Being A Finalist

I submitted a short story to the 2019 Summer Literary Seminars Contest just for fun and discovered via email that the winners did not include me but they hadn’t notified me via Submittable. Then, an email came today letting me know that I was a finalist and was awarded a 30% tuition waver towards the seminar.

While on the one hand it’s nice to be recognized in this way, on the other hand, I don’t have that kind of money. The kind of money to fly to Georgia and spend a week in a Eastern European country. Like I said, I submitted just for fun…a fantasy of what ifs. It was an expensive one at $17 but I spend about that for a meal with drinks.

Following my being a finalist for the New American Fiction Prize, I just don’t know how to take these not-really-rejections, these you’re-good-but-not-quite-good-enough-to-win-rejections. I could be positive and keep telling myself to keep trying…that’s kind of been my thing here, but it’s just disheartening.

I have entered other contests so we shall see if this story will be locked in finalist-ville or win free.