It’s been years since I published my last short story, but here I am again, with another story about mermaids. It is not my first published story about mermaids, and it probably won’t be my last. I have a mermaid tattoo on my leg. I even wrote a song about mermaids and wore a mermaid tail for the video. It has the same name as this short story, “Mermaiding.” Am I repeating myself? The point is, MERMAIDS.
Some backstory on my story: I wrote this a very, very long time ago—probably close to a decade ago, which in internet years, is a lifetime. It was accepted for an anthology I was overjoyed to be a part of, and then my joy deflated over the years as the anthology clearly was never going to happen. I submitted it again all these years later, my little orphan story leftover from my short story writing days, and it found a home at Cutbank Literary Magazine. Cutbank also published a story of mine years ago in a print issue called “The Daughter Resurrected” about a daughter who rose from the dead.
