For several years my main focus was becoming a fiction writer. I wrote stacks and stacks of short stories, two novels (one was bad; the other excruciatingly bad), and collected countless rejection slips. But I had successes as well. I published in a few very small magazines you've never heard of. I was chosen to attend the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop in 2004 and absolutely loved it.
But my fiction never really went anywhere.
Yesterday I was reminded that 12 years ago I had a short story published in Jenny Magazine, a magazine of the Youngstown State University Student Literary Arts Association. I was even invited, along with other writers, to read my work at an event celebrating the magazine's second issue (Fall 2011). It was a great time with great people.
This is the story that made it into that issue, "I Believe This Belongs to You," a story inspired by one of my favorite novels, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I hope you enjoy the story.