Former Student Does Good!

Five years ago I began teaching Romance Writing Secrets for Ed2go. One of my first students was Kathy Schindler. She was so eager and excited to learn. She worked very hard and I'm happy to feature her here on my blog celebrating her success with The Writer's Digest Short Story contest. Welcome Kathy! Here's her story.

I was in total shock when I received the email from Writers Digest saying, “Congratulations Kathy Schindler! Your short short story, One Lone Soldier, has won 22nd place in the 12^th Annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition.” I immediately contacted my critique partner, mentor, writing friends, family and close friends to share my news before telling the entire facebook and twitter world of my great accomplishment. 

As a writer we tend to write the things that are near and dear to our hearts.  Supporting our troops has always been very important to me especially when you personally know soldiers who have served or who have loved ones currently serving. One Lone Soldier is a story about an army soldier who comes home from Afghanistan but had no one there to greet him when he arrived. Unfortunately, there are soldiers that don’t have family to send them care packages or welcome them home. I was able to make that dream come true by telling my story.

Winning this competition is an accomplishment I am very proud of because I was picked out of nearly 5,000 entries. If anyone would like to read One Lone Soldier, it will be published in the 12th Annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition Collection which will be published in spring 2012.

You can find Kathy at kathyschindler.com on Twitter, Facebook and Blogspot.

Congratulations, Kathy. All your hard work is paying off!