My Gratitude Journal: Editors

Today I'm thankful for the editors who have dug me out of the slush pile, accepted my work as it came over the transom, and turned unpublished manuscripts into published works.

I'm grateful for Amy Inman, my very first book editor, who bought me for a new promotion (one new author per month) that Silhouette had planned for 1990. I was Miss February.

I'm grateful for Marcia Markland, who picked me out of the slush pile at Avalon and helped me develop my planned series of three Rainbow Rock books into a series of six. The last three were frankly better.

I'm grateful for Sam Van Walraven, who keeps encouraging me in the books I'm writing for Covenant Communication, and who has a name fun enough to use for a character in one of my other books. And I'm grateful for her boss, my friend Kathy, who always has uplifting things to say about my work.

True, editors haven't always served my books well. I remember the one who put the word "ruefully" into a book of mine, sure it was the right word and not interested in my argument that I have never used the word and don't expect to; it does not fit my authorial voice.

Still despite such words, there is no doubt that most of my books have been better after the editors worked them over than they were when I let them go. I'm grateful for that, too.

Thanks to all my editors -- past, present and future -- who have made my work both better and more rewarding. I appreciate you all.