Having a Good Day

As the dogs barked madly at the UPS truck rumbling up the hill, I didn’t pay much attention. I thought my daughter had ordered another book about the Tudors or maybe the sandals she’d been talking about. It was a while before I went to the door and picked up the slight but padded envelope with those black bleary marks that look like something’s run over it. My heart beat harder at the address. I just got a contract from Henry Holt for my first collection of verse, biographical poems about Marie Curie, Madam Walker, and Laura Ingalls Wilder (there is a connection) and their daughters.

I’m thrilled — of course! I got the call on a dismal gray day, changing everything, but wanted the contract before I announced. We do get superstitious in this business, don’t we? Or maybe anxious. Or both.

All the great selections made by ALA in January, where poetry was prized, nudged up my hope for these and other poems now being written and submitted. Do I still get to grumble? Oh you know I will. Grumbling may be part of the path onto the next plateau, and besides, the book won’t see print until spring 2010, in time for women’s history month and poetry month. That’s a lot of life and more writing to move through. But at the moment I’m excited. And I hope all of you waiting, hard-working creators get a call and that UPS truck (or a similar one) soon. I wish someone could spin me around with my finger pointing and I could say, “Your turn!”