Two local women find success in the publishing world
Saturday, December 16, 2006
From a novel set in exotic locales to a short story in "Chicken Soup For The Shopper's Soul," two Bonita Springs women have found success in the writing world.
Diane Christianson, under her pen name D. K. Christi, has had her novel "Arirang: The Bamboo Connection" recently published, and local nurse Roberta McGovern has had the short story "The Earrings" published in the latest book in the "Chicken Soup For The Soul" series that has dominated the New York Times best-seller list.
Christianson
Diane Christianson From a blizzard in a German countryside to sailing in the Caribbean, Diane Christianson penned a nearly 500-page novel that takes readers through six continents and four decades.
"Arirang: The Bamboo Connection," published under her pen name of D.K. Christi, has a picture of the Parthenon on its cover, completely appropriate for her upcoming book signing at The Greek Gourmet in Bonita Springs scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 20.
Billed the "romance adventure of a lifetime" her publicity material claims "women readers weep and men buy sailboats and leave it all behind" when they read it. All writers have a different motivation to finish the monumental task of a novel. "Mine were hurricanes, and the fact that I realized about a year ago that my career was stopped, due to my lack youth and beauty, not credentials," she said, tongue-in-cheek.
Christianson has had a superlative public service career. As president of the Immokalee InterAgency Council, she doubled the membership in her tenure; was one of the original founding members for the Community Foundation of Collier County and an active Rotarian and former active member of the Naples Area Chamber of Commerce and then the Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce.
"The actual writing of the novel began in 1980," she said. "I was moving a lot and developing a career track and hauled my research materials from one end of the country to the other. And ever now and then I'd write another chapter. Then I realized about a year ago that my career was slowing down, so I poured my heart into finishing 'Arirang.'"
She said she submitted the manuscript to about a dozen different publishers at different points in it's development. She finally found one that specialized in new authors and those publishing their first works.
"The other thing that pushed me to finish it was the fear that I would lose everything in a hurricane," she said. She has boxes of notes and materials and travel journals that are precious and irreplaceable to the book.
Of all the different settings, she said, she's been to many, but not all. "Most all of the places that are named in the novel are places that I have lived or worked, or experienced through the adventures of friends and colleagues I've met along the way."
She's looking forward to the book signing at The Greek Gourmet in Bonita and said those who would like to pre-order books for the signing can do so at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Estero, or at any online bookstore.