Dramedies, as promised...

OK, so this did happen last week (but the blog did not yet exist at that time...) but I did promise on my NEW website that my blog would divulge self-deprecating stories revealing my haplessness in the publication field. But first, as context: I reminisce.

When on the academic job search, I decided to devote six months to the process in order to make my irrevocable mistakes, learn from them, make progress, and still get a job offer in the scant six months I had before graduating. After which, the Canadian government would put me on a short timer to get hired or leave the country, of course. One of the more memorable gaffs I made was writing to "some little place I'd never heard of, with a Welsh name" at which my supervisor visibly paled, and said "Bryn Mawr?" "Oh!" I replied. "You've heard of it?" Such gaffs were then written up as tidbits solicited for publication in the Academic Job Search Handbook, so who got the last laugh there, huh?

In any case, I go about my first picture book submissions last week with the same gusto, and with much the same result. When sending multiple submissions (yes, I carefully labeled them as such in the cover letters, and I know they're supposed to be evil, but really... six months??) be very careful to have the copy machine "sort" the little beggars. If one takes the top two pages from the pile and seals them into 9x12 envelopes already stamped, and only then realizes that there is nothing put page 2s left in the heap... well, scotch tape has to become involved, and it isn't pretty. Editors: please overlook the small smudge of glue on the very edge, and the little line of tape. The envelopes aren't re-used, I promise. (How tacky would that be?!)