A Story Worth Revisiting

Eight years ago, I met 2 agents at the Surrey International Writer's Conference. As a newer writer, I pitched a manuscript to them that I was calling Infallible: A Modern Mystical Memoir. One of the agents passed, but the other was so unsure about it that she called in a second reader. The email I received explained why she was reluctantly not going to move forward with it, but she'd taken the time to tell me exactly why. I saved the email, grateful for the road map to a revision, which has since been completed.

In the last eight years, I wrote another memoir (The Plunge: An Unexpected Adventure in Love), which I have since set aside, focusing instead on pitching Infallible: Surviving San Francisco's Darkest Days - a much improved title and a much improved manuscript.

The Plunge took four years to write and the world turning upside down took another four years to live through and process. At the beginning of the mess known as a pandemic, I moved to a tiny island off Vancouver, BC and made a new home, a new garden, and a new community of friends. I feel settled and creative and though I stay informed on global shenanigans, I no longer feel obsessed about diving down each rabbit hole. While I've written every day for years now, most of my rants remain private. I'm proud of this revision of Infallible and hope to find an agent to champion the work.

The photo (by Sharon Camhi) was taken on the rooftop of the building I lived in on San Francisco's Nob Hill. It's me in my late twenties, looking down on a troubled past I was just moving out of. The Charles Jourdan earring shows up in Chapter 18: A Change in Venue.