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Years ago, I was listening to City Arts & Lectures, a lecture and interview program conducted at San Francisco’s Sydney Goldstein Theater and broadcast over the local public radio stations, and I heard an up-and-coming young literary author say this: “I would say, if there’s anything in the world you can do to make money that isn’t writing, go do that other thing instead.” Here was a person much younger than I, who had achieved success far beyond what I was likely to achieve, imploring me to give it all up before I’d even gotten started. It was self-deprecating—he was saying that writing was the only thing he was good at—but it was also wise, because he was also saying that writing is hard, and succeeding as a writer is even harder. And that was a reality check that has helped me a lot over the years. It helped as story after story was being rejected by the literary magazines—over 250 rejections so far. It helped as every corner of the publishing industry was rapidly transforming around me. And it helped when I was rising before 5 a.m. every morning for over a decade to draft, edit, re-draft, and finish The Cyclone Release, my debut novel. But in 2021, when I got my book contract, the aperture shifted, and something else became much more important than wise words from writers I’d never met. And that something else was all of you. Over the course of 2022, as I struggled to build an author platform and arrange for the launch of that debut novel, you were all there, literally and figuratively cheering me on. And that support and the confidence that came with it enabled me to pursue this last mile on my path to publication, so… Thank you!
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