I woke up this morning to a nice surprise: I was one of ten winners in the Samhain First Line Contest! I'm so excited!

The contest started about a month ago, when Samhain invited people to post their best "first line" on the Samhain blog. Each week after that, the editors posted the list of entries to move on to the next round -- competitors added one sentence each week, five sentences in all. The prize was a chance to submit a story to one of the Samhain editors -- they are currently closed to submissions.

It sounded like such a fun idea that I decided to enter -- and I was in good company. Almost 300 people entered that first round. There were so many great lines! I have no idea how the editors made their decisions!

My first line was from a m/m contemporary I had been fooling around with. Going into the contest, I had now idea how hard it would be! When you only have one line to hook your reader, it's really tough. I was very fortunate in that I had my marvelous critique partners, Maya and Marie, to help me out.

The contest made me happy as a reader, because I know I have some great reading to look forward to once those entries are published! Congratulations, to all who entered!