Why I'm Entering Contests Now

A few years back I was terrifically anti-writing-contest. My basic desire is to write well, not to compete.

But times have changed. Publication is no longer the top criterion and recommendation. Today, winning and trumpeting prizes is how one establishes or re-establishes credibility with strangers, editors, and those who hire. Before 2006, my last cash-bearing poetry prize came in 1987; the last for prose in 1994. Nice awards, but literature now is a culture of prizes -- it feels like a blizzard out there, as you well know -- and many good young writers are now in the mix, so that old awards could make me seem like a has-been on resumes or in author bios.

Considering how many prizes there are, and the things that win them, for the best writerly mental health the appellation "award-winning" is best seen as decorative, or, more precisely, cosmetic. One's work can be beautiful without it.

Rod Blagojevich Has a 6-Figure Book Deal

. . .and you DON'T? Me either!

Read all about it in USA Today. . . Rod says his book will "expose the dark side of politics."

LOL. I'm dyin'. LOL. Let me pour shots of slivovitz (knock-your-socks-off plum brandy, Serbia's national drink) and you and I drink to Rod's nose job, hair job, makeup job in that photo in the link, and his book deal. My stepfather, a foundry worker, now 89, met Rod's father, a steelworker, back in the day, when they both were new in America, about 50 years ago. My stepfather said, "Good he's dead; he would be so ashame' of his son."

Just what we Serbs need -- more good P.R. . . .Rod's real first name is "Milorad," in Serbian meaning "good work."

I actually drank the shot in this photo. . .and said, "Ziveli!" (a Serbian toast: roughly translated, "Let's seize and enjoy the life force while we have it.") Happy writing, Rod!