Date:         Tue, 18 Mar 1997 12:35:43 -0600
From: Margie Culbertson-McCaskey <facetoface@WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
Subject:      OK OK So I've been lurking
To: WRITERS@mitvma.mit.edu

Hello group,

        I'm Margie.  I've been on this list for a couple of weeks and
have enjoy ed the group: the thinking , the humor, the humanity.
Thanks.
        Me?  Well, this past November I made the commitment to do
freelance writing as my full-time career.  I've been a speaker,
trainer, consultant, college prof, writer and researcher for 20 years+
(I started at the age of four...uh huh).  I have lots of commas and
initials after my name.  But my name is already 19 letters long, so I
don't use them except to intimidate the unsuspecting.
        I've submitted a short story about a slobbery dog to
Guideposts (? yes, I think I stretched them a bit).  Also in the mill
are dozens of humorous greeting card lines sent to several companies
and a book proposal sent to SMU Press.
	I've only received one reply so far and that was a personally
composed rejection letter, full of compliments and enthusiasm from
SMU's senior editor Kathryn Lang.  The project , still being written,
is a collection of stories told to me by children in homeless
shelters.  My book and I are now in the hands of a fine agent in NY
who is working with me to broaden the scope, away from regional and
toward national.  It is amazing, but he has sort of taken me on as a
crusade.  You see, when I initially spoke with him a month ago he was
all thumbs down.  As our conversation progressed and I satisfactorily
fielded his questions (inquisition), his enthusiasm grew.  He changed
from " it can't work" to "how-can-we-make-this-good-idea-work".
	So........I am in the process of rewriting this #$&*^$%
proposal (I am overwhelmed, can you tell?) and have two more weeks
before I must get it to him.
        Now that I've properly introduced myself, I will join in the
discussions .  Be kind, I'm only a little girl in a strange town (I'm
a third-generation Southern Californian, married to a Texan, and we
live in Austin.  I wouldn't consider myself a snob, but I will say
that I actually cried when I went to a CW concert with my husband and
saw all the black hats in the audience.  (I went to the concert as a
show of affection for my husband.  Bad move.  I like jazz, blues,
Copland, Mussorgsky, Annie Lennox, anything but CW.
        Here's looking at you, kid.


Margie Culbertson-McCaskey, freelance writer
Face to Face Communication
facetoface@worldnet.att.net


________________________
If all the world's a stage. . .
The why do all the doors say Exit?