Writer Asks a Favor by Carla Damron

Hey, y’all. All of the focus has been on the presidential election coming up. However, there is another campaign that I feel is just as important, one in which I'm on the ballot. So I'm asking you to please put aside your interest in Hilary and Donald and cast you vote in another very important election.

I’ve been nominated to Jasper Magazine’s literary artist of the year! Voting is very easy to do. Anyone, anywhere can simply go here and cast your ballot:

  http://jasperproject.org/2016-jasper-artists-of-the-year

My competition is two terrific poets: Ray McManus and Len Lawson. You know those poet types. Smart, maybe even brilliant. Their writing is lean and strong and pulls you right in. They can make their point in a few lines—while it took 300+ pages for me to make mine! But still, I hope you’ll vote for me.

Or Ray. He’s terrific. A very nice guy, too. Funny. Classy in a Converse-sneakers-with-bright-blue-laces sort of way.  Or Len—I haven’t met him, but I heard him read once and if I’d been wearing socks he’d have knocked them right off of me.

Poets. Damn.

I should never be in the same contest with poets! Put me in a contest with other novel writers—or, even better—BAD NOVEL WRITERS.  You know, that author who wrote a novel, never revised or edited it, only showed it to their mom who said it was “amazing” so they immediately self-pubbed on Amazon. That’s a contest I might win! But then, we all know self-published work that turned out to be phenomenal. I do NOT want to be in a contest with that writer. Maybe I want to be in a contest with a bad romance writer—but probably not, because they might have a ton of fans anxious to cast ballot after ballot.

I’ll be honest: this contest thing is a bit stressful. I hate pestering people and asking them to vote. We’ll find out the winner at an awards reception in December, and I picture myself standing in the crowd, heart racing, perspiration dripping from my face, wondering if what I wore looks okay as I wait for them to read the name of the winner.  I’ll practice a conciliatory smile so when they announce Len or Ray, I’ll clap, and nod, and look just like Sigourney Weaver or Amy Adams when they didn’t win the Oscar (only I won’t be as beautiful).  Yeah. That’s gonna be fun.

Everyone says it’s an honor to be nominated, and oddly, I find that to be true. Somebody cared enough to write a submission about me.  I got to attend a photo-shoot and have my picture taken a hundred times like I was someone famous. I’ve received emails from people who read The Stone Necklace and let me know they had cast their ballot.  So if I don’t win, at least I have that.

And really, isn’t that enough? Do I NEED to actually win the contest?

Nope. But I want to. So please vote! Vote for me!!

(Or Ray. Or Len. Seriously, those guys are great.)