Yellow Bird--Published Again

by Catherine Giordano

I received three acceptances in one month .  I've already posted about my acceptance into two anthologies: Not Your Mother's Book--On Parenting and "It's a Crime."  The books will be relased in September 2013 and October 2013, respectively. 

I also had an essay accepted last month by The Florida Writer, a magazine published by the Florida Writers Association.  The magazine came out last week.  My story is entitled Yellow- Bird. It a nice piece about a special moment I shared with my son on his 21st birthday and how the song "Yellow Bird" brought me back to my own youth.

There's an interesting story about this acceptance.  One evening I received an email from the editor of the magazine saying she could not accept my story because I quoted from the song.  Did you know you can not quote more than six words of a song? I didn't. I quoted two lines and that doomed my essay. I quickly rewrote replacing the quoted lines and resubmitted via email with a note saying I hoped that it wasn't too late to be considered for publication. It wasn't.

I've submitted to The Florida Writer three times and been accepted three times.  Dare I try for a fourth.  Yes, I must submit again because the theme for the next issue is a brief encounter with a stranger and I have at least a half dozen pieces to fit that theme.  

I have these pieces because I'm working on a book to be titled People I Have Almost Met.  It will be a collection of essays about brief encounters with strangers. I started doing it as a blog, but I discontinued the blog because some publishers will not accept previously published work.  And "previously published" sometimes includes blogs.

So I will dig out those essays and spiff them up.  The deadline is July 1st so I after to hurry.  My day job pays the bills, but it limits my time for writing.