244. holy crap, I've been published!

Back in September, I wrote a short post about being published in a new collection of short stories called The Ankeny Briefcase. The first issue went to press and started going out in early December. As one of the contributing authors, I was supposed to get a copy, but all of December passed and nothing arrived in my mailbox.

Turns out, even though I had given them my new Seattle address, they mailed my copy to my home in Hawaii. My parents brought it with them to Vegas and gave it to me when I met them.

Even though I thought it was cool to be published, I forced myself to curb this enthusiasm because I had a lot of doubts and questions. This is the Ankeny Briefcase's first issue so I had no idea what it would look like. It's stated purpose is to promote the writing of (mostly) unpublished writers so I had to wonder how high their standards were (I mean, I made it in so how high could they be?). The project is headed by Christians and unfortunately, Christians as a whole aren't known for being at the vanguard of promoting or creating art. There are notable exceptions, and I wouldn't have submitted my work for consideration if I didn't think this was one of them, but one never knows.

So I've been reading through my copy, and some of the stories are really amazing. There are a few stories that I think needed a few more rewrites, but so far, none of the stories has sucked. I can now say that I'm honored and humbled and inspired by being a part of this collection.

Now I don't mean to pimp myself, but if you're a fan of short stories, think about picking up a copy of The Ankeny Briefcase. It's a professionally bound softcover book, it's 243 pages long and includes 28 stories. Best of all, even though it's put together by Christians, the stories are real stories, not gospel tracts disguised as stories.