Big Freakin' News!

The moment that probably, well, none of you except Brad have been waiting for . . . . 

I'm going to be a published fiction writer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Scream with me! Ahhhhhhhhhh! I'm so happy! 

And it gets even better - there's $ involved! 

Here's the scoop: two months ago I was flipping through Brad's Poets & Writers and I came to the contests page. Well, I says to myself, Self, you might as well enter this one and that one b/c they don't sound so bad and they ain't so expensive. So I enter this one (but then forget about that one) - I pay my $15 and send off my short-short (usually 1000 words or less) through the online system - and then I go on my merry way . . . 

My celebratory flowers, courtesy of 
my hubby 

Yesterday, late afternoon, I get the most unbelievable e-mail: I won (!) and my story will be published in a print journal (!) and then on the website of the group that sponsored the contest (!) and . . . the prize is . . . $1000! 

!!!!!!! 

I don't know if I can possibly convey how exciting this is for me. The profs that I told today seemed actually impressed by the journal my piece is going to come out in - which was awesome since I know about 15 journals (the biggies - Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Threepenny Review, Tin House, Epoch, etc.) and am generally clueless about the others, many of which are very good. And, not only am I getting paid for my writing, but I'm also going to be a real, true published author! I can finally say I'm a fiction writer and not feel like a fraud! 

The scholarly article publications are exciting, of course, and I'm not denigrating their importance and value at all. But I am a fiction writer at heart, and fiction is my love, and beyond all that, fiction is art. And art is what I love. So, this is HUGE for me. And, it's amazing motivation to get back to work on that novel this summer and send out my darn stories!