Triple Threat!

I guess things do come in threes, though in my case, there had better be more than three instances of good writing luck--since I am trying to make a living and all.

Well, the first piece of good news came in the mail on Saturday. I got a very brief letter from Margaret K. McElderry Books in response to a query letter I sent a couple of months ago. The letter was so brief as to strike fear into my heart, but although it began with "Dear Author," it went on to ask me to send my manuscript. So that's good news. Another nibble for The Other Olwen.

Exciting piece of news #2 is that I'm going to, in fact, get paid for a profile article I wrote for the upcoming issue of Mills Quarterly, the Mills College alumnae (well, really, alumni since there are a few male students there) magazine. I was not expecting it to be a paying market, for whatever reason, but I was still happy to get a publication credit. So, bonus!

Number three is the most exciting of all. I might not have found out first thing this morning if Tanita hadn't called me and told me to check my dang e-mail because I obviously hadn't yet. In my e-mail inbox was a link to the announcement of the winners of the Smartwriters short story contest I entered a few months ago. This was a short story contest for children's and YA writers. There were two surprises here. One was that I got third place for the YA category for "This Is Jane." The other is my friend Jaime, aka MeiMei, got a Special Mention for her piece "Barefoot," which they mentioned in the same sentence with The New Yorker. All the winners (mid-grade and YA) get published in an anthology, so this will officially be my first fiction publication!