Inspirational stories and inspirations of celebrities

In 1950, folio magazine of the University of Western Ontario invited students to publish a list of outstanding novels. Majoring in journalism at the university, she wrote her first short story, "The Area of a Shadow," which was accidentally published in a magazine, although she did not win the prize.

Her classmates praised her as a talented writer who could publish articles easily. However, she could not cheer up, repeatedly asking herself: "Is it really so easy to get published?" When she finally became suspicious, she went to the editorial office to inquire. Only then did she find out that only seven entries had been received in the contest. Apart from the six that had won prizes, one of hers had also been published as encouragement.

Hearing the result, the students all laughed at her as a blind cat met a dead mouse, and she was quite calm, frankly said: "I feel I have not reached the level of publishing a novel."

After that, she worked harder, writing eight more short stories at school, all of which she submitted to Folio magazine, none of which was published. After two years, she couldn't afford the tuition, so she had to drop out of school to marry and become a full-time housewife.

Every day after finishing housework, she thought of writing again, so she unconsciously picked up her pen and went on writing. Before long, she was pregnant and writing at her desk. Her husband worried that she might hurt her health, and advised her to rest more. She sighed and said wistfully, "I'm afraid that after the baby is born, I'll be busy all day and I won't have time to write." Still unwilling to put down her pen, she continued to work tirelessly.

When her daughter was born, she saw her daughter fall asleep and remembered her unfinished work. She felt as if she owed something to her, so she could not hold back and continued to write by the side of the bed. She gave birth to four daughters and wrote eight short stories, all of which she sent to no avail.

As her daughters grew up, she opened a bookstore with her husband. While raising her husband and children and running the bookstore, she came up with a good story line, but she couldn't help putting down what she was doing and rushing to write a sentence.

Her husband saw that she often missed the task because of writing, could not help reproachingher: "You like writing so much, can't you really put it down?" She smiled and recounted the publication of her first novel. "I was very embarrassed at that time, but on second thought, I was still too young to be lucky. At least it proved that I still had to pay more and accumulate more. Like a butterfly, it has to go through the pain of breaking its cocoon to fly into the sky. So I made up my mind that I would publish a novel with my strength."

Her husband saw the longing in her eyes and smiled lovingly.

She continued to work as a housewife until 1968, when she published her first collection of short stories, "Happy Shadow Dance," and was lucky enough to win the Governor's Award, the country's highest literary prize. Since then, she has published a series of short stories such as "The Progress of Love" and "Escape," and is known as the "master of contemporary short stories."

She is the 2013 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Alice Munro. Knowing that she had won the prize, Munro said significantly, "I am grateful for the first book that I published because of care. Although IT took me 18 years to publish my work, it taught me that one cannot achieve true success without experiencing the inevitable failure."