From the Elk River (Minnesota) Star-News:
Two award-winning Minnesota authors shared their paths to publication during a recent program at the Elk River Library.
Lizbeth Selvig had a career as a magazine editor before becoming an author, while B. K. Parent was a school psychologist who never intended to write a book.
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Selvig has a degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota and was a newspaper journalist and the editor of a small agricultural magazine before becoming a published author of contemporary romances.
But the urge to write began much earlier, as she has been writing fiction since she was 11 years old.
Later, as her children were growing up, Selvig spent about 15 years writing her first novel. She wrote another novel after moving to Alaska for three years in 2005.
Her big break came after she won a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart award.
“That got me an agent and then she got me a contract with Avon Books,” Selvig said. “I wrote seven books for them.”
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B.K. Parent never planned to write a book.
A retired school psychologist who also serves as mayor of her city, Parent started writing fiction after delivering her niece’s college roommate to a summer job on the Gunflint Trail in northern Minnesota. The pair had taken a side trip to Thunder Bay, Ontario, and on the way spotted the word “Neebing.”
“We decided that they were small, furry, elusive and mischievous, but basically tender-hearted, and got to giggling about Neebings,” Parent said. “The next morning, at a truck stop for breakfast, we were drawing what we thought Neebings looked like.”
After Parent dropped the young woman off at her job, she decided to write a story about Neebings and send it to her.
“So I sat down to write a short story about Neebings and wrote Chapter 1 of ‘Journey’s Middle,’” Parent said.
Parent kept writing after her young friend returned to college. When she was encouraged to self-publish the stories she did so, thinking she’d just give them to relatives.
“That’s how it all started,” Parent said.
Her sixth book came out this summer and she is now working on her seventh. She still writes a chapter a week.
Link to the rest at the Elk River Star-News