I cried twice today

I do not like to cry in front of my students, but it happened twice today.

The first time was the fault of A.S. in my AP Literature and Composition. We've just finished a study of elements of fiction and are now transitioning into poetry. The class's first assignment was to read the introductory chapter on poetry. In class, they annotated the poem and several students volunteered to read the poem aloud and share their annotation. Well A.S. read John Updike's Dog's Death. I had purposely skipped over this selection in the chapter because I am a softie and I knew I would cry. Well he read it and I cried. I pulled together my composure to add more to the conversation we started last week about Frankenstein.

The second set of tears fell at the end of the day, just as Student Council members arrived to put the final touches on Homecoming. I opened my email and discovered that the October issue of RED OCHRE LiT has been published and there was my name. I clicked on my name and I just couldn't help myself. At that moment I had to let go of a lifetime of self-doubt and I had gotten so used to living with it. It has been my shield, my wall. I need to let that go now. The world is such a different place without my own fears holding me back.

And it happened like this

In the spring, one Chris Difford was soliciting some stories about imaginary friends. I believe that his intentions were to use those stories in a show. I thought nothing of it because I had never had an imaginary friend (unless you count fantasies about...never mind). The idea stuck around in my head and I found a story creeping down to my fingers. It turned into a story about an imaginary meeting with my son's birth mother. Through many tears I composed it and sent it to Chris. I don't know if he ever got it, but I put it away for a while. The subject shook me so heavily that I sobbed every time I read it.

Late in the summer, I realized that my writing had come to a grinding halt and I needed to leap out of the rut I had dug. I pulled out this short story. I fixed some words and sent it to a couple of magazines, including RED OCHRE LiT.

One magazine rejected it quite quickly. Then, I heard back from RED OCHRE LiT, from an intern who like the piece and asked a few questions for clarification. Immediately my hopes soared. I tried to stay realistic about the story, as I know that sometimes it can take weeks if not months to hear back from publishers and publications.

Today at lunch, I checked my email. I saw that RED OCHRE LiT had sent me a message. I covered my eyes, peeked through my fingers, and opened the message. It said congratulations, we love the story and want to publish it! It went on to tell me that they will get back to me about the specifics (publication date, any small changes, etc.). None of that matters at the moment. All I can think about is that some strangers, whose business is to publish literature, like my writing.