Please help me welcome author and publishing industry veteran Chris Roerden, who has edited authors published by St. Martin’s, Berkley Prime Crime, Midnight Ink, Forge, Harlequin, Viking, Rodale, and many others throughout her 45-year career. She’s presented writing workshops throughout North America and is author of the multi-award-winning Don’t Murder Your Mystery and Don’t Sabotage Your Submission. Chris will be appearing at Book 'Em North Carolina on Saturday, February 25, 2012, signing her books and participating in discussions about the publishing industry. We hope you'll join her there!
I was born into a family of five adults, which probably accounts for my learning to read by age four. And because four of those five had learned to cope in their individual ways with the fifth -- a tyrranical bully to be avoided as much as possible -- my own way of coping was to escape in the pages of a book. Any book.
Not surprisingly, in my early years I adored the young adult novels in which the daughter, an only child, had been orphaned and sent off to live with relatives. She found the first set of relations too regimented, the second too laid back, but -- like Goldilocks -- the third family was just right. In my imagination, that’s where I lived.
In reality I trudged home from the small Manhattan branch library-in-a-store with stacks of books of all kinds. The most frequent admonition that my real family gave me, usually at mealtime, was: “Get your nose out of that book.” Though I barely heard those familiar words, I did learn to react quickly depending on their tone.
Many decades later, no longer needing the escape, reading books remains my favorite activity. It’s my reward after a day of reading others’ manuscripts, my private island warmed by the sunshine of my compact fluorescent lamp, my essential life-giving sustenance. Keeping my nose in a book is the nearest thing to my engaging in a contact sport.
Chris Roerden is a 45-year veteran of the publishing industry who has edited authors published by St. Martin’s, Berkley Prime Crime, Midnight Ink, Forge, Harlequin, Viking, Rodale, and many others. She’s presented writing workshops throughout North America and is author of the multi-award-winning Don’t Murder Your Mystery and Don’t Sabotage Your Submission.
www.writersinfo.info to download Chris Roerden'sDON'T SABOTAGE YOUR SUBMISSION Part 1, same as
Agatha winner DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY. Then go tomysterywriters.org to apply for a $500 McCloy/MWA scholarship
Agatha winner DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY. Then go tomysterywriters.org to apply for a $500 McCloy/MWA scholarship
