How I got published
Rowena Macdonald tells Dolores Gordon Smith how it took her twenty years to achieve her dream of publishing a novel
ROWENA MACDONALD
© Nick Kaplony
The Threat Level Remains Severe is the fourth novel I have written but the first to be published. I started writing in 1998 after winning a competition for the first “grown up” story I had finished. (As a child I had written a lot.) From then on I won many competitions and Smoked Meat, my collection was published in 2011 and shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize, but my dream of publishing a novel eluded me. I failed to get an agent for my first three novels and was rejected hundreds of times but I was convinced I would be successful eventually – my competition wins gave me confidence, although initially I used to cry and rage about rejections.