Hurricane Baby: Stories releases into the reading public two days from now. It seems so bizarre that right on this date a year ago, I just gave up on the book emotionally. I had two more publishers I was considering sending it to once their reading periods opened up, and then I was going to sit back until the rest of the rejections rolled in. And I was going to never create writing for publishing again. I would stick to my job at the press I worked for and just file thar dream of publishing a book in a drawer in my mind and lock it shut. Delete all my writing of my computer files, the whole works. But I was going to wait until I got my 71st rejection to do that. Giving it time for the process to wind down.
Then three weeks after thinking all of that over, Madville Publishers offered me a publishing contract–and now here we are.
I’m going to take the opportunity to thank some people for their help in making this come true:
Lori, the first person I showed any of it to, who saw the story’s promise before I even did
Chris, one of my editors who suggested that they could be more to the story than I had
Karen, Mary Jane, Jesse, and Candy, the first people who read the whole book after I finished it.
Beth and John, who swapped manuscripts with me.
Billy Watkins for giving me his agent’s email address
Jim Dickerson, who asked, “Do you have any more stories like this?”
Dawn Buck and the whole crew at New Stage Theatre who gave me a chance to see the work in action as a play in 2010
Kendall Dunkelberg, for founding the MFA program at Mississippi University for Women
Mary Miller’s fiction workshop, who were the first ones to see it the first story another ten years later and gave great feedback on it.
Rob, Renee, Shannon, Debbie, Keslsey–all who read the first version of the short-story collection and gave great honest feedback throughout this entire process
Cheryl and Laurie, who I met and jelled with at A Smokelong Summer 2022 workshop and who so graciously accepted my offered exchange of manuscripts for critiquing purposes
Christopher, for giving me the scholarship to attend a Smokelong Summer.
Steve, for reading that first book contract and giving me advice on the finer points.
Lauren, for opening so many doors for me to get the word out about my work
Katie, for giving me space in her magazine to tell the faith story behind the whole endeavor
Kim, my publisher who has answered all my pesky questions often sent to her late at night.
Mike, for recommending to Kim for it to be published
Courtney-Ann, who got me on the radar for TV coverage.
Tracy for taking my book for review,
RJ Lee who did such a wonderful first review
May, Ellen Ann, CT, Steve, for their blurbs on the cover
Jacqui for a stunning cover
John and the crew at Lemuria bookstore, Murph at the Author Shoppe, and Carolyn at Book Mart for taking a chance on stocking the book
Mic, who answered my panicked Facebook message two days ago on how to get my unboxing video back after I deleted it, and who solved the problem.
Rebecca, for taking me sight unseen into her live radio show to talk about the book on the exact day nineteen years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall
Jim at the Louisiana Book festival and Ellen at the Mississippi Book Festival for honoring me with a space as a panelist
CT for a possible future event
Robert Kneuhle in arranging stops on a book tour for our Madville Trio throughout Mississippi.
And Bob who hears me prattle on about book stuff and loves me enough to listen.
Julie Liddell Whitehead 