A long time coming

I carefully track my submissions to literary magazines, and the money I spend on them, color-coding the rows.  Purple for submissions, grey for rejections, blue for long-listed, gold for acceptance. There are now numerous pages, which feels like success in itself.  But most of them are a wash of grey.  This was foretold.  I’d wondered if I was prepped for this type of rejection.  Yes and no.  

Beth and I returned to Interlochen for the Writer’s Retreat. Studying with John Mauk was steady and insightful. This year I took advantage of the meet with an author event.  There are resident authors who will spend an hour talking about whatever a writer needs.  I was surprised when the entire conversation turned to how much money I’d spent on submissions to contests and the weight of rejections.  She advised me to take a break; find the joy in writing again.  Great advice. I had won a contest, but it was for a 10 minute play at Ensemble Theatre.  It was old territory, though I did get to see a staged reading and do some good work on the piece.  So there among the growing grey was a strip of gold. 

Then I made the long list for an online publication called Tadpole Press.  Another flash fiction contest.  Three of my pieces made the list.  Soon I was informed that one of these had made the short-list.  And I found myself in the top selections to be published in the online magazine, reading my very personal piece over zoom.  So – a gold strip, a blue strip and a breather.  Over the moon. 

At Interlochen Beth and I stayed at a cabin on a lake and wrote, wrote, wrote.  She talked me into stealing lilacs from across the street and on the night of the blue moon we giggled our way across the alley.  Lilacs reminded us of our first home on Lake Erie and their smell filled the sunporch where we wrote.  My best work that week was a quick poem written on that porch on my phone.  The Lilac Thieves is perhaps my proudest piece to date.  I’d met a woman looking for pieces for another contest.  The prestigious Dunes Review was sponsoring a Constitution Poetry Contest.  I submitted.  Not really satisfied with the piece – as cynical as I feel, the hope my political father instilled in my country won out.  I wrote another.  Beth wept when I read it over the phone.  But turns out I was a day late to submit.  I’ve included the piece in a chapbook called “The Sound of Moonlight” and am sending it around. 

I got the phone call from the Constitution Poetry people asking if I could attend a Michigan Writer’s meeting.  My first piece, Silent America, had been Long-listed.  Another blue stripe to offset the grey.  When I finally learned that the piece had received third place and would be published in the fall-winter print issue of Dunes, I was more than over the moon – I was soaring over Mars.  Another gold stripe.  Another validation that the more personal, seemingly mundane writing was getting somewhere. 

The summer has been filled with family and a roller coaster of emotions.  Writing brought some light.  And I have to say, being a published author and poet means the world.  And the moon and Mars as well.