Time for a little crowing.

Some might call it peacocking.

My wife and I were in Florida a couple of weeks ago visiting our baby daughter at college when she told us she had submitted her first short story for publication.

One of her professors had recommended the site, and she had studied the submission guidelines, prepared her submission, crossed her fingers and hit the send button.

She hadn’t heard anything back.

“You have to understand, little girl,” I said, “that publishers may not respond at all.”

She glanced at her email on her iPhone for a response from the site.

“I checked it out and the guy on the site says he responds to every submission.”

“Okay,” I said.  “But the time will pass quicker if you don’t check your phone every thirty seconds looking for a reply from him.”

She nodded and checked her email again.

And so it went the three days we were with her.

Until Monday afternoon when we were about to head to the airport.

“Yikes,” my daughter said.

She showed me the email on her phone.

They loved her story and would run it the week of April 29.

We rejoiced.

When the hooping and hollering subsided, I said to her in my most serious tone.

“You know you can’t be a real writer if everything you submit for publications is accepted.”

She furrowed her brow at me.

“You have to be rejected a  million or so times,” I said.

“I think I will frame this email and hang it up in my room,” she said. “I can put the rejection notices in a folder and stuff it in my desk drawer.”

What a deal, huh?

All right, without further ado, please drop by Thick Jam and check out this week’s featured story.

It’s a really fine short story by a budding young writer named Grady Jane Woodfin.

Plus, you have to love the title: Santa-Seeming, Hook-Having, Vacuum Man.

Were those buttons I just heard popping?