Sometimes, I think my story is kind of like an ugly puppy. It’s small (I mean, it’s only 147 KB in PDF form), I have a love for it that my friends think is unhealthy and nobody seems to want it. I’m practically giving it away. I can’t keep it. It needs a good home.

It may not be as beautiful and well-crafted as some MFA student’s prose, but I still think it’s worthy of being read and appreciated by an audience bigger than my editor friends, my mom and my girlfriend. But no matter whom I offer it to, they always decline.

At one point in May, I thought I’d finally found a journal where it could live. I was named a finalist in a contest. And for a blissful week, I thought that I really had a chance. It would’ve been huge — my first publication (and a little cash prize to go with it). It was affirming and exciting and I didn’t get it. I didn’t win; didn’t place. I had to start searching for a new home. Again.

It didn’t work out. That’s alright. Someplace else is going to accept it. Every story’s got a home. Mine’s out there somewhere.

— 30 —

I’m a writer in Flagstaff, AZ. You can follow my writerly exploits here on my blog and over on the Twitter machine: @jonnyeberle. Thanks for reading!

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