It’s been an honour this year to judge entries to the American Writers Review (AWR) 2026 literary contest. Congratulations to Ellen Hirning Schmidt on her winning poem, ‘Thoughts Composed on a Walk 250 Years After the Declaration of Independence’. Ellen has deftly managed to find personal enlightenment amidst the current political turmoil.
Donna Ferrara, editor of AWR, runs a well-oiled, discreetly managed publication, so I wasn’t completely sure if I had co-judges or not – and that didn’t matter. I missed the literary companionship of fellow Elwood Writers’ member Barry Lee Thompson, who, this year lent his talents to assessing entries for the anthology itself. I was relieved to hear from Donna that my assessment of contest submissions generally coincided with hers. Phew!
I read, re-read and scored the stories and poems, while providing commentary on each – which turned out to be the best part. I enjoy putting my powers of literary criticism to work. It’s a great discipline.
Not long after completing the ratings, I read about the newly appointed editor-in-chief to Passager magazine, a publication for the over 50s. Roseanne Singer had previously been a member of the editorial board. She gave an introductory interview in which one comment jumped out at me. As now-editor, she was being asked to captain the ship, meaning that hers was ‘the last or final word’ on the pieces being published. She learned to ‘grow’ into the experience, she says, and to ‘just trust’ her own judgement.
In rating the global contributions to AWR from here in Oz, I had to ‘grow’ into a certain confidence (which of course holds true for many aspects of life). In the process, I learned that – with practice and application – I could be content with my final assessments, or to paraphrase the Stoic philosophers, I’d done what I could, with what I had, for where I was at the time.
Which brings me back to the act of writing. One submits a story to a journal, say, and it hits the mark or it doesn’t. But the trick of stoical re-framing – no matter the outcome – is accepting that we’ve done our best for where we are at the time. I’m not nearly as sanguine as this in reality, but I get the idea. On this subject, you can read my blog post HERE from 2022. According to the great stoical playwright, Samuel Beckett, it’s simple really: we just have to learn to ‘fail better’. Failing well, that’s the answer.
