a “best american” nomination! (writing career update)

No, I am not in contention for a citizenship-related prize. But I got my surprise of the year earlier this week when I found out that Hypertext Magazine, who published my story “In the Bag” (and which I now realize I forgot to blog about), nominated it for the Best American Short Stories anthology. Here and below is Hypertext’s Instagram post where I found out about my nomination.

I’m not sure how I missed blogging about the original acceptance and publication of my story in Hypertext, which happened in April and this summer, respectively. It was my first earnest attempt at injecting magical realism into my fiction. I also projected a bunch of personal quirks and fears into it. The story had been rejected by the handful of other literary outlets I’d submitted it to, so I was elated when Hypertext picked it up. In other words, I didn’t expect the story to get this far!

It would be insane if it got placed in the BASS anthology, since a lot of writers with bigger reputations than mine have been published in it. I’m not going to get ahead of myself. Honestly, I’m dealing with a huge creative block and period of “life questioning” right now, so more important to just live and let live I think…

Originally published at Jenn Wang.