Magazines — the First Step?
Everyone says the first step to getting publishing credentials is submitting stories/articles to magazines.
My problem: I’m no good at writing short stories.
Everyone says that in order to find out what magazines want, you must read them.
My problem: I don’t read magazines and don’t really want to.
Ah, well, I sent one of my stories to the Annie Dillard Creative Nonfiction contest. You send an SASE and a small entry fee (compared to what I saw in Writer’s Digest, a very reasonable fee) and they send you the results. Annie Dillard, for those of you who don’t know, is a spiritual creative nonfiction writer, and one of my writing teachers in college raved about her.
Winners announced July 2007.
>_> The contest didn’t pan out, by the way. I didn’t expect it to, but there’s always the teeniest bit of hope that a miracle might happen where they spill coffee all over the other entries and you’re made winner because the judges are too embarrassed to mention the unfortunate incident.
Or, you know, that your writing might not suck.
Anyway, they sent me a list of the winners and runners-up and a copy of the book they put out with the winners’ stories.
Doesn’t that seem like a slap in the face? It always has to me — I really don’t want to read the stories of people I lost to. AND I feel awkward about throwing books away, so that silly thing is going to sit on my bookshelf for a few years, mocking me, before I chuck it rather than haul it along when we move again.
Comment by EA Blevins — May 10, 2008 @ 11:08 am