So there we were, reeling from one bad dive bar to another, even more impossibly bad dive bar, when …

Oh, wait. BLOG hop. I’ve been invited to participate in a blog hop, not a bar hop.

Just what is a blog hop? You may wonder. I wondered, too. It’s a chance for writers to introduce other writers while sharing a few comments on their writing process. I was tagged by Patricia Flaherty Pagan, the editor of Up, Do : Flash Fiction by Women Writers and the new collection Eve’s Requiem: Tales of Women, Mystery and Horror.

In her blog post, Patty talked about a story I’m looking forward to reading, based on Boston’s real-life Great Molasses Flood of 1919. It will be included in Eve’s Requiem, but in the meantime, here’s one of her stories you can read online. It’s moving, honest, and raw, and beautifully compressed.

I’m going to cheat a little in answering some of the questions I was given to avoid spoilers, since this story is coming out soon–in the October issue of Foliate Oak–and I hope you’ll go there to read it.

1. What is the name of your character? Is s/he fictional/historical?
–My character is a historical person, but also a fictional creation. I think any time we try to enter someone else’s consciousness, as I did with Zelda Fitzgerald in my Up, Do story “Lights Out: Zelda in Highland Hospital,” we create a new character who exists in our minds and on the page, even when they are based on someone from “real life.”

2. When and where is the story set?
–In a small town near Norman, Oklahoma, in 1944.

3. What should we know about your character?
–He is out of his element (in every possible way). Also, he has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Also, he is in jail.

4. What is your character’s goal?
–On an immediate level, he wants to get out of jail. But he also wants to escape in a more profound way: escape fame, identity, self.

5. What is screwing up your character’s life (main conflict in writerly speak)?
–There’s a drain in the floor…

6. What is the title of your piece?
–Nope. Spoiler.

7. Can we and when can we expect the story/novella/book to be published?
–Yes. Foliate Oak magazine, October 2014.

And now I’m going to tag two more up-and-coming writers whose work you should know: Mick Harris and K.C. Wilder. Read them and love them.

Mick Harris is a writer and editor living in the CA East Bay. They hold an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. Their work is available or forthcoming in Fruita Pulp, Deep Water Literary, Pink Litter, Digging Through the Fat, the Up, Do anthology from Spider Road Press and the Candlelit Journal. You can blame them if you want, but they probably didn’t do it. They blog and make poetry at http://www.positivelysocialsix.wordpress.com.

K.C. Wilder is the author of the chick lit novel Fifty Ways to Leave Your Husband, the YA series of Heather Hollow paranormal fiction, and the short story collection Wrecks: Three Stories of Imperfect Love. She also proudly contributed the short story “The Mermaid” to Merry Chick Lit, a compilation with all proceeds benefiting breast cancer nonprofit Rocking the Road for a Cure. She loves writing, reading, swimming, stand-up paddle boarding, gardening, dog-walking, cat-cuddling, and good-naturedly misbehaving. She blogs (often hilariously) at Girl on a Wire.