Dear Readers,
Titling this newsletter "Volume V" I am realizing I've been at this for five years! Wow! Where does time go?
Well, for one, it disappears into a rabbit hole. From my December newsletter you might remember my computer troubles back then. Two weeks ago I realized I still had a plethora of unread emails from that snafu, and I finally plowed through them. To my great surprise I found an email from the editor of Bella
Grace Magazine accepting an essay I had submitted in September. Really? I missed that? Granted, that email came in on the day I had the emergency root canal procedure in London, so I do have an excuse...
Curiously, the editor never followed up when she didn't hear from me, even though she had asked me if I had an updated endline. But I've worked with Bella Grace before,
and while I love that magazine, I know their administration is a bit ditsy.
I once sat in a lawn chair on a summer afternoon, having a quiet interlude, leafing through the newest issue of Bella Grace, when I discovered an article of mine that I didn't even know they were going to publish (Recipe for a Perfect Day on the Porch, June 2015). A happy
surprise for sure, but also a slightly disconcerting one. When I followed up, the editor claimed she had emailed me about it, but unlike now I never found that email. All was good in the end; I was in the byline, and I got paid.
I'm sharing this because such is the reality of publishing. Even in glossy magazines that you can find in any Barnes & Noble (such as Bella Grace), the back end of how it all comes together looks quite different from what you might imagine.
A day after I had discovered that editor's acceptance email, I found my complimentary "artist copy" of the March 1 issue of Bella Grace in my mail! And my essay is in there (with my old endline, but that's OK.):
The back story of getting this essay published, however, goes beyond me overlooking the editor's acceptance email. For years I have been trying to find a home for this essay! Literally, years! Its first draft dates back to 2005. I kept submitting it to literary magazines; I kept revising it.
Then, in September 2017, my sister was visiting Paris with her daughter. I always had an inkling the essay would work even better if I had photos of its location, in particular the actual benches in the Parc Montsouris. So I asked them to go there and take pictures. And they did! They loved having this little mission, particularly because the Parc Montsouris is not a tourist destination.
Bella Grace didn't use the photos I had submitted, but that allows me to share them here. They did do a nice job in publishing my essay, and I am really happy that it has finally seen the light of day. Goes to show that the things you create will come to fruition in their own time. You "just" have to keep at it - even if it entails waiting for someone to go
to Paris to snap just the right images.
The old benches in the Parc Montsouris, Paris, September 2017
One just like these is the principal character in my essay
Can you see how these benches, while elegantly curved, are not the most comfortable to sit on, especially for a long time? My sister told me that most of the benches in the Parc Montsouris have been replaced with modern ones. She had to hunt around for the old ones but thankfully she found a row of them!
On another note, I have two events coming up this spring in Chicagoland:
As always, it would be lovely to welcome you at one of them. If you do come, please introduce yourself to me!
In the meantime, I wish you all the best for these last weeks of winter. Here in the Midwest it was been a long one. I was happy to see the tips of my daffodils poking out of the soggy soil this morning. The end is in sight!
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