and the bad one...or is it?

i won nothing at the local, art nouveau-themed local literature contest.

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there were 93 entries for poems and prose.

as it was legible, i entered two poems (a haiku and another one) and a short story.

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i'm telling you, i was disappointed - i mean, i'm not used to failures, but not to wins, either. go figure that it still felt a disappointment.

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okay, lament is over.

the good thing is that i had the chance to talk with one of the judges (a 40 something poet) about the reasons for not getting into the final 3.

(both my haiku, and my short story got into the final 15 - whoa, i just reconsider my disappointment, hee-hee.)

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so, this man was kind enough to give details about where, just exactly at what paragraph went my writing astray. he pointed out just the way i understood.

he did not give me the method, any method to correct the wrong, but he explained me what went wrong.

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wow, it took me a week to go from feeling miserable for not winning to feeling lucky to have been given a short, but thorough analysis of my writing.

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geez, i am lucky.

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the good news...

is that now i have my very own copy of the anthology we (the writers' group) published.

And what's more, we had a very bright and thoughtful evening to celebrate the book. The event was held in the town library on 31 May.

It started with a little discussion about issues related to writing, publishing and literature in general, and then the moderator of the event (a 30-something contemporary poet) with the help of the leader of the writers' group guided the audience through the various sections of the book.

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Some of the poems or short stories were partly, or completely read aloud.

One of my contributions was too, read.

Listening to my thoughts being read aloud felt a bit awkward as this flash fiction is quite an emotional one. I wrote it just a couple of months ago. It still works within me, I guess.

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The book was for sale at the end of the event and it sold quite well.

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I keep the book on my windowsill so that I can read it as often as I wish :)

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photo credits: empowernetwork dot com