I Won! I Won!

What do Richard Simmons and I have in common? He and I both have a personal essay in the newest Chicken Soup for the Soul book. He also wrote the foreword for,
Shaping the New You. His story is on page 1 and my story, The Cookie Chronicles is on page 79. I received my box of books yesterday. My story is humorous about hiding a stash of Christmas cookies.

Then I looked at the stack of mail and spied my SASE from Lucidity Poetry Journal. I hate to see an envelope addressed to me in my own handwriting. I opened it, saw the folded small yellow rejection slip, or so I thought. It was a list of winners. My name is on the Honorable Mention list. Woo Hoo! There were 236 entries from across the USA and four foreign countries: Ireland (home of the O'Connells), Canada, South Africa and the Netherlands. First, second, third place winners took a nice monetary prize. There were also twenty Honorable Mentions (a small stipend, copy of the book and certificate). I am ecstatic and so inspired that I checked out Hope Clark's post (on the right side of my blog) and discovered a limmerick contest for The Saturday Evening Post. I penned three limmericks pertaining to the photo of a child clinging to her mother on what appears to be the first day of kindergarten. Having taught for over three decades, I wrote from all three perspectives, the teacher's, mother's, child's. This is a no fee contest, and wouldn't you like to say that you have been published in The Saturday Evening Post? Why don't YOU write a limmerick too, but nothing naughty.

My odds are getting better. Out of thousands of Chicken Soup submissions, mine was one of the 101 stories chosen, and my poem was one of the twenty-three chosen out of 236 entries in Lucidity. Oh yeah! I'm happy dancing.