A Writers Courage

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief, Southern Writers Magazine

We just finished our 2015 Short Story writing contest. Our judges tell us it’s like Christmas morning with the unwrapping of each story and reading through the pages. One judge said, “It’s like entering a new world each time I read a new story. I hate for it to end.”

This is what each author wants, for their readers to feel as if they have entered an uncharted territory––a new world as they read the author’s words. A world they don’t want to leave. A book they don’t want to put down.

It takes courage to write a story and enter a contest. There is a feeling of vulnerability that is different from the one you feel when you send out query letters.

Yet, a writer has courage or they wouldn’t be writing. An author is someone who steps out of his or her comfort zone and walks into the unknown every day when they sit down to write. They put their feelings onto the paper entrusting their characters with their imaginations to lead them through the story as it begins to unfold on each page.  It takes courage to enter a new world that you create on paper, see it through to the end, and not give up.

It also takes courage when you finish your manuscript to seek out and find an agent to represent your work.  That same courage a writers uses to enter a contest.

Throughout the entire writing process, it takes a great deal of courage to accept rejections and not quit. Instead to sit down again and create a new book, a new world.

Their courage to continue going into this unknown world every day is what makes an author special.

We congratulate each writer whose courage led them to enter the contest. We congratulate writers whose courage continues leading them to write the books that opens new worlds for us all.