The Day My Story Received a Pushcart Nomination

And what the people I shared my news taught me.

Three weeks ago, in the morning, after I read the email, I grabbed my house key, and ran outside. I stared at the trees in my street. Before I passed the trees, I hesitated. Did I want them to bend their leaves for me? I’d walked before the trees many times, but now I wanted them to know the woman who walked before them is now a writer whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. When I walked past the trees, their leaves blew in the air like they always did. Then I saw the old man at the end of my street, watering his plants in front of his house. I ran to him. I talked about my stories and characters with the old man than anyone in my neighborhood. When I reached the old man, I exclaimed, you’re not going to believe my news.

Another one of your stories has been published? He asked.

I smiled, told him my good news.

It’s a big deal?

It is a huge deal.

I circled the old man, telling him word by word what the email from Christopher, editor at SmokeLong Quarterly, said. He listened. The old man loves reading books and listening to stories. His eyesight is not good, so he doesn’t read books anymore.

Read one of your stories for me? he asked.

I stilled. I’d been talking, nonstop, a Pushcart Prize nomination, a Pushcart Prize nom . . . but—with the old man’s question—my good news retreated to the background, and in front of my mind was the face of the old man, waiting for me to read him one of my stories. My heart had been beating wildly, but it slowed down. The old man looked at me, like he always did, when I was about to read him a few paragraphs or a chapter from his favorite books, or when I tell him about a book I read, with a smile more blazing than the sun. I sat on the grass, searching my phone for one of my stories.

One person, who loves stories, who listens when you read your story to him, even if that person is an old man who doesn’t know what a Pushcart Prize nomination means, it means everything.

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Two hours later, at home, I called my writer friends who live in Nigeria and South Africa, and told them my good news. They suggested to drink red wine—they know my favorite wine is red—together. Even though it was morning in Ethiopia (and also in Cape Town and Lagos as they are 1 and 2 hours behind my time respectively), we agreed to bring our wines as the occasion called for it. While we drank our wines, facing each other on the screen, one of them asked, is the story the one you’ve been working on for two years? I leaned in my chair, almost touching my desktop screen.

Any excuse, including a celebration of a Pushcart nomination, to talk about the stories we create from our imaginations with other writers.

A writer friend who is just as enthusiastic as you are about the words on the page, about the craft of writing, it means everything.

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At noon, when I told my partner the good news, he jumped from his chair. I could have called and told him my good news, but I wanted to see his face. He hugged me tight, and when he released me, he said, your face tells me that’s a huge deal. Tell me about the prize. Before I opened my mouth, he said, Wait, does your special notebook have this prize in it?

He knows about my notebook, which he calls special because I wrote a list of my dream American Publication Awards for the short story form—Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, Best Small Fiction, The Pushcart Prize, Iowa Short Fiction and John Simmons Short Fiction Award, Caine Prize for African Writing—on it.

Someone you love, who doesn’t love reading stories like you do, but makes an effort, always, to know about the stories you’re reading, and the stories you’re writing, it means everything.

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Late afternoon, in the institute I work for, when I entered through the gate, I expected everyone to stop doing whatever they were doing. I hated that I wanted the people I work with and the people I see in the institute, including the woman swiping the floor, to stop doing whatever they were doing, and look up at me. Here comes the writer who has just been nominated for a Pushcart Prize! I was saying this to myself. For a crazy moment, I saw in my mind the people in front of me parting ways for me the way Moses parted the Red Sea. Later, I would laugh about this. No one in the institute cares that I am a writer, that I’m writing the stories of Ethiopians. In fact, only one person—one of my teaching assistants—knows that I write. Later, before we began our class, standing at the door of our class, I told my assistant my good news. Oh my God, we’re celebrating after our class, he said. When I was about to enter the class, he held my arm, and asked, is it one of your short stories or flashes?

Someone who listens when you talk about your dream of writing the stories of your people, to make a tiny, but significant contribution in literature that’s nonexistent of your stories, if you have that someone in your life, it means everything.

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