Well, after 34 years plus, I have finally achieved my goal and had my first novel published. HUNTING THE KING hit the bookstores in April. It took equal parts luck and tenacity to get here. Now I think tenacity takes over.

Over three decades, the dream stayed the same. I would be discovered, sign my lucrative contract, and the royalties would start rolling in. The dream began to fade almost immediately. Reality set in very quickly, almost as quickly as the promoting. As any publisher will tell you, unless you’re Stephen King or John Grisham and your novels are sold the moment they are finished, you must self-promote in any way possible. And probably in ways you haven’t thought possible.

This is how my April has gone so far. I had a book signing in Lowell, Massachusetts at the local Barnes & Noble on April 11. It was my first signing. Friends showed up, because I work just down the street. We made a lot of sales, and the store, which prominently featured the novel, had to order more. On April 19 I did a signing at an independent bookstore in Salem, Mass, the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne and witch burnings. A lot of friends showed up there, too, and the store sold out. Unfortunately, I got a parking ticket for overstaying my two-hour welcome at a meter. So my royalties went to the City of Salem. For my third event, I traveled out of state to Falmouth, Maine (Home of LL Bean, a former employer). I am from Maine, so a number of family showed up there. The tolls on the highway plus the gas to fill the tank ate up those royalties. Next week I go to Augusta, Maine, the capitol of the state. Ditto, tolls, gas, royalties.

Sometimes I feel like a small-time band playing the backwater towns with the hopes of someday playing the Garden. But it’s all worthwhile. You never know who you’re going to meet. You never know when that one event or one blog or one returned message may lead to something more important, and your novel takes a quantum jump. The road is a long one. The march slow and uncertain. But so was the journey to get here. I continue to fumble with blogging but still reach out as much as I can. I call newspapers to do reviews. I will be going on the radio and local access tv. A star may not be born, but I’ll wear out my shoes trying.

Next month the Harvard Coop!

                                                                What to Write? What to Write? What to Write?

Surely this is a question that has gone through most unpublished writers’ minds when they are in pursuit of an agent or a publisher. Do I write a mystery? Should I throw down the gauntlet at Stephen King and write a horror tale? How about science fiction or the next Harry Potter?

People in the know advise to look at what’s on the best-seller lists, what’s hot, what’s in. The problem for me has always been that, by the time I tried to write what was hot or in, the subject was no longer hot or in. I’m still on Shakespeare while the rest of the world has gone on to Diablo What’s-her-name. I figured, as well, every other budding author is doing the same thing I am. Looking at Dean Koontz’s success or John Grisham’s and trying to follow down their golden paths. But you can’t. Because everyone else is going down that same well-worn path. How do you separate yourself from the crowd? How do you make yourself stand out so that an agent or publisher will choose you over the multitude? Not without a great deal of difficulty, obviously.

Other people suggest, ‘Write what you know.’ Well, okay. Except, what I knew bored me. Why do I want to write about things in my life? That’s why I write. To get away from those things.

Having dispensed with that thoughtful bit of advice, I chose to go my own way. Write whatever interests me at the moment. No matter what. If it’s not best-seller material, so what? If I’m talented enough, surely some agent or publisher will recognize my genius and scoop me up in a chariot filled with royalty checks.

So, here’s what I wrote about:

PAN DORA ISLAND: Chimps in the wild taught how to use sign language by a madman. When the madman commits suicide, the chimpanzees are left to evolve with this newfound skill of communicating with words.

LIGEIA: A studious slave teams up with her favorite author, Edgar Allan Poe, to uncover the killer of president Zachary Taylor.

GOSPEL OF HANNANIAH: The ‘autobiography” of Jesus’ illegitimate daughter.

PRETTY IN PINSK: Two CIA operatives start a dating service in post Cold War Russia.

You get the idea. Eclectic. Don’t pin me down to any genre. Distinctive. And this is only the tip of the creative iceberg.

Where did it get me? Back to looking up what was on the best seller lists.

Ultimately, I drew this conclusion: you have to write what gives you joy, no matter what the consequences. You have to love the characters you give life to and the worlds they inhabit. Writing has to give you pleasure. You have to long to be in the places where your writing takes you. If it’s not good enough for publishing houses or agencies, so be it. I don’t think you can write a good publishable novel if you are not enjoying the experience. Many published authors who write series or stay within a particular genre run out of juice, and their novels, while published, even successful, are no longer particularly good.

So, I went back to the drawing board, which in the old days was a lined notebook and a portable typewriter. In the early 1990s I read an article in the Boston Globe in which a prelate of the Catholic church stated he had the right and power to deny congregants access to God if they belonged to organizations he disapproved of. In other words, he was going to deny members of the Church access to the sacraments, the rites and rituals of the Church if they were pro-choice. That was when I decided to write TRACES OF A LIFE, the precursor to my debut novel, HUNTING THE KING.

TRACES concerns an archaeologist, Molly O’Dwyer, who is a passionate seeker of knowledge but who remains at the same time a loyal observant Catholic. Her mother had been a pagan but died when Molly was a child. Molly was then practically raised on the campus of the Jesuit institution where her mother had taught. Her conflict throughout both TRACES and HUNTING is that of an intelligent being who questions her organized religion when it comes into conflict with her own morality. In TRACES, Molly is assigned to a dig on a Boston harbor island and there, coincidentally, begins to uncover the truth about her own past and what her mother was doing in defiance of the Church and common law. In short, I decided to write a mystery with an important moral spine. I wanted to challenge the Church and the arrogant position of those who felt they could deny people God because they had a degree in theology and a position of political power within the Church.

At the time, by coincidence, I had an agent. And she wasn’t from Arkansas either. Not that there’s anything wrong with Arkansas. I had an agent from there once, too. In fact, at one time or another I’ve had four agents, all from different states. This particular agent was a New York agent, so I was excited for the first time in many years that my novel, TRACES, might actually be sold. Only it wasn’t. My agent quit. She was so frustrated by the publishing business that she decided she wasn’t going to represent fiction anymore.

Bereft and alone again naturally, I returned in my own frustration to the Best Seller list. DA VINCI CODE happened to be the hot thing at the time, so I took my lovely red-haired archaeologist Molly O’Dwyer and sent her on an expedition into war-torn Iraq in search of the remains of Jesus. I figured, surely this can’t miss.

Well, surely it can and surely it did. For two years, during which time I wrote two more novels, all the while sending out that all too familiar deluge of letters to agents around the globe. I wrote an anti-war novel aimed at Bush/Cheney, THEY WERE CALLED TO DUTY, and a sure-to-reach Oprah novel called ALBERTVILLE.

Letters went out. Letters went unanswered. Same old story. No one wanted anything that I wrote, no matter what genre I wrote in. Finally, luck stepped in like a swaggering pimp in a Blaxploitation flick. I found Kunati Books on a web site called FirstWriter. Sick and tired of agents, cynical about the book business in the US, I searched for a publisher or an agent in Canada that might be more amenable to what I was trying to do. I hit on Kunati. They were looking for cutting edge fiction, page-turners that had the feel of a Hollywood film to them. I knew right away what I was going to send them. Molly O’Dwyer in Iraq. This happened in late March of 2007. In August Kunati’s publisher Derek Armstrong contacted me by email and offered me a contract. I had been writing for 34 years.

So, what to write? My experience may be unusual. At least, I hope it is. Maybe I did things all wrong, I don’t know. I still say you have to write what is in you to write. Not what you know, but what matters to you. If I hadn’t stumbled upon Kunati Books, I would still be floundering to this day. I’m convinced of it. But if HUNTING THE KING doesn’t do well and Kunati doesn’t offer me a contract on a second novel, I will persevere. I always have. And I will continue to write what matters to me.

Next up: COMRADE LOLITA. Via con dios.

The main character in my novel HUNTING THE KING is Molly O'Dwyer. I have known Molly for over ten years. She teaches archaeology at a local college and has traveled trhe world in pursuit of knowledge. She is a fascinating woman who has found Viking artifacts in Greenland, burial sites in Israel, and, most recently in Egypt, the exquisite scrolls of a woman who claims to be the daughter of Jesus Christ.

Professor O'Dwyer has not been one to avoid controversy. She has often stirred it, somewould say recklessly. I leave that to you, my guests, to decide for yourselves. Professor O'Dwyer has agreed to take time out from her busy schedule to be a regular contributor to this blog. I hope you will join in with her as she opens up the doors to the greatest mystery of all time.

Professor O'Dwyer, the floor is yours.

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Thanks, Peter. But I hope you guys out there won't stick with calling me professor O'Dwyer. Way too stodgy. My name is Molly. That's what the pizza delivery boy calls me. That's what my students call me. Unless they want a bad grade. Peter's just being polite, which is unusual for him.

Yes, it's true. I have traveled quite extensively. Since I was in high school actually. I went on my first dig the summer of my junior year, as a student volunteer on a dig out of harvard University. I made my first real discovery that July: a doll buried with a child. I never looked back. I was hooked. And just as I felt forthat little child lost so many years ago, I have felt the same for all of the ghosts I have uncovered ever since. I think it's part of my personality. I make a connection with these people. I sense them. I feel them. I know instinctively where to look for them. Some people think it's spooky. I think it's a gift. My cat would disagree. He's afraid to take his eyes off me for fear that I'll be gone the moment he looks away to scratch or lick. And, truth to tell, I just might be. Poor Tabby.

I love being out in the field. I don't care about the weather. Too many academic tours of duty give me the wanderlust. I love sifting out history one grain iof sabd at a time, getting filthy and hanging out with other archaeologists. The real textbook is the desert, or the mountaintop, or the great plain. That's where you learn. That's where the truth is hidden.

Yes, it's also correct what Peter said about my throwing fat on the academic fire. While my career has been more eclectic than most, I have focused on biblical archaeology particularly since my discovery in Egypt of the scrolls of hannaniah, who calls herself the daughter of Christ. I am not a headline grabber. But sometimes you have to get at the truth no matter what. Whether it sets you free or not, and, trust me, it may not, we have no business hiding from the truth. Don't ask why. Look at history.

The truth means everything to me. So, when I discovered the scrolls of Hannaniah, I didn't bury them. I didn't hide them from the world or allow them to be boxed and locked in some museum archive by those in authority who see the truth as dangerous. I published. You will understand why when you read my translation of hannaniah's gospels. They were transcendent.

The first moment I laid hands on her writing, I bonded with her. I can't explain it other than to say, I felt her in a way I have never felt with any other ancient author whose works I have translated and enjoyed. Hannaniah is different. It is as if she still lives and will always live.

Some say that i was overzealous, that I manufactured her words for some academic award or because I had some spiritual ax to grind. Believe me, nothing can be farther from the truth. I am a loyal observant Catholic. What you will read in future blogs is what she wrote, excerpts from her gospels. She will transport you just as she did me. Now, whether or not she was telling the truth, if she truly is the illegitimate child of Jesus of Nazareth or if that is just her misguided belief, that you will have to judge. I, for one, believe her.

Thank you, Peter, for giving me this space to reach out to your readers. HUNTING THE KING will be as controversial as anything I have written. But I am honored, and somewhat amused, that Peter chose to write about me. The Kunati fellows were smart to take us on. Next time, I will tell you how I came to be an archaeologist. You must get to know me just as you would get to know Hannaniah. Because we are sisters of the blood in ways you would not believe.

Until then, Shalom my friends.

Molly

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You will be able to find the incredible Molly O'Dwyer's blog on http://gospelofhannaniah.blogspot.com. Learn more about Molly and about the woman who claims to be the daughter of Jesus, Hannaniah.

HUNTING THE KING may appear at first hand to be a pure adventure, a page-turning thrill ride meant to ride the successful coattails of books like DA VINCI CODE. My actual motivation for writing this novel and others connected to it came in the early 1990s long before Dan Brown published.

At the time I read an article in the Boston Globe in which a high official of the Catholic Church declared that he had the right to deny someone access to God if they belonged to an organization he disapproved of. What he meant was he could deny someone access to the rites and rituals of the Church if they were pro-choice or something else. Take your pick.

At the root of this arrogant statement is the problem with organized religion, the attitude that 'you're either with us or you're agin us'. That there is only one right religion in the entire universe, and it is mine. Yours is wrong, whatever it is. And if you sway one tiny iota from the way I practise our religion, you aren't practising it correctly. All of which, of  course, is nonsense.

In the process of reaching out to people on the internet regarding HUNTING THE KING, I occasionally get feedback from people who do not share my belief that all faiths have equal value and that none is superior to any other. I have had an interesting long-running back-and-forth on MySpace with a young man who calls himself Noah. He is a very sincere man who believes that the Bible is the direct word from God and that every word, sentence and paragraph should be taken literally. In our debate over true faith, he is constantly quoting chapter and verse from the Bible to make specific points. I have not been able to get through to him that I suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder and couldn't get past 'In the beginning...' His point to me is that salvation can only come if I accept the word of the Bible and  accept Jesus as the Son of God. My point to him is: people have the right to believe what they want so long as they don't interefere in other people's beliefs. His belief is fine. If it gets him through life, gives him comfort and solace when he needs it, gives him happiness and contentment, great. But other people have the right to get the same things out of different beliefs. We are all different. Our needs come out of who we are and what we have experienced. Each of us is unique. Our needs are unique. And so our faiths will by neecessity also be different.

He won't buy it.

He is not the problem. I suspect he would never take up arms against anyone who disagreed with him. He would just keep quoting from the Bible. The problem is and has always been with people who would take up arms against those of different faith. Such as the Catholic prelate from somewhere in the American midwest who got his degree in theology from some American university and who now feels he has the power and justification to deny another Catholic access to God. It is those who have Noah's strict faith but who also have the power and eminence of authority to legislate religious law or to gather forces behind them who are dangerous. History is filled with religfious repression and violence. The Inquisition and the Crusades may have occurred centuries ago, but the hearts and minds of man haven't changed. And they must.

Which is why I was compelled to write HUNTING THE KING and its two predecessors and companion piecesTRACES OF A LIFE and THE GOSPEL OF HANNANIAH. To create dialogue on the issue of religious faith. God knows, if Noah doesn't, that that discussion needs to go forth and multiply.

Last night, I found myself thinking about a young boy I used to know. He was called Peluchi, though that wasn't his real name.

On the tough streets of the Cathedral Public Housing Development in Boston's South End, all of the Hispanic kids had nicknames. Coco, Fonzi, Macho. There were various gangs living in different projects in the neighborhood, across Washington Street at Casa Borinquen, down at Camden-Lenox, up Columbus Avenue at Tent City. All of the aging developments were hold-outs, built in a by-gone era meant for veterans returning from WWII. Now they were crumbling eye sores being surrounded by a gentrifying city, high-priced condos replacing lower rentals, displacing poor and working people.

I had been involved with tenant organizing when I first came upon Cathedral. I first visited the Boston Housing Authority development for a job interview, but I had seen it in passing many times, riding on the old overhead down Washington Street towards downtown Boston or out to the richer suburbs south of the city. I thought the development looked like a dismal, forlorn and depressing prison. Tall towers of yellow brick. Concrete floors. Broken up tarmac. Absolutely no green.  Grafiti all over the place. Cathedral was in line for federal funds to undergo major rehab. Several of the tall buildings, which might otherwise house forty to sixty families, were now vacant, except for the drug users and pushers who could easily get in. To walk up the stairs in those buildings was to skirt needles and human feces, sometimes a sleeping homeless person or a drug deal in process. You climbed without looking into anyone's face. You went about your business in silence.

Peluchi was about 12 years old but was very short for his age. From a distance, he might have appeared to be eight or nine years old. And he acted it. He had a volatile temper. He once went after another kid with a baseball bat. I had to pull him off. This was around 1990. Floyd, that was his real name, was living with grandparents. His oldest brother was serving time for drugs. His older brother, Fonzi, who was 13, was bound for jail for raping a girl in the project. Peluchi's father never existed and his mother lived on the street, a drug-addicted prostitute. His grandfather was an alcoholic.

Peluchi was a handsome boy, dark black hair and dark eyes. When he smiled, it was a child's bright and easy smile. He loved playing, and he often hung out with me in the community office. I worked for the tenants as their liaison to the Housing Authority and to the architects who were planning the redevelopment. I remember walking home with him one day, carrying him on my shoulders and taking him out for ice cream. He helped me and a character named Richard Martinez move some furniture. Richard used to do only two things when he left his cluttered apartment at the top of one of those Cathedral towers. Paddle his canoe in the Charles and drink Ballantine Ale. He was an alcoholic who believed if he ever stopped drinking, he would die. To my knowledge he's still alive and guzzling. Peluchi spent the day with us and was very happy. As we were walking down Washington Street, he happened to spot his mother outside the offices of the South End News. Instantly, he took to his heels, ran for her, and leaped into her arms, shouting, "Mommie! Mommie!" She hadn't bathed for days, was dressed in rags, was hanging out with other drug users, but the two, mother and son, shared this one brief embrace that spoke of their humanity, the what-might-have-beens had their lives been different. The police found her dead shortly after, murdered by some unknown drug user or rapist. And Peluchi returned to his way of life.

I know he stole money from the office once. He had been with me helping run a food day. We brought in fresh produce from Chelsea, and for $1 people could come in and fill two bags with food. Peluchi loved being involved. After we collected the moneym, we put it in a cash box and hid it in a closet. The next morning the box and money were gone. The office door was locked, but there was a way of getting in through another building which was connected. I asked Peluchi if he took the money and he denied it. But I accepted his word and we remained friends. Not long after my funds dried up, the agency I was working for was defunded. I held on for as long as I could doing my own fundraising, but I had no health insurance. When another job came along, I had to take it and said good-bye to Cathedral.

Writing novels is still my way to salvation, my way to escape a world that is sometimes overwhelming and difficult. Peluchi didn't have that outlet. What he had was what he had. I came to find out later that he had been killed by a rival gang, shot over drugs. But I still remember the hard-edged little boy, the street-wise and street-naive kid whose true innocence was exposed that one summer morning in the arms of his dying mother. You are not forgotten, Peluchi. This book is for you.

Kunati Books specializes in working with authors making their debut. I don't want to tell you how long I was waiting in the wings to make my inaugural swing onto the literary catwalk. Suffice to say I know what side of the horse Washington liked to mount.

All of us who have gone through the process of submitting to agents and publishers know what it's like to wait and wait, build up hope, only to have it dashed by form letters that tell you they hate to send form letters but have to send form letters because they're too busy to send anything else.I don't know about you. But I work a hard day job (two, in fact). I'm busy. Yet I manage return phone calls, return emails, and send out letters that are original and sometimes clever.

In waiting all that time for the one letter that means something, I wondered what that moment would be like when I would get that glorious alternative message. Would it come in a phone call? Would it be an email or a letter? How would I react? I imagined I would be sitting at my desk. When the word came that someone wanted to publish me, I would jump out of my chair, run down the hall to my boss Jennifer's office, yelling, "I did it! I did it!"

Of course, the moment never came. Jennifer died (way too young). I was fired. (Won't go into that). And the hits just kept on coming in. I wrote two more novels, went through another agent, found another job, and one Thursday morning, not unlike the previous thousand, I was sitting at my computer, opened my email, and there was a message from Derek Armstrong of Kunati Books. Well, I didn't want to open it up. I knew, just knew, it was going to be another polite 'No thanks.' So, I diddled and daddled and did everything I could think of to avoid opening the message. I saw another client, went to the bathroom, shuffled papers, returned phone calls until I finally got up the courage to take a peek.

Imagine how you would feel if you had waited years, dreamed for years, never really expecting the good word to ever come, knowing in your heart that the dream was just that. A foolish odyssey. A pointless effort. Destiny, fate, whatever, always favored the other guy, never you.

Then when it happened, when I read Derek's words, 'Call me. I'd like to discuss making an offer.', I was stunned. Where were the blaring horns? Where was the triumphal light? Why was I just sitting at my desk on a typical work day, my co-workers all around me going through their regular daily rituals? That's it? I think it has taken a while for everything to sink in. It is still just sinking in even after the edits and the galley review and learning how the hell all of this publishing business works. I can only wish that all of you trying to break in experience what I have. I would like now to be able to leap out of my desk, run down the hall, and dash into my boss Jennifer's office and scream what I never could in all of those years we worked together and became good friends. In my book HUNTING THE KING, past lives play an important roll. So, Jennifer, while I don't know if such things as past lives or reincarnation or heaven actually exist, if you can see me this morning, punching the keys on my computer, if you can read my mind and see into my heart, Jennifer, "I did it!"

And so will you all. Best of luck.

Author really has a nice ring to it, especially if you've been dreaming about becoming one for so long. People who don't write think getting published is as easy as going to the market and buying Fritos. Right. Here's my story.

I began writing after I took my last college exam. (Isaac Newton it, which only goes to show you.) Before that I had no idea I wanted to be a writer. I took no literature courses, hardly even read. So, I can't tell you why I sat down and wrote THE THIRD WORLD. I just did. And wrote, and wrote, and wrote. And these were the days before computers. So editing was white-out and re-writing meant buying extra ribbons with the ink smearing your hands and getting all over the paper.

I got my first agent way back when. I think she meant well. She did submit the manuscript, and I did get replies. But, turns out years later, she is considered one of the worst agents in North America. I won't give you her name. She's from New Jersey and, in her spare time, breaks knee caps for the Gambino crime family. I escaped with a bruised spleen.

My next agent came during my screen writer phase. I figured I was having no luck with my novels, so I would try Hollywood. This agent also meant well but quit within weeks of signing me on. I warned her not to date OJ, but would she listen? I did write a few good screenplays and visited LaLa land. But the closets I came to success was when Barbra Streisand told me to get off her lawn.

Next I got an agent from Arkansas. Now, you'd think I'd know better than to entrust one of my novels (I was back into novels now) with someone from Cow Hoof, Arkansas. But when she said the book was the best thing she ever read, you bet I jumped. She tried, too. Found out later that she did a little rewriting on her own without letting me know and that she belonged to a cult that believed that the end of the world would follow a Red Sox victory in the World Series. She was wrong about that (I hope) and wrong about my novel.

Finally, at long last, a light shone at the end of the tunnel when I got a New York agent. New York, of course, being the ticket to fame and fortune. This agent was legit. But she quit after several months saying she was going to concentrate her efforts on non-fiction. So, I said, "Can't you just pretend my book is non-fiction?" She didn't bite.

Bereft and on my own yet again, I did what every other unpublished writer does. I searched high and low for an agent, contacting hundreds, always getting the same reply. What a shock. I wasn't right for their agency. I didn't fit. I wasn't what they were looking for. Read, I wasn't Brittany Spears.

I found Kunati Books by saying, the hell with agents and the hell with American agents. In the Firstwriters web site, I located publishers in Canada, read the description of Kunati and what they were looking for-- controversial, cutting edge, page turners-- and I thought I had just the right thing. HUNTING THE KING. And, by God, it was the right thing.

Later, I wil describe that moment when Kunati first entered my life. For now, thank you Kunati Books. You give a lot of writers hope.