Ohio Poetry Day is Ohio's primary state poetry contest, with most categories open to people from all over the U.S. and the world. Poets can submit to multiple categories for small cash prizes and publication in the Ohio Poetry Day Best Of book. My poem "Moonscape" won first prize in the Welcome Aboard category for poets who have never submitted to Ohio Poetry Day before. My poem "My Name is Rachel" was an honorable mention in the Heidi Knect Memorial contest, which is for poetry focusing on either religion or mysticism.
This news came at a great time. Like most writers, especially most writers right now, my rejection pile is about to hit the ceiling. They just keep piling up. I submitted to a couple other poetry contests and was rejected. I think I'm up to 80 rejections from literary agents for my science fiction novel. The only agent like I've gotten at a pitching event was from a small publisher who used my rejection as an opportunity to advertise their editing services, making it difficult to rely on their tiny bit of feedback. The Poet's Tarot is selling, but like most self-published authors, I have to put in a ton of work to ensure any copies are sold.
It's a weird time in publishing - a difficult time at every level of the industry. It's a weird time to be alive with the prices of literally everything skyrocketing, which has inadvertently added to the pressure I've put on myself to publish. Any additional income would help, and I'm to the point that I have poems and books just sitting around. I'm still struggling with the idea that everything I write has to be publishable, which makes it difficult to just sit down and write. If I did just write more, it would increase my chances of writing the thing that magically gets me traditionally-published, or at least completing something that would be another good self-publish. But I digress.
I'm continuing to find the balance between writing, promoting my collection, and submitting poetry. And now that I finally won something, I'm doing my best to hold onto this one recent little win and try to let myself relax a little bit. I sure as hell can't win most of the time - in fact, it seems like I barely win any of the time. But I can't lose most of the time either. None of us can.