First Anthology-Book Contribution!

So this was all started when my college friend, Manda and I had a talk about her mentor at her previous office. “She writes a lot of poems and short stories, like us! And she even got some of her works published in the form of a book of anthology!” She said to me one night when we texted. Having my writing published has always been in my bucket list, and I really-really want it come true. So I asked Manda further about how her mentor did it, and she answered, “An internet competition. Whoever wins got their writings published in a book, along with a certain amount of money, of course.”

So the very next day at the office, I used my lunch-break to research about such competition, using some lame keywords like “lomba puisi menang jadi buku” and “lomba puisi dibukukan”, things like that. It brought me to this page, where an event on-going was described briefly. It was a poem-writing competition, with no particular theme, and may be written both in Indonesian and English. Considering my very very bad Indonesian (despite the fact that it’s my mother-tongue language), I decided to join for the English category. Each participant was allowed to submit up to five of their writings (which may have been published but shouldn’t be submitted for any different event at the same time), so I chose five among all the romantic-shit and gloomy-mess I wrote on my blog (because I was too muse-less to write a new one at that time). I ended up choosing Romeo & Juliet, I Miss You, The Call, Best Friends, and Us, which you can still view here on my blog.

The first announcement was made at (if I’m not mistaken) June 1st, and among all 1.170s poems submitted by varies of people 290 were chosen to continue to the next selection and 3 of them were mine! The poems that got selected were Romeo & Juliet, The Call, and Best Friends. I have no exaggerating-hope of to win the first for the English category and thinking, “being a contributor for the book would be enough. At least I got my works published, finally.”

The next (and final) announcement was on June 5th here, and among the last 290 poems, only 150 would be published in the book. Guess what. My name’s in the list, along with Romeo & Juliet and The Call! KYAAA! I didn’t win anything, not money, not free published-prove book, and so’s and so’s and on and on, but MY GODDAMN POEMS WILL BE RELEASED IN A BOOK. AREN’T I STOKED? ISN’T IT RAD?! I was more than happy to have the news! If only my friend Manda (and Sarah too, bad-me forgot to tell her any bit of it otl) joined, she (or they) would have won one of the categories. Manda’s Indonesian literature-style language is heavenly good, and Sarah’s vocabulary for English poems is spectacular.

I hope I will be accidentally “encountered” with such event again, might as well post them here on my blog for my friends to see. I will tell you more about the book when it’s done edited, printed, and delivered to my house. ‘Till then, we’ll just talk about something else.

Q’s out!