“A portal has opened. Run, don’t walk, through it.”
This was my horoscope last week, something I would generally ignore. Except … Wordstock happened.
You might assume a woman who has sat on the board of a literary small press (Calyx), and who calls herself a writer would have been to Portland’s oldest and premiere literary event many times. You would be wrong.
But last weekend, I made it right.
I had no intention of pitching my manuscript. I was on reconnaissance. I was checking out the lay of the land, pen in hand, ready to take notes on things I might do in the future. Dragging my husband along, semi-willingly, we attended a few interesting talks, and then headed for the giant hall filled, beer-festival-like, with booths full of small book publishers and authors hawking their titles. It was a writer’s wet dream.
I descended the back stairs from the mezzanine into the hall, and my husband, attracted to a dish of chocolates at the very first booth, caused me to pause. There, sitting behind the table, was Stevan Allred, my favorite “Dangerous Writers.” Did he remember me from that long-ago workshop he led on the coast? Miraculously, yes. We chatted, and then the question: What are you working on, Gail?
Ready or not, I described my book – better known as “the pitch.” Stevan, bless his heart, remembered I’d been working on a book about a stripper all those years ago. Go see Laura Stanfill, he said. She publishes Forest Avenue Press.
I did. He even escorted there.
The portal opened.
I am the sort who sometimes questions her luck. My son and coach, on the other hand, does not. “Call her, contact her, pick her brain,” he insisted the next day during our weekly check-in.
Thus began a conversation with a very helpful young writer and publisher. She suggested another publisher, Red Hen, has an imprint, Boreal, that publishes Alaska-derived literature. I followed her lead. I contacted the editor of that press, Peggy Shumaker, sending my one-line pitch.
What did I expect? Not what I got, which was: “Why don’t you send me your manuscript, Gail.”
Portals open. Opportunities happen unexpectedly. I have no idea where this is going, but … these three people have beamed me up, to borrow a totally irrelevant phrase, or phaser. I get really stupid when I’m excited.
Note to self: Keep practicing that elevator speech. You. Just. Never. Know.