Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

Along with Susan Henderson, Litpark, and THREE HUNDRED OTHER BLOGS, I'd like to celebrate the work of a first-time novelist who just realized her dream today, after struggling with all the writing life problems that we discuss here.

Patry Francis wrote her novel The Liar's Diary with a dayjob and a family, finally publishing her book today. Go check it out and cheer her on for this major milestone.

Sadly, Francis is now battling cancer and the litblog community is coming together to celebrate and support her on this happy day. If you get a chance, visit her wonderful blog and keep Francis in your thoughts today--we all share in the struggle and the successes of our online writing community.

Here's the post at LitPark:

"[These] people traded hundreds of emails with me to put this together: Karen Dionne of Backspace, Jessica Keener of Agni and The Boston Globe, Dan Conaway of Writers House, and Alice Tasman of the Jean Naggar Literary Agency. What began as a personal gesture of caring for a friend became an astonishing show of community - writers helping writers; strangers helping strangers; and most surprising of all, editors, agents and publishers, who have no stake in this book, crossing 'party lines' to blog."