WRITER'S DIGEST SUCCESS STORY

Ok, the previous Chicken Soup for the Soul post made me think of one of LAST year's student success stories--also tied to me in a strange way. Way back in September, 2004, I published a nonfiction article in Writer's Digest called "GET A GIMMICK." It talked about how a single headline from a previous issue a year earlier, "Get Started! Get Involved! Get Inspired!" twigged my imagination just enough to give me an idea. I would become the GET guy! Sure enough, I landed a column, GET GOD, with a religious publication, featuring articles I wrote with catchy titles like "Get a Faith Lift!" and "Get an Amazing Offer!" I followed up with GET WRITING and GET POETIC columns for a few other publications, GET HEALTHY columns for an online magazine, GET MORE BUSINESS for a California magazine...and so on and so on. Basically, that one idea led to thousands of dollars in my account--and hundreds of articles including one in WRITER'S DIGEST.

Ok, in a totally UNRELATED activity, our class took on one of the Writer's Digest writing contests as a class activity. JESSICA KRUGER, a grade twelve student won even though her work was up against more than 600 other writers, most of whom were adults! Her FICTIONAL story, "Conquered Fear," was published in the February 2010 issue. Now, if you look at the cover of that magazine, guess what the biggest headline on the top of the front cover says? "GET Creative!" These things have a way of connecting in strange ways... (Ok, I realize that the student cover is smaller again, but it's the ONLY one I could find on an image search...you just try and find a bigger one!)