I do recall one early rejection, maybe another. I’m not sure how many publishers were in that first send-out. When it was finally done, I dropped it off with Patrick. The prologue set in Malaz City was there, but nothing of the possession of Sorry, the Hounds, Shadowthrone, and Ganoes Paran. The original version began with the Siege of Pale. Living in Dorking, I was working temp jobs during the day and every night, at a pub called The Bush, I was dusting off that old fantasy novel. Via my brother-in-law (also a writer) I got in the front door to an agent, Patrick Walsh, who promptly sold This River Awakens to Hodder and Stoughton (Sceptre imprint). With that draft in hand, we moved to the UK (my wife is English). Finally, with us back living in Winnipeg, I had received a Manitoba Arts Council grant to write This River Awakens, a coming of age novel. I was then co-winner of the Anvil Press Three Day Novel contest, with a story called Stolen Voices. In the meantime, it was looking like my career as a writer would be in the murky sub genre we know as literary, contemporary fiction, as I’d had two books published containing short stories and novellas (A Ruin of Feathers, and Revolvo and Other Canadian Tales). Too many characters, too many points of view. The story was, I was told, too complicated for US fantasy readers. This time the rejection letter was a bit more detailed. At the eighteen month mark, the manuscript appeared in my post box. At the ten month mark I was contacted (by letter) by an editor (who’s still there, btw), telling me that the manuscript was awaiting a final reader’s comments, but things were looking good. I sent it off again, this time to Tor Books. Twelve months later the manuscript returned, with a standard cover letter of rejection. I made a photocopy of the novel and send it by post to Del Rey Ballantine, since they were the publishers for Steven R. Back then, the big publishers were still accepting unsolicited manuscripts. I wrote the first draft of Gardens of the Moonin 1991, living in poverty on Saltspring Island.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |