As a publisher– and as a personal level as an author– my experiences meeting people often interact and grown in that “six degrees of separation” way. I save a lot of old email. I have a few business card books (which are old-fashioned, I know, but super cute!). I agree to a lot of coffee dates. If there’s one lesson I learned as a journalist, it is to remember the people I meet and to know their story.
You never know when they may reappear or prove useful. Or both.
About a decade ago (okay, so actually more), I did book reviews for Hippocampus Magazine, specifically biographies and memoirs, as the editor of that section was let’s just say connected to a good friend. (Read those here.)
A year ago, I met Molly Billinski, a reporter at Lehigh Valley News.com, at Lehigh Valley Disability Pride (read her story about that event here). I spoke with her at and after the event, as she is also a creative writer.
In April, I finally formally met Donna Talarico, of Hippocampus Magazine and Books, for the first time at The Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group The Write Stuff conference. I had asked my friend Bill Prystauk to help my other friend, photographer Joan Zachary at the conference and he and Donna know each other from Wilkes University.
Fast forward to a month or so ago, and Molly reached out. She said she and Donna were looking for voices for the writing craft and writers’ life sections of the magazine and they thought of me.
They asked if I would have the occasional essay for them and this was the first result of that collaboration, which came out Wednesday:
6 Questions for Authors on the Path to Publication…
The path to publication for any writer, or even an established author, includes so many rejections and revisions and roller coaster rides that sometimes we forget that we as artists have the right, and deserve, to see our work presented with the same care and vision that we poured into it.
At the same time, sometimes writers fall prey to a certain impatience and desperation when submitting their work that we don’t always — though sometimes we do — ask the right questions about where we send our manuscripts.
When we hear phrases like “accepts unagented submissions” and “traditional publisher,” we rush to our computers and open our email or go into Submittable and upload all the attachments and jump through the hoops.
Parisian Phoenix Publishing 
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