R.K. West

Afternoon of February 20, 2026

My poem, "Tilted Houses," appears on Five Fleas:
fivefleas.blogspot.com/2026/02/afte...

I'm doing pretty well, I guess. I've had 86 rejections in the past 11 months. If I really push myself now, I may make 100 for the year.

Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year Last year, I got rejected 43 times by literary magazines, residencies, and fellowships—my best record since I started shooting for getting 100 rejections per year. It’s harder than it sounds, but a…

There are those who say a writer should aim for 100 rejections a year.
lithub.com/why-you-shou...

My characters rarely negotiate. They know what they want, and what it's worth.

Most of my stories are more about character than plot.

Does this look 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝?

Digital illustration of an elderly woman with a face deformity and physical disability. She is pushing a walker and there’s text on her gray sweatshirt that reads, ‘disabled is not a bad word.’ The graphic has text that reads, “Before 1974… some cities allowed police to arrest people with visible disabilities for being out in public”

Click­bait - Johnny America Toilet-snake videos convince a family that Guam might be everywhere.

My story, "Clickbait," on Johnny America.
www.johnnyamerica.com/archives/202...

Interview With the Genie You can't always get what you want.

yoursuddenflash.blogspot.com/2026/02/inte...

Someone thought it was unnecessary for me to research things I already knew. But sometimes what you think you know or remember isn't quite accurate, and you get surprised. I trust my memory, but I do the research anyway.

I've written 900 words today, and I may write some more after dinner.

Submission Guidelines How to submit your microfiction and flash fiction to Sudden Flash

We read every story that is submitted.
yoursuddenflash.blogspot.com/p/submission...

My stats for January

4 pending submissions carried over
0 rejections
1 timed out
1 accepted
2 still pending

because a story is out for many months, doesn't necessarily mean rejection. I've had cases where I assumed the story was lost and they accepted. It's a frustrating world out there.

Thinking today about the publishers who hold onto my stories for months & months and then finally get around to rejecting them, or, worse, the ones who just neve, ever respond. The longest I ever waited was a well-known magazine that took 13 months to reject my story. Thirteen months! But just

🚨 United States of America v. Raffensperger Learn more.

🚨BREAKING: Federal court DISMISSES Department of Justice's lawsuit to obtain Georgia's full voter file information for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Essentially, the geniuses at DOJ filed in the wrong court.

Dhillon and DOJ are now 0-3 in these cases.
www.democracydocket.com/cases/georgi...

Last year, we made the decision to step away from X.

The Royal Irish Academy is committed to creating, convening, and sharing knowledge for the public good and as an organisation we value Independence; Integrity; Curiosity; Openness and Rigour.

In our view, X no longer aligns with these values

Charles I of England - Wikipedia

Charles I believed in the "divine right of kings" and thought he could do anything he wanted. It did not turn out well for him.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...

That Message About Cloud Storage Could Be a Scam If you get an urgent message about running out of cloud storage—the consequences of which involve losing your photos or documents—you may be the target of a scam. The Federal Trade Commission is alert...

The text message threatening your iCloud storage is a scam. I got it on my Android phone today. I don't use iCloud.
lifehacker.com/tech/cloud-s...

An ice vending machine on a snow-covered walkway next to a building with snow on the roof.

I took this picture in Burlington VT in 2020. The ice machine in the snow just made me laugh.

"To find non-citizens who shouldn't be voting." Really, that's all they're doing with the data?

New Republican election officials make voting harder in North Carolina Read more here.

In North Carolina, GOP-led election boards have shut down early voting sites across the state and sent personal voter data to the Trump administration, which is running the information through a federal database to find non-citizens who shouldn’t be voting. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/new-...

YouTube video by EdwarDixie Norah Jones Don't Know Why I Didn't Come

youtu.be/caHqluXWTto?...

He may be remote, but he's not working.

Being young is great, but it's not sustainable.

The frog problem was obvious to humans. But there are very likely more subtle errors entering official records. AI hallucinates. AI accepts fan fiction on an equal footing with news reporting. AI still isn't sure how many fingers people have. So let's depend on it to replace human thinking.

Cops Forced to Explain Why AI Generated Police Report Claimed Officer Transformed Into Frog AI-powered software Draft One automatically generates police reports from body camera footage. It thought an officer turned into a frog.

"They" keep insisting that AI is going to make our work faster & easier by doing our research & writing our reports for us. Sure.
futurism.com/artificial-i...