2008 Central PA Writing Contest: "almost"?

Something magical always happens when I congregate with other writers. That's why, earlier this week, I drove to York College to pick up my honorable mention from Central PA magazine's 2008 Writing Contest. Whether to go was no easy decision: four hours round-trip is a long time to travel for punch, crudites and stuffed mushrooms. After all, I hadn't won one of the top three cash prizes. Should I even bother?

All things ecological and economic considered, it made most sense to let them mail me my certificate. But... what magic might I miss out on? I decided to go.

And I'm so glad I did. At the reception preceding the awards, the other honorees and I introduced ourselves by asking, "Which one did you write?" Often, the answer would be followed by a second question: "Remind me again, what was it about?" That led to the first of three valuable lessons.

Lesson #1: It pays to choose an evocative title. As in, a title that evokes the specific story content, not theme, of your piece. As it turned out, my piece, "The Boys, Harry Potter and Me"  earned instant recognition: I never once had to remind someone what it was about.

Lesson #2: Contest decisions are made by committee, so if you are at the top of the crop, someone liked your piece very much. The senior editor at the magazine told me that one of the other editors responsible for selecting the top ten finalists (York college professors were entrusted with choosing the three cash winners) liked my memoir piece the best, even though fiction typically wins. That sorta kinda almost means something, I think. Maybe.

Lesson #3: Meeting your readers offers the possibility for writing's biggest reward. And here I'm not talking about publication, or a certificate that could be ruined in a mad dash through a rainstorm, or $200 that would be here today and gone tomorrow. I'm talking about something more permanent: learning that you have touched a reader's heart.

One of the other contestants, a young mother of two, told me that the moment she finished reading my entry online she called to her husband in the next room, saying, "You have to read this." He told me he was moved by it, too. That's cool, right? But then she quoted a line that she'd found poignant, and her choice surprised and delighted me: "When had they become men?" She hoped that down the road, once she became a mother distracted by the multiple responsibilities of raising teens, she too would remain aware of all of the miracles of change in her children.

But then I earned my real prize. She said, "My children are a little too young to start reading them the Harry Potter series. But when I do, I won't be able to begin without thinking of you and your boys."

I'm a big advocate of payment for artists, and I need to make a living just like anyone else. I will try to re-sell this piece. As many writers realize, however, there are easier ways to make money. But an effective story can be an indelible way of touching a stranger's life. And for me, banking such memories creates an account that even a recession can't touch.