I am very, very excited, honored to be amongst a roster of other writers I'm sure I'll love reading stories from, & happy to feel I have "permission" to chase this art.

And find out it's in. It's accepted. It's still incomprehensible to me. This thing I've wanted since I was a kid, I can have it? Are we sure? It's a dream come true.

I tell myself after this that I'll never kick my own ass the same way again, I have to make things. This, I'd be happy with. Thrilled with. This already changes the "you're not cut out for this thing you love, buddy" narrative, it's great. I wait for the second round of reading.

The months passed and I was comfortable in the "I'll get a rejection email and I'll be proud of that" mindset. Then it happens. First round of readings is complete. I think I'm hallucinating when I read the email. Much jumping for joy and pointing and rereading followed.

I sent it off and expected nothing. I told myself I had to be braver about this shit. I haven't submitted something since I was eighteen years old and I've spent half the years since then wracked with self doubt and a lot of creative growing pains.

The more I come back to it again the more personal it seems. It's eclectic with weird little brain feelings.

I was very proud of myself for finishing something so unabashedly me and firmly uncompromising in that. I didn't force anything, I didn't go against what it wanted to be, and I ended up with something very surreal, bizarre, and much sadder & more joyful than I expected.

We were in the middle of being priced out of our very crummy apartment and I was up in the 12-4am times of night when I felt most lucid and surreal. I wanted to finish something to prove I could. I told myself to stop beating myself up over perfection and just focus on the experience & honesty.

I wrote this story in a very turbulent time in my life. I'd just moved out of my parent's house and into an entirely new country, getting the fuck away from America and into my partner's arms.