Power of the Pen

If you could, please take a moment to wish my fabulous cousin Katie good luck on her Power of the Pen try-outs tomorrow-- I will attempt to hide my jealousy that I am no longer the best writer in the family!

For those of you who aren't from 'round these parts (although Power of the Pen might be a national thing? But I don't know, because I got my ass kicked at the state level, so I didn't really progress much beyond that), Power of the Pen is a writing competition open to seventh and eighth graders, in which the writers have a limited amount of time to write a short piece based on a prompt given at the start of the session.

My own Power of the Pen story is a tragic one-- in seventh grade, I was felled the evening before the local round of competition by a vicious stomach flu that left me unable to compete. On a side note, that same night I ate a homemade pizza, and, convinced that it had poisoned me and robbed me of my one chance to finally kick ass at a (admittedly nerdily academic) team "sport," I swore off pizza for the next four years.

In the eighth grade I made it to the aforementioned state level, only to be positively crushed, leaving me embittered. Oh, I still wrote-- most famously, I went on to complete the infamous John Boston novel, quite possibly The Worst Novel Ever Written By Anyone, Ever-- but it wasn't really until college that my urge to use writing as a form of ass-kicking-ness returned.

Based on the story that Katie read me tonight, though, I have no doubts that, if such a thing exists, she will make it to the nationals. And I will ride on her coat tails to glory!

Good luck, Katie!