I recently entered a short story of mine, named “A Dance in the Woods,” in a writing contest sponsored by the CTD – the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. The contest was state-wide and was open to Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, and even Comic Book stories. The only rules were that it had to involve a character with a disability in some fashion. The story I entered was about a young girl with and vivid imagination and a bad relationship with her mother. Amazingly, it won the Grand Prize. I was shocked. It’s the first thing I’ve ever won and, since this is story has been running through my head for years and is the root of a novel I plan to right, I’m very happy this particular story won.

The good news is that I get $500. The bad news, they want me to do a public reading of the story…Good god that scares the hell out of me. Besides, a 6 foot 4, 280 lb., red-head reading a story narrated by a 10-year-old girl, is a little scary.

Here is the link: http://www.cotwd.org/p2p_minor.html

I hope you enjoy it.

You can also check out the other winner’s stories here: http://www.cotwd.org/pen2paper.html

-Jason