Back around the turn of the century, my then-favorite print magazine, Mountain Gazette, held a "1000 Words" writing contest to see who among their readership could produce the most compelling story with this word-limit as a constraint. I submitted the following work of fiction just before the deadline.
I got an email reply from the editor, M. John Fayhee, a short time later wherein he stated something to the effect of, "Our editorial board was, in truth, fundamentally split between your story and one other. Yours is a good piece of writing. But in the end they went with the other. Apologies."
I am pleased to report, however that after this rejection, over the course of the next few years, they nevertheless later picked up a few of my photos and also an essay I wrote for publication.
And, some years later, after Mountain Gazette was done as a print mag, Fahyee also used a quote of mine in his book, Colorado Mountain Dogs, too. A fact I discovered only after stumbling quite fortuitously into a author-reading/book-signing he was holding at a small bookstore in Salida, Colorado, a summer ago. He kindly inscribed the book I purchased "to a mountain gazette alumni."
Anyway, for the record, here's my runner-up "1000 Words" short story, adapted from the first few chapters of a heretofore yet unpublished work that I've been slowly pecking away at for years now which still bears the simple title: Jimmy...
