The Red Wheelbarrow

Entering 2011 I've found a plethora of publications in my mailbox that have published my work in 2010. In fact, there was more of this stuff than I realized, and some of the work I'd had accepted for publication, I simply forgot about. (I'm getting worse as the years go by and can now scarcely remember my name.)

I was pleasantly surprised on Friday to receive a copy of The Red Wheelbarrow, a university literary journal (California? Can't recall...) that published one of my stories entitled, "Dead Languages". I wrote this story some years back, had forgotten about it, but reading it again over the weekend, I thought I did a decent job writing this mystery story.

My story was also published alongside some other better-known writers (but any hack is better-known than I am). And at the end of the publication, among the other author bios, I found that I had written a single sentence while the other writers in the publication wrote entire treatises on their backgrounds, upcoming work, and the many awards they had received. I said simply, "Todd Outcalt writes books and magazine articles."

I'm not adept at these things. What should I say?

Next time I get an acceptance, I'm going to submit the following for my bio. If any editor publishes this, I'll eat a donut in his/her honor.

Todd Outcalt writes daily hunched over a dim 40-watt bulb, which corresponds to the wattage of his ageing brain. Soon he will have no recollection that he ever wrote the story in this publication and the editor should send his $30 check to his next-of-kin. He is working on many other projects but can't recall the titles.