MY PATH TO PUBLICATION
DARIA LAVELLE
The debut author of a literary novel incorporating ghosts, food and love describes how it took way longer to get published than she’d first expected
Photo by Caroline Baptista
By fifteen, I knew with absolute certainty that I was a writer. It was the heyday of early aughts publishing – midnight release parties had first become a thing, and millions of people devoured one literary zeitgeist after another – and standing in those snaking bookstore queues, all I wanted was to be the one writing them.
By twenty, I told myself, twenty-five tops, I’d graduate from writer to author and become a household name.
But by thirty, I’d spent half my life working toward a dream that still hadn’t materialized.
Some authors skyrocket to stardom and never look back. My literary vehicle was slower. More horse than rocket. Or maybe a mule. Because stubbornness – about my desire to do something I kept failing at, to start over each time a manuscript I’d spent years on died on submission, to pursue this occupation that brought me absolute bliss and total heartbreak – is what eventually got me here.