Friday Five: Orange Rose editor Amber Budd

‘Literary magazines exist to uplift the work of other writers, and that’s always been my main priority.’

In less than a year, Amber Budd has built something incredible for the online literary world with The Orange Rose Literary Magazine. Since launching The Orange Rose last July, she has published five issues, each one of which is filled with a broad range of writing–short stories, nonfiction, flash and micro fiction, and poetry from writers well known, lesser known, and unknown–as well as visual art and photography. (Note to writers: Amber’s call for prose submissions for Issue 6 ends May 31, so get busy! [Orange Rose has already hit its cap for poetry submissions.) I’ve had three short stories appear in Amber’s magazine (in issues 2, 4, and 5, which was a pet-themed issue in honor of Amber’s recently departed orange cat, Biscotti). I also received one kindly worded rejection email from her.

Amber is a Missouri-based writer (as am I) who, at age 24, juggles her editor-in-chief work with her pursuit of an MFA in writing, which she began last fall. She holds an AFA and BA in Creative Writing and previously served as editor for Arrow Rock Literary Journal and as a reader for Fractured Lit. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple magazines and journals, and she is currently writing her first novel that will eventually serve as her master’s thesis. Though her chronic illnesses limit her day-to-day capabilities, she uses her free time, according to her bio, “to replay the same two video games for the millionth time, crochet while binge-watching her current TV obsession, and squeeze in D&D sessions with her friends.”

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My ‘new’ short story’s long road to publication

A story 45 years in the making has finally found a home.

Today, a short story I first drafted in the 1990s–and that began as a stubborn idea some 45 years ago–has broken free of its chrysalis and flung itself into the world.

Shah Mat” makes its long-awaited (for me, anyway) debut in the latest issue of a new literary magazine, The Orange Rose.

“Shah Mat” is one of several writings I drafted in the mid-1990s, in a flurry of creative activity over several months, then set aside as I started to focus more on my career and other writing endeavors. Most of those drafts remain in that form and may never see publication, for good reason.

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