Thank You Mystery Editor

“You’ve done an excellent job of capturing times past without hindering the flow of the story. Your writing style is full of marvelous descriptions and evocative sensory details. Your opening sentence and paragraph hook your readers and your story has delightful charm to it. Your novel has great potential for finding a publisher. Keep sending it out.”

It was those words of encouragement that motivated me to submit my middle-grade novel manuscript to Heritage House who will publish Lost on the Prairie this coming spring.

In May of 2019, I attended a conference for children’s writers in Saskatoon. It was sponsored and organized by the Saskatchewan branch of CANSCAIP (the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers) The sessions I attended were informative and inspiring.

Author David Robertson spoke to us several times at the conference. I organized his excellent advice into a Top Ten list.

 Groundwood Books editor Shelley Tanaka told us that luck and timing were the reason lots of books get published but she gave us a long list of other strategies to improve our chances. 

Moderator Alice Kuipers led an entertaining and informative panel discussion with authors David Robertson, Miriam Körner, and Arthur Slade about  Vision and Voice in their writing. 

The conference was such a good experience for me that when I received an e-mail saying a fundraiser had been organized to help finance the next Saskatchewan CANSCAIP session in 2021, I was eager to participate. Writers were invited to submit excerpts from a current manuscript and in return for a donation would receive feedback from a professional editor on their work.

The quote that begins this blog is from the feedback I received for the first section of my novel Lost on the Prairie. I don’t know who the mystery editor was that read my work but I owe them a huge debt of thanks. With their inspiring words ringing in my head and heart I put aside the doubts that had taken hold when my manuscript was rejected by other publishers and got a submission prepared for Heritage House.

It didn’t take long for Heritage House to get back to me with a contract offer. I was ecstatic as you can imagine.

So I owe a big debt of gratitude to CANSCAIP Saskatchewan and to the mystery editor who read my work and was so encouraging. I don’t know if they need to remain a mystery but if not I would love to send them a copy of my novel when it is published