Sunday, May 8, 2011

A Life Of Its Own

My writing has a life of its own. Once I sell a story or article, it's out of my control. I let go, say a little prayer, and wish it a safe voyage. Occasionally small miracles happen.

Last Thursday I received the following email out of the clear blue sky:

Dear Shannon,

I’m doing an article on profiles for The Writer’s Guide. Lonnie Plecha--editor of Cricket--mentioned your article “A Pirate’s Life For Me” as an example of a good profile for Cricket and when I went to your website I saw that you’ve written others as well. Would you be willing to do an interview with me about your process? I could send you some questions you could answer via email if that would work for you or we could set up a time to talk on the phone.


Thanks so much for considering this interview.



All best,


Patty Pfitsch


I wrote "A Pirate's Life for Me" several years ago. Much has happened to it since that maiden voyage. It appeared in the August 2008 issue of Cricket, an updated version was published in the November 2009 issue of Ask, and now bits of it will appear in The Writer's Guide. What a lovely surprise!


Have any unexpected bits of good fortune happened to your writing? Leave a comment and tell me all about it.


Posted by Shannon Hitchcock ~ Children's Writer at 1:32 PM
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4 comments:

  1. Barbara KrasnerMay 8, 2011 at 7:19 PM

    This is a great reason for us all to keep contributing to magazines. Not to say that all magazine pieces will have this kind of success, but you never can tell!

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  2. Joyce Moyer HostetterMay 8, 2011 at 11:58 PM

    Congratulations!! Very fun.

    I've also had a Writer's Guide interview. That is the unexpected good fortune that comes quickly to mind.

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  3. Augusta ScattergoodMay 9, 2011 at 4:11 AM

    I had something like that happen to me last year- totally unexpected. An essay I'd written years ago for the Christian Science Monitor got picked up for the SAT tests. I don't even know how stuff like this happens. But I wasn't complaining!
    Congrats on good news, big or small.

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  4. Shannon HitchcockMay 9, 2011 at 9:34 AM

    Barbara, I haven't written any magazine stories this year, but I may give it a whirl once I finish my latest round of revisions.

    Joyce, I missed your interview in the Writer's Guide. Was it about BLUE?

    Congrats, Augusta! I don't know how the testing works either, but I would assume Christian Science Monitor must have sold it to them. A couple of years ago, I received a letter from Highlights for Children that they had sold one of my previously published stories to Harcourt School Publishers. They very nicely sent me an unexpected check!

    ReplyDelete

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