The story arrived as a dream. I wrote down what I could remember as soon as I woke up, then sat on it for years because not every idea is ready when you are. When I came back to it I knew what to do with it. The Next One Literary Journal accepted it for publication, which sounds more glamorous than it was. No money, modest circulation, didn’t run long. But I held a copy in my hands and saw my name on a page that wasn’t a school assignment. That counts.
