Dear Friends,
Yesterday, I
had a dream come true. My first novel – Sunset Park – was published.
Many people have “when I grow up” dreams and mine was to become a published
author. It still seems a little surreal that I’ve made it to this point.
It really
does seem like just yesterday when I was trudging up the seemingly endless
stairs in Lewis Hall to my Creative Writing for Publication class where I
learned about Writer’s Market and query letters and first dreamed, at
that time, of becoming a screenwriter. I had a script written, I eventually had
an agent, and thankfully, the script never sold and my agent dropped me. It was
a bad script and story and I’m glad it will never, ever, ever, ever (sorry
Swift-ism) see the light of day. But that was early in my writing experience; I
had a lot of growing still to do.
Real life
took over after college graduation and I became a nanny, then worked in human
resources at a Fortune 500 company, and became a teacher. I still wrote but
eventually a fierce bout of writer’s block bound me up and I could only dabble.
I never stopped trying to write but it was creatively exhausting to battle
writer’s block. I never gave up on my dream but then I was diagnosed with
leukemia and then my mom became sick and those two things took up most of my
free time. I could not produce much beyond haiku.
I achieved remission,
Mom passed away, and one night, ironically in April, I found myself in my new
apartment. It was quiet and I was in front of my computer and I thought back to
Dr. Coyne and my first creative writing class in 1991 at Morningside. One of
the first things he had us write was just a scene, a simple scene between two
people. Fast forward to 2010 and now that I had time for myself, I decided it
was time to revisit my dream and that night I wrote a scene. I started with the
first image that came to my mind.
My goal was
to grow that scene into a simple little short story and have it polished enough
by the end summer 2010 to then work on trying to get it published during the
2010-2011 school year. By the end of the summer I did indeed have a completed
work; it’s just that work ended up being a novel!
I fiddled
with the story for the next year and whenever I saw Writer’s Digest tweet about
a new publisher accepting queries, I would send one off. In November I sent a
query email to Martin Sisters Publishing and like I had with my previous
queries, sort of forgot about it. I usually received a rejection email within a
few weeks but on March 23, 2012, I received an email from MSP saying they were
interested in my story idea and would like to read my manuscript. Then, a
couple weeks later, I received the email saying that they were interested in
publishing Sunset Park.
Again,
ironically, it was April.
Seven months
and two days after signing my contract, Sunset Park was published. Surreal.
I can’t stop using that word; it is truly what I’m feeling right now.
People have
all sorts of dreams and achieve them. I’ve witnessed this in others but
honestly never thought my own dream would come true. The only dream I have had
for over twenty years was to be a writer and DANG, it came true! I’ve always
told my students not to stop believing in their dreams but I never followed my
own advice. I honestly thought I would become a disappointed writer; that my
words would never find an audience beyond myself and just a handful of people I
trusted to read them. Surreal.
I took a
chance that April night two years ago and that chance paid off.
Twice, I’ve
referenced the month along with the irony. If you choose to read Sunset Park,
you will understand that irony. I’m going to do something I have a hard time
doing. It’s hard for me to ask of others but I ask that you take a chance on me
and Sunset Park. Of course I’m a little biased but I ask that you trust
me when I say the story I’ve crafted is a good one. It reflects the human
condition in that bad things do happen to good people but that with a few
simple ingredients – friendship, faith, perseverance and love – we are resilient
and hope becomes ours.
Sunset Park is a story
is one about hope and it wasn’t until I finished the publication process did I
realize that my book actually worked on me. I once lost hope but as I think
about what happened yesterday, my dream materializing, I realize that I have
found hope in my life once again. I have a new dream now and there’s no reason
not to believe that one day, I will be able to make my living with my words.
I
hope you’ll give Sunset Park a read or even as a gift. Or even both. The
holidays are here already and I truly believe Sunset Park would make a
great Hanukkah or Christmas gift.
You can
order a copy at any of the following:
Direct from my
publisher:
http://www.martinsisterspublishing.com/?page_id=1681
http://www.martinsisterspublishing.com/?page_id=1681
Since there
is little to no advertising or promotional budget, I’d appreciate you sharing
this information with your friends and relatives. And if you don’t mind and
have the time, please be sure to send me a note to let me know what you think
of the book. I have found that writing is such an insular activity and I
actually crave to hear what people think about my writing. I am not afraid of
constructive criticism.
I would also
like to invite you visit my website – http://www.danamansfield.com
– where you can find some of my other writing along with snippets of future
work. I also have a section about the fictional neighborhood of Sunset Park and
plan to add additional stories about the inhabitants of the neighborhood. You
can also read that first scene that eventually grew up into Sunset Park.
Twitter and
Facebook are such useful social tools and I ask that you tweet and share about Sunset
Park should you see fit. With your help (don’t worry I’m doing my part too),
I hope many readers fall in love with Ben, Laurie and Sunset Park.
Thank you,
Dana :)
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