Come Cozy Up With Me

I’ve had a lovely whirlwind of activity in the past few days, starting with an offer for TIARA TROUBLE from Cozy Cat Press on Thursday, and winding up with that completed contract in my hot, little hands this morning.  Destinee Faith Miller and her mayhaps/mysteries have found a home, and I couldn’t be happier.  I’ll keep you all posted as things develop, but for now I am just thrilled.  So thrilled, I can barely feel my toe throbbing–I broke it on the coffee table on my way to open email this morning, and promptly forgot about it when I found my completed contract waiting.

Here’s the funny story about how Cozy Cat came to read my submission because you know if it happened to me, it did not happen without some hijinks.

A few days ago, B and I were talking about me publishing under my name.  We were laughing that I wasn’t exactly Jane Smith, having unusual first and last names.  Somewhere else entirely, managing editor, Patricia Rockwell, was opening an email from me.  She was a little confused because her author Lane Stone, writes a series also involving tiaras (the subject line of my query was TIARA TROUBLE, with my name), and because she knew and had worked with someone who shared my last name.  Thankfully, she liked that colleague well enough not to be put off immediately 😉  And, she sent me an offer full of encouraging words about Destinee’s future.

When I wrote back, I asked if her former colleague was called Bob.  Because Bob is my husband’s uncle, who worked in the same field as Patricia.  Not only was it Uncle Bob, but he was remembered quite fondly.  B checked in with Uncle Bob, who had the same impressions of Patricia, and…well, that was that.

I am a Cozy Cat author.

How crazy is that?  Out of all the world (and out of all the publishing companies and agencies I researched,*) from Texas I query a press in Illinois, with a managing editor who has ties to my Uncle-in-Law in Louisiana–unbeknownst to all of us.  That is something that would only happen to me.  I love it!

Yay!

*While I queried about 20 agents, I only contacted four publishing houses from probably about 200 agents/presses that I researched.