Giving up on giving up

Something good is just around the corner

As an emerging writer, the main piece of advice I was given for a long time was to submit my work to Voiceworks.

Voiceworks is an amazing literary magazine devoted to publishing Australian writers under the age of 25. Many amazing writers have gotten their start there, either as writers or editors, including Lili Wilkinson, Benjamin Law and Elizabeth Flux.

I am not one of them. I submitted eight different times (including an application to Toolkits: Fiction and to their editorial committee) and got eight rejections. They never published anything of mine. 

On my 25th birthday I felt happy, because I love my birthday and see it as a great accomplishment to have lived another year, but there was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was too old. I ran out of time. Voiceworks had been on my publishing bucket list for years and it was officially never going to happen.