Not of Vampires or Vaginas

What a thrill to be seated in a room with readers holding copies of FALLING WOMEN AND OTHER STORIES. Most of these readers had read my stories closely; one had read the book twice. We talked about how the stories linked as well as their recurring themes, shattered and rebuilt sister relationships, women’s alcoholism, etc. My editor, Sheryl Dunn, put my stories together in a cohesive, literarily pleasing manner. I’ve had more than 25 stories published, so she had some to choose from. In the end, she rejected my crazy outlier stories because they didn’t fit with the themes and setting of the rest.

In addition to Sheryl, many people helped with my little book of stories. Ten of the stories in Falling Women were published in magazines. I thank all of those publishers and editors. I will never forget the thrill of selling a short story to First for Women, a national magazine, and working with their fiction editor to make that story the best it could be. I also enjoyed the fifteen hundred dollars First paid me for that story and two others. But more than that, I enjoyed seeing a product of my imagination appear in checkout lines throughout the South during our travels that summer.

Falling Women’s short stories won six awards. I thank all those judges and competitions, especially the ones with substantial money prizes! God bless all of you. With the four grand I won from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, I went to London for the summer. A story started percolating in London that I am working on today. As a writer, I needed all those editors wanting to publish my work and all those judges choosing my work. All art is collaboration. I don’t want to write alone.

Publishing has changed so much since I began writing and selling stories in the early ‘90s. Not that there is any sense in longing for the old days. I am glad that I have written what is important to me. This means I am not at present writing about vampires or vaginas, the current popular trend. I break the silence for my art, not because I believe what I am writing will sell. At the same time I do not respect self-publishing.  People can write their name a zillion times and find a publisher who for a price will put their book out there, but that doesn’t mean anyone will want to read it. While I acknowledge it is hard to get published today, I encourage all writers to go the difficult traditional route and not the easy fast one, self-publishing.

For an intelligent, insightful reading audience exists out there. I met mine on a Tuesday night. I wish all my writer friends a fabulous book club experience.