Twelve years ago, my agent called me in my Chicago WSJ office. She asked me about Rupert Murdoch’s pending purchase of the WSJ, a stressful matter at the time. She then asked if I’d feel better if she told me that she’d sold my debut novel, STARVATION LAKE, in a three-book deal.
Pretty good moment that was due entirely to Patricia Lande Grader, then an editor at Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint. Trish made the book better, primarily by asking for a new ending (no, I don’t remember the old one). Then she pushed the hell out of it. Sometime after it was published, she moved on. But I’ve never forgotten that she gave me my start in the novel publishing business, and I acknowledge her in my forthcoming, fifth novel, PURGATORY BAY.
Thanks, Trish!