Another story of mine that was published three months ago (in addition to “Extinguisher”) was “The Lock.” It’s posted this morning to the “Previously Published Stories” sidebar.
“The Lock” was published in NOON and was phenomenally edited by Diane Williams, who runs that magazine. The original version, though it was not long, was about five times longer than the version she published. She took that original version, stripped most of it away, rearranged what was left, and said, “Why don’t we try it this way?” I said, “Okay.” It was as though she ran a body shop, I drove a school bus in for a tune-up, and drove out a week later with a Formula 1 racer.