It’s funny what I remember from childhood and what has faded away with time. I remember a great deal from my early years of school, but I can’t remember the name of the young man from my college Theater Appreciation class on whom I had such a crush that I was just sure I would marry him. Obviously, he was just a passing infatuation.
I took Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Writing in high school. One of my assignments was to write a memoir about a childhood event. Since I was technically still a child, my youthful memories were still bright and detailed. I thought long and hard about the topic and finally decided to write about the time I defaced school property while attending kindergarten.
My teacher laughed and gave me an “A.” She told me my memoir had potential, and she advised me to submit it to some contests. I entered it in a few, but I didn’t place in any of them. I brought my story home and nestled it safely in my baby blue fuzzy kitty trunk with the rest of my high school masterpieces.
Fast forward roughly 30 years and my husband ran across my blue fuzzy kitty trunk in storage and opened it to see what was inside. He discovered dozens of spiral notebooks full of poetry borne of my teen angst, crushes of the day, and love for my friends. He also found a Trapper Keeper full of neatly typed stories that I had written for Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Writing.
I spent hours reading through those old pages. I typed several of my old stories and poems into Word on my computer, so I could preserve them, edit them, and share them electronically with family and old friends. My mom, especially, got a kick out of reading my early work.
As an adult, I’ve had a few short memoirs published, so I edited my kindergarten story and started submitting it to publications I thought might be interested. I also changed the title from “The Day I Colored My Chair” to “My Ugly Chair.”
I was thrilled when Z Publishing contacted me and told me that they would like to include “My Ugly Chair” in Missouri’s Emerging Writers. I’ve had several short works published, but by definition, I’m still an emerging writer. I haven’t yet published a book, which apparently is when I will completely emerge. I hope to remedy that soon.
If you’d like to order a copy of Missouri’s Emerging Writers, you can do so from Z Publishing’s website Z Publishing House or Amazon Missouri’s Emerging Writers. I also have a romantic short story available on Amazon in Legends: Passion Pages.
I’m anxious to hear what my kindergarten teacher will say when she reads my memoir. I changed the names to protect the innocent.
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