It was a cold and lonely Tuesday ...

Hi everyone: this is my first blog post. I'm going to start my blog with my 'how I got published' story. There isn't one 'how to get published' story, just many individual 'how I got published' stories, since there is no one, sure fire way to get published (and if anyone tells you differently, don't listen). Over the next series of blog posts I will tell my story. It covers the span of the last three years (and that's the short version!). So here goes ...

It was a cold and lonely Tuesday evening, felt like Thursday, when I dragged my butt home from aquasize. There was a chill in the autumn air that a cup of steaming chai with an extra dollop of organic honey couldn’t stave off. Needed to check my e-mail before shoving some curried vegetables down my gullet and bolting out to meet a friend for coffee. There it was. An e-mail from Crystal Stranaghan the publisher of Gumboot Books. It was the e-mail we all wait for. Quickly scanned over the line apologizing for the delay, complete with a winky-face emoticon, to get to the line we dream about: “It’s something I’d be interested in publishing….” I did the classic OMG scream then phoned my sister. Forwarded the e-mail to my writer’s group with an ‘in your face’ message. It was the fall of 2008.