Terri Main - A Writing Memory

A few weeks after my mother passed away, I was going through some of her things. He had a huge cedar chest where she kept her most precious memories. I found all the magazines that had my articles in them. I found my college newspapers with my column. As I dug deeper, I found my very first published piece of writing.

It was a three-paragraph article I had written when I was in third grade about the sun. It was published in our school newsletter as the best story that month. I stood holding that yellow mimeographed piece of paper in my hands that mother had carefully preserved for nearly 50 years. I can remember the excitement in the household. You would have thought I'd won a Pulitzer or been published in the New Yorker. People called saying how much they liked the article.

I think that was when I wanted to be a writer. Seeing my words in print next to my name and knowing that people I didn't even know were reading them was an exhilarating feeling. It would be another 12 years before I would be paid for something I wrote, and another 50 before I had a novel accepted for publication, but along the way I've had fun writing everything from magazine articles, to newspaper stories to short stories, plays, radio drama and even a video documentary or two.

Still, I am not sure any of those accomplishments will compare to that moment when I found that carefully preserved piece of paper among my mother's things.

To be Released February 2011