Publishing

Question: What does it take to become a published writer?

 Answer/Quote: “Like most writers, I always dreamed of being published but found it hard to break into the club. So I worked for years as anything but a writer. I spent my teens and 20s as a student/ waitress/ receptionist /nanny /farmhand/ retailer /makeup artist/ corporate writer and eventually settled into a career as a part-time English instructor, while editing and writing for a small nonprofit organization. But throughout the 18 years that I was not a working writer, I read voraciously and managed, little by little, to churn out a couple of unpublished novels, a memoir, a few short stories, and several articles and essays.

“Needless to say, I could wallpaper a house with all my rejection letters, bookstore receipts and unpublished pages.” P. 14.

 Mary Curran Hackett’s debut novel, Proof of Heaven, was published by William Morrow/ HarperCollins last fall.

Comment: Note the would-be author’s UNPUBLISHED work. AND her voracious reading. RayS.

Title: “Breakthrough: She Broke the Rules, Then Geared Up and Got Published Anyway.” Mary Curran Hackett. The Writer (June 2012), 14.