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Did you enter your writing in a contest this year, or submit something for publication, or just write something with an eye toward maybe finding readers for it? If so, I want to tell you something. 1/10
For context: Last night, at my for-real, non-Twitter job, we closed entries in our annual student writing contest. Over 350 submissions, and we have about 16 prizes, plus Honorable Mentions, to hand out. A lot of people aren’t going to win. This always makes me cranky. 2/10
This year, it feels like a tragedy. How much faith does it take to polish your writing and send it off to be judged in this hellscape of a year? It’s hard in any year, but this year? JFC everyone who enters deserves a goddamn medal. 3/10
I’m racking my brains trying to think of more ways to recognize and celebrate the people who entrusted their writing to us this year. Because anyone who’s written anything in the past four years, and especially in the past ten months, has done something heroic. 4/10
One reason I feel this way is that I have personally written almost nothing this year, and certainly nothing I could have subjected to an editor or judge. This year, I was barely coherent. I mean even my typing has gone to hell. 5/10
And I am someone who has published things! A memoir, feature articles, a @mcsweeneys column, lots of stuff. I have ample experience in writing and pitching and all that. But this year none of that mattered because writing was impossible. 6/10
My own rage-paralysis has been depressing enough, but I was worried that the same feeling would prevent students from entering our contest. It did not; we have slightly more entries than last year, in fact! I find it hard to express how heartening that is. 7/10
If you wrote something this year, whatever it was, and whatever you did or didn’t do with it, I know the standard thing to say is Congratulations, good for you! But I want to say instead, Thank you. Thanks for doing the work, taking the chances, enduring the disappointments. 8/10
The work you did isn't just some kind of self-improvement project. It's a gift to everyone. It's a way of keeping faith with humanity. And I want you to know it is appreciated, no matter what. I couldn't do it this year. Thank god some of you could. 9/10
I’m incredibly grateful to be able to run a writing contest, even in a pandemic/lockdown. I hate telling people they haven't won. But I am so, so very glad they try.
If you want to read some of the work we've received, here are last year’s winners: https://ugs.utexas.edu/flags/writing-contest/2019 10/10
If you want to read some of the work we've received, here are last year’s winners: https://ugs.utexas.edu/flags/writing-contest/2019 10/10
p.s. I'd love it if folks would share other writing contest/publication efforts they're involved with (especially anything outside of formal educational institutions--we need more of that!)
