TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN!

My first writing award came in fifth-grade at Disco Elementary School (no kidding on the name). I had earned the privilege of attending a Young Authors Conference at Malow Junior High. I can’t recall much about the conference other than it was on a Saturday and I had missed my usual line-up of cartoons and television shows: Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, and Land of the Lost, to name a few. I can’t remember what story I had written either, although I’m sure it was a blockbuster compared to the other fifth-graders; What could they possibly have known about plot, characters, point of view, and setting? What I do remember is feeling a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride. I had created something, a so-called story that stood out amongst my peers, at least in the eyes of Mrs. Johnson, the contest judge and our fifth-grade teacher who forced us to enter the contest when she assigned it as homework.

Fast-forward a couple of decades.

I would never again win a writing award until the young age of thirty-five. Winning, as you can see, is a rarity for me. I very seldom win anything. (One time I hit four numbers on the Michigan Lotto and the Lottery Commission held a press conference to say they had a bumper crop of pay outs for four numbers. Soon the prize money changed to a fixed amount.) You can only win if you buy a ticket, someone had once told me, and sure enough, Mrs. Johnson was no longer around to make me write, so how the hell could I win at anything? Bottom line: I had lacked motivation. However, this time I wanted to meet Michael Moore of "Roger & Me" fame. I had this idea about a documentary on the Michigan Department of Corrections and I knew he was the man to hear my proposal. I saw opportunity: a contest where the winner could meet Michael Moore. I paid my contest entry fee and submitted my story.

A month later, when I came home from a camping excursion, there was one message on my answering machine. I had won. I contacted the editor the very next day. He congratulated me on my story and then explained that the award was given to a poet instead because I didn’t call back immediately. How’s that Hee-Haw song go?—the one where Buck Owens and the Hee-Haw gang stick out their tongues and make big wet farting noises, "If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all …" The editor assured me that my story would be published in their magazine. Hee Haw!

Fast-forward one year.

If you don’t at first succeed, try try again. I submitted a story to the Wayne Literary Review (Wayne State University) and won $200. They decided not to publish the story. I guess it was a bumperless-crop of talent that year. As soon as I got the check I hurried to the bank determined that if they had made a mistake—too damned bad!

I leave you with the following website where another story of mine can be read free of charge. Of course, if you really really want to, you could send me some cash. Let’s at least discuss my terms. Click here: http://www.pebblelakereview.com/archives/Spring%202005/fiction/Thumbprints.htm