Well Hello There

The first thing you need to know about me is that by this time next year, I will be published. It may be a short story, a long short story, more poems, a novel...but my name will start getting out there. It is for this reason, and this reason alone that the world will not end in 2012.

I've been writing ever since I can remember. I wrote stories, and once upon a time I used to also illustrate for them. Since then I've become lazy, and moved up in the world (no longer writing the same story, over and over and over again about a horse named Buttercup).

Now I write more fiction than anything else. I still write poems, and sometimes short non-fiction stories, but I like making things up much more.

I'm also on the path to "SELF DISCOVERY", so maybe that will cause a few more stories to pour out. By the time I'm 30 I'd like to have my memoir written, and maybe published. But written feels like a good goal.

Before you start thinking "Wow, this girl is ambitious," let me give you some background:
I am 22 years old. I graduated with the class of 2010 from the University of New England with a degree in Medical Biology. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm a writer, not a biologist. But some day, I'd also like to save animals, too. I've been published minimally: in each edition of Zephyr (the schools literary journal), and had an essay in Authors of Tomorrow. Those are my credentials.

Outside of that, like the greats before me, I too have had my share of rejections:
Burnside Review (too many times to count)
MakeOut Creek
Poetry Foundation
Missouri Review
Tin House
Boston Literary Magazine (Also too many times to count, but they at least give reasons why)
Copper Nickle
Men in Bed Anthology Collection
....And probably more, but it was before the time I was aware of e-mail submissions. Either way, as stated, I will be published.

Right now I'm in the process of looking up literary agents and editing stories for upcoming competitions. I'm flat broke. I have less than $30 in my bank account ($20 of which will need to go to an oil change). I am always accepting donations for reading or submission fees. In the mean time, if you'd like to edit and be on an acknowledgement page someday....let me know :)

I'm not going to lie, I'm not the happiest kid who's ever been created, but all of that is in this blog. This blog however is writing focused, to tell you how I'm doing, what I've submitted to where, and to thank people like: Laura Schmidt, Tammy Henry, Mike Appel, Sandy Scarboro, Elizabeth Henry, Patrick Gagnon, Chris Butler, and all the others who put up with me reading to them, forcing them to read for me. Most of them push me to be a better writer, tear apart what I write so that it can excel, so I have something to be proud of. They are friends and they make my life go around. But that's enough of that.

Until then, this is me saying Keep On Keeping On (Joe Dirt rules).