Excerpts from an email I just received:

Dear Whitney Steen,

I wanted to let you know your entry "Law Day" made it to the final three entries in consideration for this year's Jack Dyer Fiction Prize competition (out of over two hundred and twenty entries). Since you were one of our finalists, we would like to offer to publish your entry (if the work is still available for first publication) in CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW, Volume 13, Number 1, which is scheduled to appear in Winter/Spring 2008.

If your work is available and you would like to see it published in CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW, you will receive payment upon publication (Ed's note: not a lot of payment, but enough to make buying that new TV I've been eying a possibility) as well as two copies of the issue in which the work appears and a year's subscription to CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW.

Thank you again for giving us the opportunity to consider your work in the competition. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jon Tribble
Managing Editor
CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW

No you don't need to get your ears checked, that high pitched sound you're hearing is me!