I spent this morning delving into various archives to piece together a chronology of the relationship Don Tate and I have enjoyed as friends, critique partners, and collaborators. Our history stretches back to way before the publication of The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch in 2015 and of Whoosh! earlier this year.
I know this exercise sounds like sheer entertainment and everyone’s idea of a good time, but there’s also a practical reason for this exercise: Don and I are presenting to Austin SCBWI on August 13 about our experiences as a manuscript-critiquing and book-creating duo.
As far as I can tell, our initial communication was in a comment Don left on my brand-spanking-new blog in July 2005. And I can tell you that it then took us about 4 1/2 months of talking about having lunch before we actually got around to having lunch for the first time, in December 2005. He picked up the check at Brick Oven Pizza.
Don and I got our acts together somewhat and managed to pull off a road trip to San Antonio a mere month later for the 2006 midwinter meeting of the American Library Association. Here’s the account I wrote about that event, which also happened to be the first time I met my literary agent, Erin Murphy, in person. It was a great weekend that looks even better in retrospect.
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