The memoir-writing contest is over. The winner of the reader’s poll is April Winchell, who received an astronomical number of votes, thanks in part to the large following she has at her website and at her “The April Winchell Show” Yahoo! group.

Apparently, the fact that April has a moderately successful career in the entertainment industry caused a bit of drama among some of the other contestants, who cried foul because they felt her Hollywood-fringe status gave her an unfair edge in the poll. Personally, I’m not bothered by it because a.) her submission was definitely worthy of winning on its own merit, and b.) I was actually hoping to make it into the final round by being one of the four contestants whose entries were handpicked by the authors running the competition, as those selections were based solely on the quality of the writing rather than on how many votes a contestant could drum up.

I had told myself that I would not be bothered if I wasn’t one of those four finalists … but I must have been lying, because the authors, who were unable to settle on just four entries, decided instead to select seven finalists, and the fact that I am not among them, quite frankly, bummed me out.

Yes, it was probably egomaniacal of me to think that I would beat out roughly 200 other writers, and I probably shouldn’t let my failure to do so send me into a tailspin that ends up with me sleeping on the streets of Boston and panhandling for booze money—but let’s just say that my fragile little ego is a bit bruised, and I am grappling with the possibility that, contrary to my pre-memoir-writing-contest belief system, I am not the hot-shit writer that I thought I was.

As Artie Lange would say: “Waaahhhh I didn’t win the writing contest and now I think I suck wahhhhhhhh!”

At any rate, thank you to those who took the time to cast a vote for my entry. I appreciate the support, and I have just one more favor to ask of you:

Can I borrow five bucks? I need to buy some booze.

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