A Literary Baby is Born!

At last! After incubating for most of the holiday season 2014, my baby is born---today---Friday, Jan. 9, 2015, weighing a few ounces---time of birth: 10:06 a.m. It has been a labor of love. I started writing this book in the summer of 2005 when I took time off from work to heal my bum leg after a bike accident---an incident which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it gave me the opportunity to take a break from my hectic career as a newspaper reporter to devote time to my true love---fiction writing!

So, I embraced that chance and at that time, the novel practically wrote itself as I got into the characters and the plot. It was also during this time that I applied for grad school, hoping to get an MFA in Creative Writing. I submitted an excerpt of this novel as part of my application packet. But when I had to go back to work and got accepted into grad school the following year, I had to put this novel aside. All the while I kept working on other manuscripts---two novels for grad school---and thereafter, started a new novel and a collection of short stories and had thought about Not Just Another Pretty Face from time to time. But, it wasn't until my dear friend, John Duley, who had traveled with me to France a couple of times with our French class, became ill last summer, that I was transported back to Paris, at least in my dreams. It was then that I resurrected the manuscript for Not Just Another Pretty Face, and finally wrote the ending by summer's end. The rest of the year was spent rewriting, revising, editing, and editing some more, and proofreading. I appreciate all those who helped make publishing my first novel a dream come true, including my parents, my family, friends and my editor, Stephanie LeAnn, and my Creative Writing students. I'm going to treasure this experience forever!

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