April is a significant month in my writing life.

Three years ago, on April 28, 2018, I published my first blog post — my first poem. Most of my following posts were opinion pieces, primarily on music. A few were short stories, usually between six and 500 words. Although I wasn’t publishing many of my creative endeavors, I was actually writing fiction almost exclusively. I took an online creative writing course through Wesleyan University, pantsed way through my first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and completed my first writing year by earning Wesleyan certificates in each of their five creative writing modules.

Phew. Took a few months off, but in April, 2019, I discovered both diyMFA and the StoryADay May Challenge with its wonderfully creative and supportive writing community. Since then, I have another NaNoWriMo under my belt and quite a few short stories, thanks to StoryADay’s May and September challenges. I haven’t published my stories here because I’ve been submitting them to markets that won’t accept previously-published materials.

Which brings me to this April. Today, I’m rejoining the blogging world with my first contribution to the “Blogging from A to Z Challenge.” I figured choosing an “A” poem bookends nicely with my other first post in 2018. I’ve chosen both “April” and the Edgar Allan Poe poem “Annabel Lee” because this is a particularly auspicious April for me. My first short story, “The Heart Tells the Tale,” appears in the April 2021 edition of Love Letters to Poe.