Tuesday, January 30, 2007

A Publishing Dream Comes True!

It's official: Sixteen year after beginning to seriously write novels, and after a near-lifetime of stories running through my head, I have an agent and publisher! I'm represented by Michelle Andelman of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. My publicists are Amy Stephansen, marketing manager at Kregel Publications, and Sandy Brown (my friend), freelance publicist of Paris, Arkansas.

How did it happen? In the summer of 2005, I took my Desert Medicine manuscript to the Nebraska Summer Writing Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska. I had completed the manuscript in late 2000, after five years of research and writing, but had been unable to sell it. At the conference, writer Brent Spencer persuaded me not to give up on the novel, and gave me valuable advice on how to strengthen the story. In April 2006, I submitted sample pages of the rewritten novel along with a marketing plan to the Festival of Faith & Writing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the editor for a small publishing house, Kregel Publications, expressed an interest in seeing the entire manuscript.

A week ago, I signed the contract! Desert Medicine will be released in the fall!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

congratulations! 16 years is a long time; I bet you're glad you didn't give up.

Cheryl said...

Congrats! It's great to hear about your success.

You and I have the same agent!