I just signed off on the printer’s proofs for “Quiet Enjoyment,” my short story about haute couture and courtroom fireworks on Antigua.

It will be published by Paycock Press in November in Defying Gravity, the sixth collection in the Grace & Gravity series of fiction by women writers living in the Washington, DC area and edited by poet Richard Peabody.

Peabody founded Paycock Press in 1976 to publish the international literary magazine, Gargoyle.

“Quiet Enjoyment’ is a comedy taken from Aurore, Book Four of Tabou, to be published in 2014. Books One, Two and Three are available for all eReaders from Publish Green.

Whether coaxing out or damping down my inner Hemingway, I’ve been working slowly but surely on a collection of short fiction, Daughter of Michigan and Other Stories. “Quiet Enjoyment” is not the only piece featuring characters from my novel cycle. “Turban Boy” traces the dark origins of Tiffin d’Aileron’s mysterious and complicated relationship with her grandmother, Valerie Drummond, the fictional Anglo-Irish Countess of Tiffin and Ross.

Many thanks to Richard, a longtime champion of women’s fiction and the DC literary scene, for encouraging me along the way.