I’m excited to have a short chapter in a textbook that sees the light of day as a new publication this week from Bloomsbury. Careers in Library and Information Services is edited by Priscilla Shontz. My little chapter, “Author,” is in Part 5: Beyond the Library. Back when I was first starting to publish in my library career, around 25 years ago, Priscilla and a couple of other publishers/editors were kind enough to encourage me and to pick up my articles and tips for paraprofessionals, students, and new librarians. In 2004, I had a chapter in Priscilla’s The Librarian’s Career Guidebook. I left library work in 2013 to become a writer “fuller-time,” but was thrilled when she asked if I’d like to be involved with her most recent project. It was exciting to get to explore what I do now from the background of what I did to get here as a professional librarian. If you or someone you know are interested in where you can go with an information science/library science degree, be sure to check out this new book. There are 101 avenues to explore. Congratulations, Priscilla! And it’s an honor and pleasure to work with you again!
I also recently had a piece of nonfiction picked up by Cutleaf Journal, which has been a dream publication for me for a few years now. Cutleaf started in 2020 and has an online issue every two weeks featuring fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I submitted a piece to them last year (entitled “Too Much Trouble”), which they passed on, but received a very nice rejection letter from Walter Robinson, the nonfiction editor. This past August, at Table Rock Writers Workshop in Little Switzerland, NC, I got to meet Mr. Robinson in person and talked with him a little bit throughout the week about various topics. When it came time for submissions this year, I had no clue what I should send. The final night of open submissions, I decided on a piece called “Purples,” which I wrote in 2022 in one of Darnell Arnoult’s Mining the Motherlode sessions that I’d been editing recently (as an aside, “Purples” has been rejected more than once by other publications – publishing is very subjective, so if you’re out there writing and submitting, keep this in mind). I wasn’t sure if it was anything Cutleaf might be looking for, but I felt a pull in that direction and sent it in. Much to my delight, it was accepted a few days later and will be published sometime in 2025. I’m thrilled to have my work included in their journal!
So, I mentioned the piece I sent to Cutleaf last year, “Too Much Trouble.” The week after it was rejected there, I submitted it to Chicken Soup for the Soul for a humor edition they were planning called Laughter’s Always the Best Medicine. That was in December 2023. Lots of bigger publications don’t send out rejection letters – you just never hear back from them. After eight months, I figured I hadn’t been accepted and started sending “Too Much Trouble” out to other potential publications. Thank God no one wanted it, because, in late October, I received notification that I’d made it to the first round of finalists for the Chicken Soup for the Soul volume! A few weeks later, I learned I’d been selected for the final round. Then, that my story, a true-life account of dinner preparations gone wrong and the emergency room visit that followed, had been one of 101 pieces selected. Someone like me dreams of national attention for her writing her whole life and this publication has the potential to bring my writing to an entirely new segment of the public. I got my contributor’s copies of the book in my hands today and it was seriously surreal. My story is fourth out of 101. That’s great news! If someone starts reading the book cover-to-cover, I have an excellent shot of being read, an excellent opportunity of being remembered because my story comes early in the book. I honestly couldn’t ask for more. My name and website are spelled correctly in the “About the Authors” section, too. Maybe someone is reading this right now as a result of reading “Too Much Trouble.” (How cool would that be?!?)
And that’s what is happening in terms of recent writing news from me. It has been a great month or two. I look forward to an exciting 2025 and hope you’ll come along for the ride.
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