A Dream Come True

Seven years ago, I stood in the Alumni building at the University of Maine at Orono, where I got my college degree, and saw a few shelves of books. They were volumes written by U Maine alumni, stored there in the Allain library collection.

I vowed that someday I'd have a book there, a volume of my own, to join the others.

And this little writer worked his butt off to make it happen. Wrote a few books, and a lot of stories. Hired and fired an agent. Queried other agents and publishing houses, and couldn't get the time of day from the gatekeepers.

And then the revolution happened. Print costs plunged, and ebooks made distribution more democratic. So new players joined the game. And I contracted with one of them to publish my first mystery, "A Memory of Grief."

It's now out, and as of today, my book is on that bookshelf at the University of Maine, where I vowed it would be.

It's really happened. My book on that shelf.

Damn, that's a fine thing.