Much has happened since my last post and I’ve had to cancel the trip I’d planned next week to work on my current novel.

I am very sad about this, especially as a writer friend of mine (and a travel writer, to boot!), had offered to go with me.

I like to think that I am simply postponing the trip, not completely cancelling it, because I really do need to do first-hand research on the road about the trip the two women are taking.

While I have been feeling disheartened about the novel, and the lack of time to work on it, two pieces of good news have certainly lifted my spirits, both of which came on the same day earlier this week.

The first was an acceptance of a new story of mine, titled “The Poles of Inaccessibility,” which will be published next year by Flint Hills Review. The story is the first to be accepted since the publication of “Welcome, Anybody” and one I’ve been struggling with since (gasp!) 2009.

Secondly, Terrain informed me that they nominated my story “Earthquake Weather” for a 2013 Pushcart Prize. This is quite extraordinary to me and a huge thrill.

The Pushcart Prize celebrates the best of the ‘small presses.’ Each press can nominate up to 6 pieces (i.e. individual poems or short stories, etc.). Mine was the only fiction piece that Terrain nominated.

I have no delusions about winning but, clichéd as it sounds, it really is an honor to be nominated.

I think it was at AWP last year that I overheard a man make the snarky remark that “everyone gets nominated for a Pushcart.”

I don’t know who the person was but figure he had either never been nominated (jealous) or was so full of himself as a writer that he’d forgotten how humbling it is to have your writing recognized in any way.

Me?

I’m thrilled and honored and both of these bits of news have come just at the right time!