By 2018, I’d spent over twenty years writing fanfiction, telling myself that the time for original work would come, just not yet. Then a friend told me about the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest. It was a bit expensive on my bookseller salary, but I wanted just to try. I convinced my sister to pay the entry fee (thanks, Li!) and for the first time in my life, what I wrote was going to get in front of contest editors who dealt with real authors.

The contest was good to me—I made it all the way to the final round, where my short story “A Girl’s Guide to Everyday Magic” earned an Honorable Mention. After that, I joined a fantastic group of like-minded writers who encouraged me and shared the tools I’d need to continue writing and submitting work.

I got my first rejection while I was at Disney World with my husband and daughter. Rather than ruin the mood, however, the notice thrilled me. A rejection meant that I’d tried, that I’d put myself out there and that someone in the industry had actually read my story. Just two months later, the same story, “Rembrandt; Self-Portrait With Saskia” was published in the now-defunct online magazine, The Copperfield Review.

These days, I’m working on completing a novel—a particular challenge for me, as short fiction has always been my wheelhouse. Pease follow me as I continue this journey!