication ensured a balance between happy & miserable this month.
The timing of these 3 flash stories in Flash Boulevard could not have been better, especially Why She Carries a Rainstick which I'd written in Matt Kendrick's writing workshop a week after the US elections.
The Bingo Ladies flash story published in Dead Mule School of Southern Literature is an example of a long overdue publication response that turned into an acceptance. The story languished for 323 days (yes, you read that right) until I received an acceptance. Somewhere around June, I became concerned because I’d worked with this editor before & it was unlike her usual behavior so I sent an email asking if everything was alright with her and finally four months later I received a response. She’d been quite ill most of the year and working on her journal was a back burner activity (or inactivity) I was happy she was okay, and happier that she loved the story. It's a funny piece which was inspired by my time visiting with my older sister at her assisted living facility.
Just read 'In Celebration of Chicken Patriarchy' - beautifully written, with a delightfully economical style. I'd intended to move on to your other pieces mentioned here, until 'My First Meeting of the Michael Smith Club' caught my eye - I wonder why?!
'The Bingo Ladies' was great fun (reminded me a little of Richard Osman's 'Thursday Murder Club'). And the artwork in Remington Review was fascinating. Quite a productive month you've had!
Publication of work is so random. Everything that got published in January was accepted over several months. And then - BAM - everything pushed out as once. I've got to read Thursday Murder Club or maybe I'll wait for the movie to come out on Netflix! ;-)
I agree - random. I would compare it to the bus service in my home town - you wait for ages with nothing happening, and then several arrive at once. I've four more publications due, through until May.
Hooray for the great month! I'm particularly moved by "What Until Morning" and I admire the way you use a pattern to steadily increase the momentum and reader expectation. Congratulations, Anne!
This story got its start in a workshop on how to write creative nonfiction. Some of the details I drew from my life and others were imagined. Thank you for reading!
This isn’t a lit mag brag because I haven’t gotten into one yet, but my article How to Save the World Without Burning Yourself Out https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-cross-examined-life/202501/how-to-save-the-world-without-burning-yourself-out was promoted to Essential Read by Psychology Today. Turns out about 30% of the articles I posted have been promoted to Essential Reads or Essential Posts, which is cause to celebrate in itself. However, this is also the first article I’ve written after two years of writing poetry and I was immediately able to see the influence. Overall, very cool and brag worthy.
Short Reads had a call a while ago for reprints. I submitted a piece that was highly commended in the Quiet Man Dave competition a couple of years ago. It's original title was "To the man sitting in the row behind me at UGC Odéon when I saw Amadeus all those years ago, who, soon after the film began, started making rustling and scuffling sounds and then, about twenty minutes in, moved into my row, which was empty apart from me, and sat – or half lay – three places to my right, buttocks on edge of seat, legs splayed, flies undone to the waist, and wanked (emitting little grunts) and who, when I said – disturbing the people in front of me – “For Christ’s sake, piss off,” got up, stumbled to the other end of the row and scuttled towards the SORTIE, almost tripping over his trousers, which he was clutching at half-mast". When Short Reads publishes it (I don't know when yet), the piece will be reformatted and entitled "To the man sitting in the row behind me".
Long titles can be fun, but they present formatting problems.
Goodness, yes, about the long titles. I love writing them; rage at having to format them for Does It Have Pockets website. Okay, maybe, rage is a bit strong, but geez, I'm not happy. Congratulations on getting this accepted!
Congratulations, Trish! I look forward to reading your most intriguing piece. I also submitted a reprint to Short Reads, which was accepted and should be published this coming week. I'll share the link either late in this month's brag, or in February's.
I had two acceptances this month: my first ever poem will be published in Literary Mama’s July issue, and a visual essay/hybrid piece was accepted by Passages North! I had only submitted the poem to Literary Mama, thinking it was a good fit for them. The hybrid piece was rejected by two other magazines and honestly, I’m blown away by the acceptance from Passages North—it’s a dream pub for me!
I am fortunate to have two pubs so far in January (a third should be published next week). The flash fiction, The Companion, is in The Lorelei Signal, having been declined by seven others. The other is an essay reprint, Fog, in The Human Narrative this week, previously declined by two. I found the fiction source on Duotrope and the nonfiction by googling the subject matter, as it covered a delicate issue. I am pleased with both: the editors listened to my suggestions and accommodated, in one case, a layout request!
My story, “Sparkle and Shine,” was recently published in a fun and upcoming journal, The Muleskinner Journal. I was so happy that even though they’d found enough stories they made an exception for my story and published an extra edition because they liked it so much. It’s heartening to have someone love your work after all the effort you’ve put into it.
I don’t remember how I found them, but I happened to have a story that I thought fit their theme, Twist of Fate, perfectly. Gary Campanella communicated and published just as he said he would. He seems happy and excited with the journal he’s heading.
I have a poem in the 1/3/25 Ekphrastic Review Challenge. I enjoy the challenges, and do not do them all, but scroll through, read responses, and when I come upon a photo or work of art that "zings", a poem spills out fairly quickly, and is usually filled with some surprises for me. It is one of the few places to which I don't mind paying a fee. It's posted up at my Facebook page, if you're there and interested: https://www.facebook.com/carol.grannick Or you can scroll through the postings at https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges.
Before I start reading & enjoying all the successes documented here, I'd like to say "thank you" to Becky & this community. Although I haven't had anything published this month, I received an acceptance from Does It Have Pockets? for their April issue, and how would I have known to be so happy about that if I hadn't heard & read about Does It Have Pockets here?!? And it happened with the aid of Erik Harper Klaas--also introduced to me by Lit Mag News. So, thank you, Becky et al!
I had a CNF piece called "Gravity" published in The Rumen this month. They had previously published an essay about my former work as a child protection attorney, and they seemed happy to hear from me again! You can read it there at https://www.therumen.com/publications/l1yjRLs55TDl7FJLZjr9 or on my Substack.
Also, "Perfidy" was published this month as one of the 2024 Writer Advice Micro Fiction prize winners. You can read it there at https://writeradvice.com/the-contest-winners-are/ or on my Substack.
"Gravity" must have been wrenching to write, Suzanne. I was riveted, and the last line was a revelation. "Perfidy," too, was stunning and left the door open to so many questions.
"sheer intensity of his presence" -- right at the start of your cnf, yep, definitely signaled trouble ahead. I admire your willingness to share your story & the eloquence of its delivery! Well done.
What a wonderful piece. It resonates with me in a number of ways. Among them, the early loss of your father, another grade-free education! The horror of having to assign grades to students kept me out of teaching at any level.
My post-apocalyptic story “After the End” was published in Grim & Gilded on Dec. 31st, too late for our December brag. If you’d like to know who (or what) is still standing after The End, the answer is here! https://www.grimandgilded.com/donna-shanley
After the mighty lessons of patience, revisions, and editing learned in 2024 through eighty four rejections for my short stories, I was rewarded with two acceptances in January, one from Pembroke Magazine (for the June issue) and one from the Umbrella Factory Magazine (for the Feb issue).
I can't remember if I mentioned it here but Corner Bar accepted a story two weeks ago. It'll be published in March or April.
The story is called "Chris and Opie" and had been rejected almost 30 times. (NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP!)
It's a text message exchange between the Head of Order and the Head of Chaos about how their day went and there's under lying current of attraction between the two characters.
Corner Bar was the first lit mag to publish a story of mine in December 2023. They tend to like spec fiction and general offbeat stories. No charge to submit.
In other news, while the rejects are piling up (I tend to submit in spurts and do a lot of sim subs), I've gotten a few postive rejects. One was from Hex for a story called "Permission" that said 'this is not our usual reject', telling me they were probably thisclose to accepting it. Also postive rejects from Many Nice Donkeys and The Masters Review.
I've also been submitting a text message exchange story, with several rejections so far. Maybe the unusual formatting is not to the liking of some magazines. Congratulations for your persistence.
Oh wow! So this summer I wrote an essay about menopausal Edith Wharton's midlife reinvention, linking it to All Fours, which had just been shortlisted for National Book Award. A dream publication said they wanted the essay...and then the editor ghosted me (this was before the fires); I nudged the editor all to no avail. Sigh...then remembered that it was Edith Wharton's birthday in Jan, so I sent the pitch to LitHub and ... they took it! Lessons: write the thing you love, be patient, search for news pegs... and here is the piece: https://lithub.com/edith-wharton-and-the-clarifying-rage-of-the-menopausal-writer/
Congratulations! Very cool. And good advice.
Congratulations, Deborah. Ghosting is so much worse in every way than rejection. I'm looking forward to reading your essay.
This was a fascinating essay! So glad it found a great home.
Thank you for writing the article and I look forward to reading the book; I can't wait to read Custom now. I got my MFA while going thru menopause. I loved All Fours but I'm more intrigued by how you link it to Wharton and Undine.
Brava! If people of your ilk are ghosted, not sure what that portends for the rest of us. I look forward to the book!
Oh, congratulations! Very much enjoyed your essay, including the brief comparison between Undine Spragg and Lily Bart. Hadn't thought of them quite that way and was glad to see it. Glad you aimed so well for LitHub.
Great idea to pitch LitHub. Congratulations.
Having just finished All Fours, this is a wonderful read, being myself 30 years past the "change" and having a 39-year-old daughter who reports that All Fours & menopause is the talk of the town (er, Internetl...) just now. Happy belated birthday to Edith Wharton. And thank you, Deborah, for writing the thing you love.
Oh man, can't wait to read this!
Congrats! What a great topic. I am working on a pitch for LitHub. How was the process?
Deborah, I'm a fan of both Wharton & July & quite interested in your article - I have downloaded to read it - appreciate knowing about it!
Happy to have a poem in the British journal The Rialto, a longtime dream. It’s print-only but you can read it here:
https://www.poetalicewhite.com/rialto
They never sent a proof, which freaked me out, but it was otherwise a delight to work with them!
...and it's a delightful poem with a fun surprise! Congratulations!
Thank you!
Congrats on another engaging poem!
Thanks, Debbie! Good to see you last week!
Great poem, Alice!
Thanks, Colette! Missed you at the last Lit Mag Chat—the first one I’ve been able to attend in way too long!
So sorry I missed you and the rest of the gang. Wednesdays are tough for me; I'm hoping that our schedules align and that we're both on a chat session soon!
Such an enjoyable and perceptive poem, Alice!
Thanks, Donna!
Ha! I recognize myself. Very enjoyable.
Thank you!
Great poem. Such a wonderful portrait of human nature!
Thank you so much!
Ha! Loved this, Alice. Congratulations!
Thanks, Tracie!
"It made me feel good about myself"—so relatable!
Thanks!
Haha! Loved this! I totally related to it in every way.
Yay! Thank you!
lol at the end
Thanks :)
What a great twist at the end! congrats, Alice!
I have an essay "Collecting Fabulous Trees" out in Wild Roof Journal Issue 28 https://wildroofjournal.com/issue-28/ It's the second time I've published with them. The editors are great at communicating and I admire the community they are trying to build with their substack, podcast and all. I really liked this essay about trees and climate change and was happy to have it land with them.
I have also been following the It Ends With Us Drama! So many twists. A better story than the movie, imho. I don't really know what to think of it all except that the Hollywood publicity machine is gross!
I have just finished reading "Collecting Fabulous Trees".
Is this sort of thing taught in schools? If not, it should be!
The whole piece was both entertaining and informative. More people should read it.
Thanks so much! I know when I was in school we did a whole assignment one year about learning how to identify trees and making a scrapbook of different leaves. That was now thirty years ago though.
What a pretty journal. I like that they have twice published your work. I haven't resubmitted to a journal that has published mine. I keep trying to find new places, but authors often find a home where they feel comfortable. BTW, I hope your tree survives!
It made me a little nervous to submit to the same place twice, but I'm glad it worked out. That tree is now like 8 feet tall! It's a trooper!
Congrats, I like that journal, they published one of my poems about trees a year or so ago and the process was easy peasy. Haven't sent them anything else, maybe it's time.
Thank you! Go for it and good luck. I'll have to go back and look for your poem!
Thanks for the interest, here's a link https://wildroofjournal.com/issue-19-gallery-2/#GaryGrossman
I loved that! So many vivid details of the trees. Thank you for the link.
January has been very very good to me...well, except for changes in administration. Maybe, the gods of publication ensured a balance between happy & miserable this month.
The timing of these 3 flash stories in Flash Boulevard could not have been better, especially Why She Carries a Rainstick which I'd written in Matt Kendrick's writing workshop a week after the US elections.
https://flashboulevard.wordpress.com/2025/01/18/anne-anthony-in-celebration-of-chicken-patriarchy/
The Bingo Ladies flash story published in Dead Mule School of Southern Literature is an example of a long overdue publication response that turned into an acceptance. The story languished for 323 days (yes, you read that right) until I received an acceptance. Somewhere around June, I became concerned because I’d worked with this editor before & it was unlike her usual behavior so I sent an email asking if everything was alright with her and finally four months later I received a response. She’d been quite ill most of the year and working on her journal was a back burner activity (or inactivity) I was happy she was okay, and happier that she loved the story. It's a funny piece which was inspired by my time visiting with my older sister at her assisted living facility.
https://deadmule.com/2025/01/14/anne-anthony-the-bingo-ladies/
Other January publications include:
Quarantine
https://panoplyzine.com/quarantine-by-anne-anthony/
Wait Until Morning
https://brightflash1000.com/2025/01/03/wait-until-morning/
My First Meeting of the Michael Smith Club & Spirals
https://www.thedribbledrabblereview.com/
No Returns
https://magiquepublishing.wordpress.com/2025/01/04/darkly-beautiful-release-2/
I even had artwork published at Remington Review Winter 2025 issue! Pages 15 – 16
https://www.flipsnack.com/remingtonreview/remington-review-winter-2025/full-view.html
Anne, congratulations on a stellar month.
Thanks so much, Tracie!
Just read 'In Celebration of Chicken Patriarchy' - beautifully written, with a delightfully economical style. I'd intended to move on to your other pieces mentioned here, until 'My First Meeting of the Michael Smith Club' caught my eye - I wonder why?!
Apologies for 'stealing' your name without your permission. But, then again, you are now famous! ;-)
'The Bingo Ladies' was great fun (reminded me a little of Richard Osman's 'Thursday Murder Club'). And the artwork in Remington Review was fascinating. Quite a productive month you've had!
Publication of work is so random. Everything that got published in January was accepted over several months. And then - BAM - everything pushed out as once. I've got to read Thursday Murder Club or maybe I'll wait for the movie to come out on Netflix! ;-)
I agree - random. I would compare it to the bus service in my home town - you wait for ages with nothing happening, and then several arrive at once. I've four more publications due, through until May.
Hooray for the great month! I'm particularly moved by "What Until Morning" and I admire the way you use a pattern to steadily increase the momentum and reader expectation. Congratulations, Anne!
This story got its start in a workshop on how to write creative nonfiction. Some of the details I drew from my life and others were imagined. Thank you for reading!
Wow! Just wow!
Thanks, Suzanne!
This isn’t a lit mag brag because I haven’t gotten into one yet, but my article How to Save the World Without Burning Yourself Out https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-cross-examined-life/202501/how-to-save-the-world-without-burning-yourself-out was promoted to Essential Read by Psychology Today. Turns out about 30% of the articles I posted have been promoted to Essential Reads or Essential Posts, which is cause to celebrate in itself. However, this is also the first article I’ve written after two years of writing poetry and I was immediately able to see the influence. Overall, very cool and brag worthy.
I agree, brag worthy! Congrats.
Congratulations on this piece!
Short Reads had a call a while ago for reprints. I submitted a piece that was highly commended in the Quiet Man Dave competition a couple of years ago. It's original title was "To the man sitting in the row behind me at UGC Odéon when I saw Amadeus all those years ago, who, soon after the film began, started making rustling and scuffling sounds and then, about twenty minutes in, moved into my row, which was empty apart from me, and sat – or half lay – three places to my right, buttocks on edge of seat, legs splayed, flies undone to the waist, and wanked (emitting little grunts) and who, when I said – disturbing the people in front of me – “For Christ’s sake, piss off,” got up, stumbled to the other end of the row and scuttled towards the SORTIE, almost tripping over his trousers, which he was clutching at half-mast". When Short Reads publishes it (I don't know when yet), the piece will be reformatted and entitled "To the man sitting in the row behind me".
Long titles can be fun, but they present formatting problems.
Christ on a bike! It sounds like formatting was the least of your problems.
Goodness, yes, about the long titles. I love writing them; rage at having to format them for Does It Have Pockets website. Okay, maybe, rage is a bit strong, but geez, I'm not happy. Congratulations on getting this accepted!
Congratulations, Trish! I look forward to reading your most intriguing piece. I also submitted a reprint to Short Reads, which was accepted and should be published this coming week. I'll share the link either late in this month's brag, or in February's.
I had two acceptances this month: my first ever poem will be published in Literary Mama’s July issue, and a visual essay/hybrid piece was accepted by Passages North! I had only submitted the poem to Literary Mama, thinking it was a good fit for them. The hybrid piece was rejected by two other magazines and honestly, I’m blown away by the acceptance from Passages North—it’s a dream pub for me!
Claire, those are two amazing acceptances! We'll be watching for your dream piece, and your first-ever poem.
Congratulations!
Yes, I'd be blown away by a Passages North acceptance. Congrats!
I am fortunate to have two pubs so far in January (a third should be published next week). The flash fiction, The Companion, is in The Lorelei Signal, having been declined by seven others. The other is an essay reprint, Fog, in The Human Narrative this week, previously declined by two. I found the fiction source on Duotrope and the nonfiction by googling the subject matter, as it covered a delicate issue. I am pleased with both: the editors listened to my suggestions and accommodated, in one case, a layout request!
My story, “Sparkle and Shine,” was recently published in a fun and upcoming journal, The Muleskinner Journal. I was so happy that even though they’d found enough stories they made an exception for my story and published an extra edition because they liked it so much. It’s heartening to have someone love your work after all the effort you’ve put into it.
https://www.muleskinnerjournal.com/ To find my story, go to “Another Twist of Fate."
I don’t remember how I found them, but I happened to have a story that I thought fit their theme, Twist of Fate, perfectly. Gary Campanella communicated and published just as he said he would. He seems happy and excited with the journal he’s heading.
As all good flash fiction does, it left me wanting more! And I'm glad you had better luck than I have with Muleskinner Journal.
Don’t give up
Muleskinner is a great litmag! Congrats!
Thank you very much!
I have a poem in the 1/3/25 Ekphrastic Review Challenge. I enjoy the challenges, and do not do them all, but scroll through, read responses, and when I come upon a photo or work of art that "zings", a poem spills out fairly quickly, and is usually filled with some surprises for me. It is one of the few places to which I don't mind paying a fee. It's posted up at my Facebook page, if you're there and interested: https://www.facebook.com/carol.grannick Or you can scroll through the postings at https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges.
Ekphrastic Review is a fun journal. It's amazing how those sparks of inspiration come!
I love "Conundrum" Carol: the glorious sense of embrace and confidence in the second stanza! The Ekphrastic Review is a lovely magazine.
Before I start reading & enjoying all the successes documented here, I'd like to say "thank you" to Becky & this community. Although I haven't had anything published this month, I received an acceptance from Does It Have Pockets? for their April issue, and how would I have known to be so happy about that if I hadn't heard & read about Does It Have Pockets here?!? And it happened with the aid of Erik Harper Klaas--also introduced to me by Lit Mag News. So, thank you, Becky et al!
I had a CNF piece called "Gravity" published in The Rumen this month. They had previously published an essay about my former work as a child protection attorney, and they seemed happy to hear from me again! You can read it there at https://www.therumen.com/publications/l1yjRLs55TDl7FJLZjr9 or on my Substack.
Also, "Perfidy" was published this month as one of the 2024 Writer Advice Micro Fiction prize winners. You can read it there at https://writeradvice.com/the-contest-winners-are/ or on my Substack.
"Gravity" must have been wrenching to write, Suzanne. I was riveted, and the last line was a revelation. "Perfidy," too, was stunning and left the door open to so many questions.
Thanks Donna. That means a lot coming from a writer with such a stunning voice.
"sheer intensity of his presence" -- right at the start of your cnf, yep, definitely signaled trouble ahead. I admire your willingness to share your story & the eloquence of its delivery! Well done.
Thanks for your kind words and support Anne. It’s true this one was harder than usual to hit send!
This month I published an affectionate piece about my father and me. It had been rejected three times before The Bookends Review nabbed it:
https://thebookendsreview.com/2025/01/15/a-key-connection-to-my-father-found-lost-and-reinterpreted/
And just as nice, Phi Beta Kappa is going to reprint the essay on its website. (When you read the piece, you will see why.)
Lovely!
What a wonderful piece. It resonates with me in a number of ways. Among them, the early loss of your father, another grade-free education! The horror of having to assign grades to students kept me out of teaching at any level.
My post-apocalyptic story “After the End” was published in Grim & Gilded on Dec. 31st, too late for our December brag. If you’d like to know who (or what) is still standing after The End, the answer is here! https://www.grimandgilded.com/donna-shanley
This is so beautiful and moving and sad. I'm passing on the link to my writer friends.
Thank you so much for reading, Suzanne, and for your lovely comment!
After the mighty lessons of patience, revisions, and editing learned in 2024 through eighty four rejections for my short stories, I was rewarded with two acceptances in January, one from Pembroke Magazine (for the June issue) and one from the Umbrella Factory Magazine (for the Feb issue).
Congratulations!
I can't remember if I mentioned it here but Corner Bar accepted a story two weeks ago. It'll be published in March or April.
The story is called "Chris and Opie" and had been rejected almost 30 times. (NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP!)
It's a text message exchange between the Head of Order and the Head of Chaos about how their day went and there's under lying current of attraction between the two characters.
Corner Bar was the first lit mag to publish a story of mine in December 2023. They tend to like spec fiction and general offbeat stories. No charge to submit.
In other news, while the rejects are piling up (I tend to submit in spurts and do a lot of sim subs), I've gotten a few postive rejects. One was from Hex for a story called "Permission" that said 'this is not our usual reject', telling me they were probably thisclose to accepting it. Also postive rejects from Many Nice Donkeys and The Masters Review.
I've also been submitting a text message exchange story, with several rejections so far. Maybe the unusual formatting is not to the liking of some magazines. Congratulations for your persistence.
I learned early on with submitting that story to keep the formatting as normal as possible.
Clever premise!