So Not Tired of Winning

I know I haven’t posted in a while. Teaching, as you can imagine, has become an energy-sucking challenge, forcing some projects to the back burner. Sadly, this blog found itself stuck behind the saute pan and the teapot. Today I intend to move it the front.

I do have much to say about the current state of teaching. I have been so immersed in it over the last four months that I felt I needed some time to process and develop any real perspective. I think I am just about prepared to begin commenting on it–but not this time. Instead, I want to offer something of an overview of my year in writing.

Of course, this year was ghastly in so many ways. Aside from the Covid-19 pandemic, I lost my mother this year. I also lost my agent and his husband to the coronavirus, and Darlene’s mother also passed away. It has been a frustrating, exhausting, heartbreaking year.

And it’s an awful cliche, the worse kind perhaps, to say that life still goes on. And of course, it does. In spite of everything that went wrong this year, there were some things that went right. I’d like to share those with you, if you can pardon the self indulgence.

February

I am interviewed by the Wordpeace blog.

April

I learn that I have been named a writer-in-residence at Trail Wood, the historical home of naturalist Edwin Way Teale.

May

Darlene and I take a storytelling class together. We enter our very first story slam–and I win (scroll down to the audio files to hear my story).

June

My screenplay “Ashes” reaches the finals in the StoryPros Screenplay Contest. I submit a revised copy to the contest again and reach the finals a second time in December.

July

My play “Invincible Summer” reaches the semifinal round of the American Association of Community Theater’s annual new play festival

August

“Ashes” finishes fourth in the annual Writer’s Digest Competition. Another screenplay I entered in the contest, “Ravine,” receives an Honorable Mention.

A poem entitled “Relics” is accepted for publication in the Schuylkill Valley Journal.

September

A poem entitled “The King is Dead” is accepted for publication for the Wising Up Anthology called “Goodness.”

“Invincible Summer” reaches the quarterfinals of the Screencraft Stage Play Contest.

November

A screenplay entitled “Season of Mists” reaches the quarterfinal round in the Emerging Screenwriters competition.

“Invincible Summer” is accepted into the Jocunda Music, Film and Theatre Festival.

December

“Season of Mists” is a winner in the Madras Independent Film Festival.

“Ashes” reaches the finals for the Visionfest Screenwriting Competition.

“Season of Mists” is selected for the Kalakari Film Festival.

Being a typical insecure writer, it is easy for me to focus on the festivals and contests I didn’t win–especially ones I have placed in before. But that is a rabbit hole no one wishes to fall down. I am doing my best to focus on the positive, and as you can see, there is reason to do so.

In one of the few times I will ever paraphrase the President, I have not gotten tired of winning. We’ll see if I start to get tired in 2021…

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