**The Little Blog of Murder welcomes guest blogger, Joe Richardson, one of this year’s William F. Deeck—Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers winners. Congrats on the grant, Joe!**

Most of life’s keepsakes are packaged as firsts. First kiss, first love, first moment you suspect your kids are brighter than you.

They’re magic, these mental mementoes.

And I can’t remember a one of ’em.

Given a high stress situation—good or bad—my mind switches to Autopilot.

I blank.

Autopilot steps out and escorts “conscious me” to a quiet room. I get a hot toddy and a pillow and a nap. Autopilot takes the controls and—voila—I can walk, talk and render limited assistance to accident victims.

Just don’t ask me to tell you about it an hour later.

At times this works in my favor. I’ve landed in surgery several times. Couldn’t tell you much about it. Not even sure what hospital I was in. No memories of needles or gurneys or gowns with gaps. “Conscious me” clocked out in the parking lot and didn’t punch in again until the ride home.

But some things you want to remember, even if they aren’t storybook perfect.

First kiss? Cold and strange and a little scary. Or maybe that was the girl. It’s a bit murky.

First love? Much like the first kiss. I think.

These are things that should be on my permanent record. And I’m sure they are. Somewhere. They’re just locked away where I can’t see them.

Not so, Malice Domestic.

Through the kindness of strangers and a few chapters from a work in progress, I was awarded The William F. Deeck—Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers*. The grant covered my conference and will send me to a writer’s workshop later this year.

It’s inspiring when people you’ve never met put their faith in you and your work. Humbling when they give you the resources you need to improve your craft and pursue your dream.

Every writer out there with a book in print knows that feeling.

And every reader out there has made that feeling possible.

Even now, that feeling—the sensation of being humbled, inspired by the faith I was shown—is vivid.

It’s a keepsake that will keep me going. A memento I’m grateful for.

And something I’ll always remember.

-Joe

*Jeffrey Marks received the first grant in 1994.