The anthology Moving Across the Landscape in Search of an Idea describes itself as “a collection of stories with verbose titles, concise narratives, and copious notes, in multiple genres,” and that’s exactly what my story was.
I rarely rise to the occasion of a themed anthology concept, but in this case, what editor and publisher Todd Sanders sought seemed so bizarre my muse could not help but waken. Here’s are his guidelines:
We are seeking stories for an anthology to be titled Moving Across the Landscape in Search of an Idea. We are looking for stories with 1500 words divided as follows: long titles (minimum 250 words [though we know this might be difficult so, as long as it is an obnoxiously long title, we’ll be ok]), concise narratives (minimum 250 words, maximum 800 words) and copious footnotes, endnotes, marginalia, indices and glossaries (minimum 250 words, maximum 800 words). Authors are welcome to shift word counts between these three parts of their submission, but they must stay within a range of 1500 words for the total submission (ex. a 500 word title, a 600 word narrative, and 400 words of footnotes.). Stories are welcome to be submitted in any genre.
I was intrigued. Could it be done? And what sort of story would justify doing it?
My submitted story featured a title of 329 words — a story of 611 words — plus 15 footnotes totaling 587 words — and a round of book club questions of 88 words.
So “The Cool Side of the Pillow” is an extremely shortened version of the actual title. I hope you’ll track down a copy of Moving Across the Landscape in Search of an Idea, released in June of 2024, to discover what it is.