I GET PUBLISHED!!

Well, my friends, I want you to be the very first to know that The Old Professor has finally been properly recognized in print. I’ve had a short story published -- a very short story.

The circumstances leading to this are a little bit different. A couple of months ago our daily, local newspaper, The Monterey County Herald by name, sponsored a rather unusual writing competition. Writers were invited to submit a short story exactly 299 words long. Not 300 or 298 but exactly 299.

I’ve participated on similar contests and find it fun to try to make the word count come out exactly. A word processor counts the total words and the total can be manipulated by changing things such as, “such as” to “like”, for instance.

This contest had an extra rule. The story must contain the word “jump” and the word “otter”.

There was a prize for the winner, which was a $50 certificate at a local bookstore.

I managed to write and submit three stories. The results were announced in the paper this morning and lo and behold, one of my stories was the winner and another was printed as an Honorable Mention.

This is not the first time I’ve been paid for writing a fictional story. I don’t know exactly how many stories I need to have published to qualify me to be called a professional writer but previously, in Springfield, Massachusetts, I also a wrote a fictional story and it was published in the Springfield Daily News. That was on the Childrens Page and I got paid $1 for it. That was in 1939 and $1 was worth a lot more then. In fact, I’d guess that $1 would buy as much then as the $50 buys today.

Copies of this latest masterpiece, signed by the prize-wining author, will be available for a price as yet undetermined but certain to be in the outrageous category.

If you are interested in reading the prizewinner and some of the competition you can click here or go to:
http://www.oldprof.com/Winner.htm

It won’t take long. It’s only 299 words.

Oops! I find the newspaper showed a definite lack of cultural appreciation by making the the free viewing of the story available for only 2 days. So I have copies at my web site that you can reach as above. Additionally, the Honorable Mention story is there in its proper form. That you can see by clicking here.

The Old Professor (aka Paul Henry, PA)
Carmel, CA
June 22, 2008
(PA = Published Author)