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Taking the Plunge Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction I spent this past week editing, hacking, and otherwise putting the final polish on a collection of short stories. The Flannery O'Connor Award is presented by the University of Georgia every year to two "emerging authors". It is also one of the only awards given to COLLECTIONS rather than individual pieces. My collection contains 22 short pieces. 14 of those stories have seen publication in the last two years. As I look down the table of contents, they really do represent quite a span of years. A few of the earlier pieces have been completely redone, in at least one case, to the point of being a new story altogether. The purpose for this blog is not to toot my own horn, although I will confess that putting the collection together has given me a real sense of accomplishment. Rather, I find that it took a great deal of personal fortitude to bite the bullet and hang my life's work out to be judged by others. The prize isn't much....or doesn't sound like much perhaps. A cash prize is awarded to two finalists. $1,000. Also, those two collections are published (which is a much bigger deal than the money). Finally, the winners are brought to the U of Geo for an awards dinner/ceremony. Awards are announced at the end of August. Hummmmm....Atlanta in August.... I hold no illusions here. This is the first time I've entered this contest. According to the web site, 300 other people entered last year. While this number may seem high, it pales by comparison to the slush received by many of the larger publishing houses. At one time in my career my writing focused on science fiction and fantasy. I submitted my work, for the first time, to a magazine you might find in the rack at Barnes and Nobel: FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. I talked to the managing editor (at the time) and visited their office when they worked out of a small place on the Oregon coast. This magazine publishes more of the type of story that I wrote at that time than any other. They put out 13 issues a year (once a month and an annual 'special'). On the average, each edition carried 10 short stories. The math is fairly simple...130 stories a year. They received, at that time, 1,000 submissions A WEEK. Still, I always submitted there because I knew that if I could crack THAT market...it would mean I could crack any market. They never published a piece of my work. It took visiting that office before I really ceased taking such rejection personally. Not that it's any easier now, rejection never is, but I understand how and why it happens. Still in all, while such rejection may have been discouraging, momentarily, I still wrote. Someone asked me why I wrote once. I can only say that writing satisfies a mental itch that cannot be scratched any other way. So here we go again: I'll hang my entire short story career on the line. I'll keep you posted. Just because you have silenced a man does not mean you have changed his mind. |
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5/7/2011 10:42 am |
I wish you the best of luck in establishing a long short story career.
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5/7/2011 10:43 am |
Good Luck! I used to read Fantasy and Science Fiction years ago. Had no idea it was still around. Spiritwoman ^i^
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Good luck! Let us know if you are one of the lucky 2. We live in Milledgeville, Georgia where Flannery O'Conner lived and is buried in Memory Hill Cemetery. There is a large room at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, with her works, books, and papers from her days at the college and living here. Her home is just north of town. She used to raise peacocks there at the farm.
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Hi B00 - Good luck! I was interested in your blog. We live in Milledgeville Georgia, which was the home of Flannery O'Connor. She lived on a farm by the name of Andalusia, it is just down the road from us and when we have visitors we usually take them there. Another coincidence, only a few miles up the road is Eatonton, where Joel Chandler Harris (author of Brer Rabbit stories) was born. Wish some of their talent would rub off on me.  Alfie...
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5/7/2011 12:29 pm |
Hi B00 - Good luck! I was interested in your blog. We live in Milledgeville Georgia, which was the home of Flannery O'Connor. She lived on a farm by the name of Andalusia, it is just down the road from us and when we have visitors we usually take them there. Another coincidence, only a few miles up the road is Eatonton, where Joel Chandler Harris (author of Brer Rabbit stories) was born. Wish some of their talent would rub off on me. Alfie... At least you're nowhere near where Faulkner lived/wrote! Just because you have silenced a man does not mean you have changed his mind.
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5/7/2011 2:04 pm |
Good fortune to you Boo. I wish you the very best.
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