How Did I Get Here, Part 2

My talented, beautiful and intelligent daughter-n-law, Melanie (I have two daughters-in-law who fit that description, so I have to specify) wrote that she gave up two things she loved to do--writing and ballet--because she couldn't make a living at either.http://raggedymadness.com/2012/02/24/lean-in/  Young, I had no such practical ideas. In college, I majored in English because I liked to read. A career? Pouf! I was a daughter of the fifties. Some man was going to marry me and take care of me, presumably while I read Silver Screen and ate bonbons. Soon I found myself with a Ph.D. in English and no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. Oh, there was a man to take care of me, but that went awry after nearly twenty years.
I had always written, starting with short stories as a ten-year-old and progressing to stories of teen-age angst that Seventeen, that bible of young girls, rejected without hesitation. I found myself doing pr and editing a medical journal and an alumni newspaper--paste-up and all in the old days, though I'd had no journalism training. Once I had that Ph.D. and children and was a stay-at-home wife and mom, with a nanny thank-you-very-much, I settled down to write. There were literally days when I thought I'd write if I only knew what to write. Unlike some senior citizens who become successful authors almost by accident (See Radine Nehring's excellent post on the subject at http://madisonjohns11.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/im-a-late-bloomer-radine-trees-nehring/), I was always dead set on a career. I had banished that girl who wanted to read and eat bonbons.
Flash forward forty years. No blatant self promotion, but I have over sixty published books--fiction for adults, fiction for young adults, a lot of nonfiction for young readers, some miscellaneous titles such as a literary biography and a cookbook, and now mysteries. I also have some rather nice awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from Western Writers of America. I'm neither rich nor famous, but it's a respectable record for a writer. Still it was never enough. I wanted more. Once a woman who was my sister in spirit suggested I'd had as much success as I could expect and I ought to quit worrying about it--she was always forthright. But that wasn't my way.
I had as many rejections as acceptances--or more--over the years, and I have every author's stack of rejected manuscripts that will never go anywhere except to my archive at the Southwest Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos. Bantam/Doubleday stayed with me for much of 1990s. amd several childrens' publishers and book packagers were steady clients in the late '90s and early in 2000 until the market changed, so they said. I never had a secure long-term publishing home with enough faith in me to work out a career plan.. 
Today my mystery career is off to a great start--the first Kelly O'Connell Mystery published, another due in April, another in August, the start of a second series in January, and a fourth as-yet unwritten and unscheduled Kelly O'Connell Mystery due in 2013. There's a lingering question in my mind about why I had to be in my seventies for this sudden roll I'm on, just as I wonder why I wasn't at thirty the woman I am now. My brother says he sees it as me re-inventing myself once again, which he believes I've done a few times before. He wanted credit for that statement, and I am glad to give it because I take it as a compliment. I think the capacity to re-invent yourself, if that's what I've done, comes with age and perhaps as a close friend suggested grace.
My new blooming career is thanks to Turquoise Morning Press. I'm a big believer in the small press movement that, along with self-publishing digitally, is changing the publishing world forever. But I doubt I would have been swept up in this movement thirty years ago. I wasn't ready, and neither was my writing. Almost certainly, retirement had something to do with this, freeing me to focus on my writing and also freeing me of a lot of stress. I'm also a fan of retirement, although all those years I would have told you I had the ideal job as director of a small academic press. And what I learned all those years on the "other side" of publishing stands me in good stead. Yet I'm a poster child for retirement, and a fan, if somewhat reluctantly, of aging. Just joined a Facebook page called Spunky Seniors--you gotta love it.

Three Ladies of Publishing

Fran Vick is the retired founding director of the University of North Texas Press. Gayla Christiansen is the still-working-overtime sales manager and director of rights and permissioins at Texas A&M University Press. And I am the retired director of TCU Press. We call ourselves the Three Ladies of Publishing, and we periodically hold summit meetings, usually at my house where I am expected to provide a gourmet meal--and joyfully do so. Since today the semi-annual sales meeting for the A&M consortium was held at TCU, we were all in Fort Worth, so tonight we had a summit meeting. Part publishing discussion, a bit of gossip, a lot of catching up on families and friends, and a lot of laughter and sharing.
I think my gourmet meal satisfied. When the ladies hit the door about 4 p.m. and asked for wine, I gave them an amuse bouche of tiny rolls filled with anchovy butter. Then they gathered in the kitchen to watch me cook, and I gave them an appetizer of finger sandwiches--cocktail rye topped with cream cheese and diill, smoked trout, a dab of sour cream, and a couple of capers. Dinner was a roulade, with layers of pork, chicken, and prosciutto interspersed with a sauce of olive oil, basil, anchovies, garlic and parsley, and served with a sauce of cream and chicken broth and bacon. Plus asparagus and a salad of beets and orange slices with vinaigrette and feta. No dessert. We sat around the fire and talked far later than I'm used to, and I'm writing this late at night.
We were wondering tonight when we first started these summit meetings and decided it was quite a few years ago. For my 70th birthday, they gave me a proclamation, now framed in my office, that reads "Leader and Chef of the Front Porch Wine Drinking World Problem Solving Three Ladies in Publishing."
Reminds me of last night's post on the value of friendship, but once again it is so true. It is really a delight for me to cook for these two, and I try to outdo myself each time. I have to uphold my reputation. And it's wonderful to sit around and share publishing news and personal news with a sense that these are two women that really care about me and I care a lot about them. Another blessing in my life.

When life gives you lemons . . . well I haven't quite gotten to the lemonade part yet

My year-long contract with my agent ends November 20, and I had some concerns about the working relationship, so I wrote to him. Got back an e-mail today releasing me from our contract Seems he's exhausted places to send my manuscript--which means eleven publishers. I am trying hard to view this as an opportunity and not a defeat. He sent to the big publishers in NY, but I think more and more authors are turning to small publishers and e-book publishing, and I intend to explore that. Once a manuscript has been shopped, as this one has, it's virtually impossible to get another agent. Also this agent kept talking about getting my 1990s historical fiction on Kindle and Smashwords but nothing happened, so I'll undertake that myself. As many of you know, I put my short story collection on those two e-book platforms, but I well recognize it wasn't a professional job, and I'm going to do better next time. Trouble is, I don't have Word files of these older books. A new challenge, but I'm determined to meet it. I've started making some inquiries today So, it's a bump in the road but maybe as Betty said to me this morning, "When one door closes, another opens." I'm certainly not giving up, not in a week when I've had a great honor and been a guest blogger twice. I may get the big head. But the agent rejection should keep it in check.
Other than that, I had a pleasasnt day--Betty and I went to the church bazaar, which recalls a lot of good childhood memories. I did some Christmas shopping. Then we went to the Barnes & Noble that now is staying, and I did more Christmas shopping--plus renewed my membership, since the local store isn't going to close. And finally we ate at a favorite place--the Swiss Pastry Shop. Yumm. . . bratwurst, really mustardy potato salad, and hot kraut. So good. I denied myself the Black Forest Cake, much as I wanted it. Yesterday at the doctor's office, I did not acquit myself well on the scales.
Life is always interesting--Jordan just called wanting to know how to spell "La Cucaracha!"  Don't ask me why, but I did manage to throw in that it means "The Cockroach."

Writing class and bad publishing news

Tonight was the first meeting of the Writing Your Life class that I'm facilitating, and Elizabeth (known to the rest of the world as Beth) is helping me with it. Ten ladies joined us on my front porch, and they were a wonderful group--responsive, talkative, interested, some writers, some who had never written a word. Some have such strong backgrounds I'm going to be challenged to make this a rewarding experience for them, but I plan to work at it and work hard. They all have interesting stories to tell and many of us will have to confront the "elephant in the room." My brother once said to me that he has three-oclock-in-the-morning thoughts of, "Oh, I wish I hadn't done that one." We all do, but those are the things we have to look at squarely in order to come to terms with ourselves. The premise of the group is that each member share only as much as she wants, and nothing shared goes beyond the group. But I encouraged each member to be as honest as possible with herself--otherwise, the exploration of self ends up being less than satisfying. I think each of us can learn a lot about ourself if we look at our life honestly. A definition I like: memoir is a record of how we got where we are. They have an assignment to write five pages in the next two weeks, and many moaned they can't do it. I am going to do the assignments myself, but I'm not sure where to begin. It requires some thought--and some time. Like others in the class, I'll have to force myself to do the assignment and not be diverted by other things. But I am on the whole excited about it.
Otherwise the world seemed topsy-turvy today. SMU announced the "suspension" of publishing activities for its press--do they have any idea at all of how hard it is to pick up and rebuild a pubishing program that has been suspended, however briefly? Good friends of mine form the staff at SMU, and I grieve for my friends, for the authors who will be left in limbo--both those published (who will market their books?) and those waiting to be published. But must of all I grieve that a university is so short-sighted as to measure the value of its academic press in dollars and cents. Huge presses like Columbia and Oxford can probably support themselves from income; a small press, publishing eight to ten titles a year can never do so. Yet a press does so much more for a university--bringing it prestige, spreading its name into communities that don't care about football. Who measures athletic programs by dollars and cents?
The groundswell of support for SMU from all over the country has been tremendous. The SMU Faculty Senate passed two resolutions supporting them, and their editorial board is actively up at arms. There's a glimmer of hope that, as editor Kathie Lang says, David will beat Goliath. I cling to that glimmer--it affects not just SMU Press but all of us in academic publishing and all of us who value a good, well-written, beautifully produced book. New York publishing just isn't going to do for the book world what small, academic presses do. Pray with me, folks.