Sidelines

Well, my name is in print again. The Simmons College literary magazine, Sidelines, is coming out this week. Actually, the launch party was tonight, but due to complications with the printer, the actual magazine won't be distributed until Friday. Rather lame. It made the editors scramble, as well, since the contributors who were expected to read their work hadn't been told to bring their own copy of the text. This included me. So before the event they were rushing about to get everything printed off for us, which made the whole thing start late. Then, it turned out that they hadn't actually printed mine, so they had to go back for it in the middle, and I ended up reading toward the end instead of at the beginning.

Actually, I kind of hijacked the event. They expected me to read only a selected portion from the story, but I told them there wasn't really a good spot to stop. The prose editor backed me up, and I got to read the whole story. People even laughed at the right moments, which made me feel pretty good about it. I was horridly nervous, but people said afterward that they couldn't tell. I guess that's a good thing. The editor and another student told me afterward that they not only loved the story, they were impressed by my delivery. They said no one else could have done it justice, and I tend to believe them. Someone not acquainted with the story wouldn't know where to pause for the laugh lines or how to give the waitresses the proper personality.

The story was Inspiration Diner, which I actually included in my senior English portfolio at USF. It's been tweaked slightly, but the story is still the same: Jordan, the writer needing inspiration comes to a diner run by the nine Muses and has a very unusual dinner. I wrote the story just for fun, playing with archetypes and puns, and I think it's the playful tone that makes it appealing.

When the magazines arrive on Friday, I'll have to grab a stack to share with the family!

-Kim