Onto the next

Submitted my (incomplete) play today. And now, onto writing a creative non-fiction piece for subTerrain‘s Lush Triumphant Literary Award before May 15th. Just gotta keep writing and submitting!

I love subTerrain!

I had a feeling today when I got home that I’d be receiving my copies of subTerrain — and I was right. Despite my raging hunger, I proceeded to rip open the package to find five lovely copies of the #66 issue. As I rightfully predicted, I stared at my name on the cover for a bit before flipping it open and finding my piece. There in front of my eyes, on page 50, was this wonderful artwork that accompanied my words.

A Case of Jeff, it said. “By Aaron Chan”. What a feeling that was, to see my name in print. I know people might think I’m being sentimental and borderline vain, but it’s a pretty big deal in my mind, especially since I didn’t think this would happen, and my parents never thought anyone would want to read my stuff and all these other terrible reasons that I feel like I’ve mentioned at least once on this blog. In the words of Anne Hathaway, this is a weapon against self-doubt.

And to top it all off, I received not one cheque, but two! One for winning the Lush Triumphant Literary Award, which I expected, but I didn’t expect to get a cheque for having my piece published in the magazine itself. That was pretty freaking awesome. I’d say today was a pretty awesome day.

Want to read my award-winning (god, it feels so weird and wrong to say that) piece? Go buy an issue on newsstands!

Staring at my name in vain

I win!!!!

So I got this email today from Subterrain Magazine. The subject: Lush Triumphant Winners!

My first thought: Those bastards not only didn’t tell me I didn’t win, but now they’re going to rub it in my face about who did win? Grrrrrrrr!

But that was not the case. No, apparently my piece, A Case of Jeff, was selected by the judges as this year’s Creative Non-Fiction Winner for the contest! What?!

I wanted to scream ”FUCK YES!!” for several minutes but I was on the bus, so I fought hard to restrain myself. And then, the more I thought about the news, the more it really sank in that I, with something I worked hard on and wrote, won. I thought about how my father told me (multiple times) how I couldn’t make a living being a writer, and my mom asking me who would want to read my shit. And now I won. I showed them both. So there!

My piece, along with the other winners in the other categories, will appear in subTERRAIN’s last issue of the year, which I assume is coming out sometime this month. Super excited!!!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some shouting I need to do.