The book has been finished for about a month. Hurray! I say finished, but with a novel, well, there is always more that can be fixed.  I have it out to a few beta readers at the moment who are reading the thing as a whole.  One in particular I’m anxious to hear from.  Her standards are so high, however, that I don’t dare hope for too much.   Even a nod of approval would be sufficient.  I should prepare myself for that and only that, I know.

I have since heard from the above-mentionned highly valued reader.    She liked it!  With suggestions, of course.  There’s no reason for secrecy here.  Her name is Alison Baker, an O’Henry Award winner and if you haven’t read her work, you should.  How I Came West and Why I Stayed, I thought was especially wonderful.  We’ve been friends now for over 20 years, met in a writing group in SLC led by Francois Camoin, chairman of my thesis committee for my MFA and author of The End of The World is Los Angeles.