Good Tidings from the Land of Aquafortis

Remember my jubilation ages ago at getting third place in a YA short story contest? And then I never said anything about it again? That’s because I had heard second- or third-hand that one of the editors at Blooming Tree Press–the publisher who is putting together the anthology of contest winners–had left her job, and therefore the remaining editors were suddenly swamped. At that point I had been very discouraged because I’d received a phone message from Blooming Tree early in the year. When I finally touched base with them, they said the anthology would get going in June or July 2006, but I never heard anything more. When I got the information about them being short an editor, I tried to resign myself to the idea that maybe it just wasn’t going to pan out. Maybe my first real fiction publication was not ever going to make it into print.

But yesterday I came home to a message on my answering machine…from Blooming Tree. They are proceeding with the anthology. I spoke to the editor today and she’ll be sending me an actual, physical contract. YAAAAY!!! And my story will be one of only 5 or 6 stories, she says. Perhaps now is the time to start planning my viral marketing campaign. (Those of you who’ve ever heard me ranting about my fabulous experiences in corporate marketing–for teen-oriented websites, no less–will have detected the towering level of sarcasm in that last statement.)