Dreams DO Come True

First, a little background...

My daughter has a "play-a-sound" book -- a board book with sound effect buttons on the side -- about the morning after Cinderella marries the Prince. It's a very eventful day: she wakes up, wears a pretty dress, drinks some tea, chats with some talking mice... no conflict, no prince... which is odd because he just married the girl. Why is she waking up alone? Anyway, there's a very tinny, low quality sound effect that accompanies each event, and the most hilarious one is Cinderella saying, "Dreams DO come true!" in an extremely mannish voice.

And now, today's anecdote...

For years now, I have subscribed to "Locus," a trade magazine for SF/Fantasy. My favorite section is called "Books Sold," a listing (as the name implies) of recent sales. Every month for years, I have looked at this list and imagined my name there in big, bold, black letters.

After the deal was finalized with Razorbill/Penguin (a few weeks after The Call), my agent submitted news of the sale to Locus. It was too late for the July issue, so I knew it would appear in the August issue... maybe... if they printed it... if this was all real. My husband and I haunted the Locus website, waiting for them to say that the August issue had shipped. Finally, it shipped.

But the magazine didn't come.

And it didn't come. And it didn't come.

We started visiting local bookstores to see if perhaps they had it in stock. We called further away bookstores. We called comic book stores. We even called a bookstore two states away that we knew normally carried the magazine just to see if anyone had the most recent issue -- and they did have it.

We contemplated driving a few hundred miles.

We decided that was insane.

We called a few more local bookstores. We reconsidered the drive. We thought about people we could bribe or bully into going to that bookstore and mailing us a copy. We thought about calling the bookstore back and asking the bookseller to please read us page 8. (We knew from looking at the table of contents online that "books sold" would be on page 8.)

Just as we were about to give up hope (and/or resort to measures that would publicly reveal the true depth of our insanity)... it arrived!

With my daughter tucked under my arm, I carried the mail gingerly and reverently into the house. I deposited my daughter in the middle of a pile of toys and books, ditched the rest of the mail on the couch, and turned to page 8.

Not me, not me, not me...

Me! At the bottom of page 8, in big, bold, black letters: SARAH BETH DURST...

At that precise moment, my daughter hit a button, and I heard Cinderella's mannish voice say: "Dreams DO come true!"