THE STORY BEHIND "VALENTINE'S DAY" AND MY SUCKER EXPERIENCE

In 2011 I never would have believed that submitting a short story to a new YA literary magazine would have resulted in a 3-year relationship and three published stories.  Thanks to SUCKER LITERARY'S amazing founder and editor Hannah Goodman, it has.

My first story came out in SUCKER #1 in January, 2012.  Compelling and Believable (or What I Learned in Sophomore English) is a dark story about what happens when a student gets the wrong kind of inspiration from a teacher's lessons.

I was so thrilled to have a story published in the first edition, I never dreamed that Hannah would publish a second story in SUCKER #2 in 2013.  In Angels and Serendipity, Ella's mother is dying of cancer at the exact moment the World Trade Center is being attacked on September 11th, 2001.  Frustrated by her inability to help her mom, Ella ventures into hell itself--downtown Manhattan--with the hope that she can save just one life.

I almost didn't submit a story for SUCKER #3, but then I had an inspiration.  I remembered suffering through a long-time unrequited crush in high school.  For a whole year I shared my angst with my best friend--we'd spend hours on the phone groaning and giggling, strategizing how to arrange chance meetings with my crush, giving him code names and hand signals so we could warn each other from a distance.  My crush never noticed--frankly, he was too into himself at the time--and when he finally woke up, I was not the girl he wanted.  I wondered, what would I have done if I'd ever had a chance with him alone?  And that thought turned into Valentine's Day, which was just published in SUCKER #3 on April 15, 2014.

Hannah and her fabulous staff have accomplished so much in the past three years--I can't thank them enough for their support.   

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