What Was Your First Publication? (David Intro) (12/07/2019)

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Introduction by David Olimpio.

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My first publication was in a magazine called MiPOesias. It was a piece called "Counting Weights," which was about an old man, a stranger, I used to see a lot at the gym. I mean, it was kind of about him, but it was mostly about me. And it was also about a girl. (When is it not about me? When is it not also about a girl?) The piece appeared in the

January 2011 issue

, the digital version of which went live in late November 2010. I got notification from the publisher

 over Thanksgiving that it was up and it was for sale. I sent an email to all my friends and family during that holiday weekend with the subject "Publication News!" It was pretty damn exciting. 

That seems like a lifetime ago, not because it was actually that long in years (9 of those suckers doesn't seem like that much from atop a pile of 46) but because my life changed drastically after that time. The who I was before the winter of 2011 and the who I was after the winter of 2011 are very different people. It would be cool if I could say that the change was because of that publication, that after my piece appeared in that journal, I achieved international literary stardom before entering my drunken "Behind the Music" fall-from-grace period, hanging out in bars and asking anybody who'd listen if I could read them my latest poem, scrawled on a napkin. But we all know that's not the case (at least not the first part). 

No, the main reason that time marked such a big change is that less than a month after the issue launched, a few days before Christmas, my mom fell into a coma due to an aggressive, inoperable brain tumor which we did not yet know existed. Though she came out of the coma in time for the holidays, she was not well again. She died about six weeks later, in February. All of her remaining days were spent in a hospital or a nursing home. She never returned to her house.

I bought something like 15 or 20 copies of that issue of MiPOesias. I may have gone a bit overboard. I still have most of them. (Oddly, nobody was knocking down my door asking me for them.) I did bring one of the copies to my mom in the rehabilitation facility she had been moved to after the hospital. I know she was happy and excited for me, but I'm honestly not sure if she ever fully absorbed the piece. I know she at least scanned the words because I would come into her room to find the pages open on her lap, turned to "Counting Weights." But her brain was ravished by cancer and radiation, making linear thought difficult, and thereby causing her ability to read or write anything nearly impossible. This was a shame since she had always liked to do both of those things.

Ok look, I didn't intend this to be a sad piece about my mom. It's really about that first publication of mine, or rather the subject of first publications in general. It seems that, as was the case at the time, my "first publication" story has been swallowed up by that much larger (and sadder) life story. But recently, our Fiction Editor Michelle Ross emailed me to let me know that, for one of the finalists in our Flash Fiction contest,

Atticus Review

would be that writer's first publication. And that made me think back again to that first publication of mine, which I hadn't really thought about in a long time. It made me remember all the excitement and pride I felt about it. And I was happy that this writer was experiencing that for the first time with our journal. 

It's easy to go along doing this, publishing stories, and feel jaded by the machinery of it, to begin to think of it all as very routine, to wonder if, for some writers, it's really not that big a deal for them. But then you remember that, indeed, they may be experiencing all of this for the first time. And you remember that feeling you had knowing that somebody liked what you had written and was willing to put it in their pages. And you realize (again) how cool that is and what an honor and privilege it is to be a part of that. 

If you're feeling a bit lost in the process of writing and submitting lately and you've begun to wonder what's the point, it might be a good exercise to go back and re-read your first publication. I did, and it gave me a boost. Who knows, it might replenish a bit of finger fuel for the next ten thousand or so words. And if that first publication has yet to happen—even more reason to keep at it.

Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.

David Olimpio

Editor-in-Chief

PS: We'll be announcing our Flash Fiction Contest Winners next week!

ATTICUS NEWS

Submit to our Second Annual Videopoem ContestJudge: Marc Neys (aka Swoon)Entry fee: $10 for three films. First prize $250 and publication(Not to mention international acclaim and adoration)

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THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FICTIONTHE OLD WOMAN AND THE SHOEby Ann Gelder"The eye looks concerned, which seems nice, but the concern is not for the woman, it’s about her. About doing the job right."READ ON

POETRYWHY WE NARROW OUR EYES AT THE RIVERSby Gabriel Welsch"As we took the turns in hisses and roars,the girls leaned to the windows, agapeand laughing at the muddy swells and the lapof the river touching pavement, past the gravel,under the guard rails and into the troughsworn tire-wide and predictable as eroded paths do."READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONDEAD AND DYING LIGHTby Lena Crown"Now, I watch as animal hide rusts in the oven heat of the embers like a time-lapse of a sunset. How often do you get to watch time pass?"READ ON

MIXED MEDIAWE ARE THE DEVICEby Mark Niehus"Writing for me is a very visual experience resulting in vivid imagery which easily translates to film, giving the poem a life beyond the page and providing another layer for me to guide the audience’s interpretation of the text."READ ON

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