“Would you like to have Santa come down your filthy chimney?” was the heading on a flyer I made for my company “The Flue Bug Chimney Sweep” in 1982 that became the thought that prompted my writing of The Climbing Boy.                   

      As tedious as writing, re-writing and self-editing may be, I found these to be the simple, the fun, the enjoyable parts of writing.

      In 1984, after finishing the rewriting and self-editing, I began the task of finding an agent or a publisher for "The Climbing Boy"  and The Writer’s Market became my bible

      After hundreds upon hundreds of queries, each including a "SASSE", a  self -addressed, self stamped envelope  (this was before my time with computers), and after receiving hundreds upon hundreds of rejections, I discovered the Catch-22 of the publishing industry: agents will not look at a new writer unless he/she has been published, and publishers will not look at a new writer unless he/she has an agent.

      But I had discovered that writing had become a very enjoyable and important part of my life, so as I continued to look for an agent or a publisher for The Climbing Boy, in 1986 I began Captain Midnight and the Toothpaste Thief, which I later renamed Becoming.

      Lo and behold, after twenty-two years of trying, and nearly giving up, Metropolis Ink agreed to publish The Climbing Boy and, four years later, Becoming.

      Thank you Kurt and David for taking Zachariah, Mitchell and their worlds out of the dark box they had lived in for twenty-two years.