To everyone who has asked, “Series editor? That’s great, but when are you publishing your own book?”, I say:

Spring 2005.

Yes. My book on spellcrafting in the For Life series will hit the shelves around this time next year. My contract arrives sometime this week.

Trish Telesco, the first choice for author, was unfortunately occupied (I love you, Trish, and not just because you were contracted elsewhere; after two strikes while trying to contract you, I promise we will work together during this series eventually!). My two in-house editor colleagues at the publisher looked at one another and said, “Why not Autumn? She knows her stuff, writes well, writes quickly, and it just makes sense to have the series editor put out one or two books in the series.” (As in, more than one? Sure!)

They called me last Thursday and asked if I’d be interested in drawing up a proposal for it. (Thank goodness Ceri was here to confirm it had actually happened.) After random dazed moments of “This isn’t real,” I mulled it over on my short Easter jaunt to my parents’ home, and wrote a dynamic proposal Monday morning. It went through a publishing board meeting today, and the whole pub team is terribly excited and wants me to do it, with no revision to the proposal whatsoever. I just got the call.

I knew I would publish work at some point in my life; I just always expected it to be fiction first. After all, that’s what I write more than anything else.

So, yeah. Me, a published author in twelve months, give or take a few days.

I know there’s a celebratory Vanilla Coke around here somewhere.