Our friend won

Today was more than a little enjoyable. My friend, Mavis Jarrell (writer of poetry and prose) and I helped celebrate a writing award garnered by another friend and fellow writer, Hazel (Polly) Pope.

Polly's short story, "Fall Picnic on the Hay Wagon," won First Place in the Gulf Coast Writers "Let's Write" contest (read it on http://www.gcwriters.org). Yay, congratulations, Polly!

Short stories are notoriously hard to write, especially those with a 2000-word limit. Every word must move the story forward to its conclusion. Polly had, I think, a more difficult task. She had originally written her story as a kind of flash fiction piece with 500 words. Her task for this contest was to increase the word count to 2000 words without destroying her beautiful story with a lot of extraneous words. (The line-through editing is intentional.) Her accomplishment was duly appreciated, awarded and applauded at the organization's annual meeting in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

It was an exciting evening for all the winners of the contest's genres, and I am still aglow at being able to share in Polly's celebration.

How about all you writers out there? If you have good news to share, let us know. Lyrical Pens would be happy to applaud you as well. 

You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I'll try to do the same. 

cj

On this Memorial Day, and every day, I remember with gratitude those who served and sacrificed to make our  freedoms possible.