I was just starting out, trying to become a screenwriter, and I became the Austin slam champion three times. For a nerdy, kind of a socially awkward guy, that did wonders for my self esteem.
We have a host of English teachers in the family. My mum is an English teacher, and so are my dad, my aunt and my uncle. I have grown up with family writing competitions, and I can't remember a birthday or Christmas present that didn't include books.
I wrote my first short story for a competition and won second prize. Another competition came up and I won first prize. The first story was published in a newspaper. The second went out on radio.
Sure, I have advice for people starting to write. Don't. I don't need the competition.
I've always been a writer, and in high school, I was the editor of my school newspaper and I got a writing scholarship. It's always been a passion of mine.
Young gentlemen with literary aspirations usually start a new university magazine, which for wit and pungency is designed to eclipse all such previous efforts, and I was no exception in the matter of this popular gambit.
Yes, I've won prizes for putting words on a computer.
What is a literary festival? Imagine a sort of cross between school and church. There are no actual festivities; what there are is a lot of public readings.
I do remember dancing in my living room when my short story 'The Laughing Man Meets Little Cat' won a Chizine fiction contest in 2002.
Having judged a few competitions, it's clear that novelists are often the laziest short story writers.
Today, writers want to impress other writers.
I've taken every writing class I've had available. I took classes in high school, and I took English and writing classes in community college, but I dropped out of college. I also attended a local writing workshop two years ago.
I was never forced to write. At least, I was never forced or even encouraged to write fiction. Creative writing wasn't in the curriculum at my school when I was in sixth grade.
I actually started out as a poet in high school. I published in small literary magazines for probably about ten years. I entered the Yale Younger Poet contest every year, until I was too old to be a younger poet, and I never got more than a form rejection letter from them.
It's always hard to write and get your words out there, to find an editor, a publisher - readers! - who are going to appreciate them.
