I received word that I did not win the West Virginia Fiction Award. This was a disappointment, but it was an honor to have been included among the finalists.

It was mostly difficult because chief among the criticisms I received from the final judge were formatting issues that could have only been altered after the story was sent in (electronically).

I was asked to paste the story in the body of an e-mail (as well as attaching it in a Word document) and I can only assume that it was then copied and pasted again where the original formatting was lost.

So it was a bummer to read a detailed critique mostly about formatting issues (“Never, never, never, ever send in a story without page numbers!”) when almost all of those were in the original story.

Oh well. Such is life. Next time I’ll be sure to ask if that kind of thing is being done. And I’ll ask for UN observers. Hopefully this won’t affect my Heisman campaign.

One wonders what would have happened if the judge would have seen the story as originally formatted. But I really do still think I would have lost.

As a wise man once said, “Somebody call the waaaaambulance.”

Next week at this blog: Even more whiney action! Don’t miss it!