It's the People You Meet

What’s the best part of this crazy writing life? It’s the people you meet. 

Way back in college in the 1980s, I met my friend, Mary Ann. She, too, wrote stories in notebooks. She, too, wanted to be a writer. We encouraged each other. We read each others’ work. When graduation day arrived, we stayed in touch. Almost forty years later, we are both still writing. We still read and encourage each other. We’ve both improved so much, and neither of us ever gave up the process of improving our craft. 

Forty years. Whoa. When I stop to think about it, I’m amazed and grateful (and a little weirded out about how much time has passed, to be honest.)

As the 90s made way for the 2000s and then the 2010s, I met writers online in places like iVillage and eHarlequin and Yahoo groups. It was through Yahoo that I joined a community of confession magazine writers. The “Trues” were venerable pulp magazines written in first person, featuring relationship stories and a formula known as “Sin. Suffer. Repent.” And they paid by the word. I wanted in. 

Though the stories were supposedly written by readers, in actuality, a stable of authors penned sometimes multiple stories in the same issue. Because of this group, I broke into a paid, national magazine market with four stories over the course of a couple of years. When the magazines folded after a 98-year-run, we scattered. Alas, I’ve lost touch with most of these authors, but one I continue to follow on socials and enjoy seeing his many, many projects, including editing a mystery magazine and so many crime anthologies it’s hard to keep up. His name is Michael Bracken. You may have heard of him. 

In 2014, I joined Wattpad and met so many talented, new authors who serialized their fiction (and some nonfiction) on the platform. I collaborated with some for a collection of author interviews and published others in a Wattpad-based literary magazine I edited. Though many have drifted off-site into indie and traditional publication, we follow each other on social media.

Meanwhile, other IRL (in real life) writerly relationships developed. Maine literary author, Carolyn Chute, held an annual series of writer circles here in our neck of the woods, and some of us eventually gathered ourselves into a weekly writing group. Four of us remain close–my lovely Advance Copies Writing Group–and I’m meeting them on Monday for tea and scones. We cheer each others’ successes, encourage each other’s dreams, and even though we’ve gone in different directions artistically, we still support each other in our various endeavors and dreams.  

And then there are the professional contacts. Joining Sisters in Crime, I happened across a cozy mystery author named Sarah E. Burr who offered links to her YouTube videos showing how she creates graphics and marketing materials. I reached out to thank Sarah for the incredible information and inspiration and asked if I could interview her for my blog. She agreed, and since then we’ve stayed in touch via social media. She and fellow traditional mystery author, J.C. Kenney, hosted me tonight on their podcast The Bookish Hour.

In San Diego, I met several authors who write women’s fiction and non-fiction, including Marlene Wagman-Geller, who I now consider a friend and whose essays about historical female characters fascinate and charm. 

When Encircle Publications offered to publish my first mystery novel, I had my friend, Kevin St. Jarre, to thank for introducing me to the publisher. Since then I’ve met several Encircle authors who continue to inspire me, including our own Type M for Murder author, Catherine Dilts, who I have yet to meet in real life but who, nonetheless, got me this gig. So generous! 

To sum up, the relationships we create as writers actually make this whole crazy business worthwhile. There are so many more people I could mention, so I apologize if anyone feels left out. These are just a few examples of writers-helping-writers. It's my hope that I, too, can contribute to the community, whether by sharing interviews on my blog, writing blurbs, sharing social media posts, or sharing information about the industry when I have something I’ve found valuable to my career. 

We are a community, we writers. Published or unpublished. Big 5 traditional, small press, or indie. Seasoned craftsperson or enthusiastic newbie. In this season of thanks, I’m grateful for each and every fellow scribbler.