I stumbled into this book thing by blind luck. I literally answered an on-line ad (on a media website called Mediabistro) that was looking for authors for hiking books, one of which was for Oregon. A conversation among myself commenced. "Yo, self!" I said to myself. "You, like, write, and you've been known to hike, and you live in Oregon and stuff. Go for it!" So, I answered the ad, they thought I sounded vaguely qualified, and voila, I had a book contract neatly creased and tucked into my file folder. I twiddled my thumbs for a while, then thought I'd better get on the stick (get it, stick? As in hiking stick? Anyway...). I relied on the expertise of trusty friends like DJ Kevy Kev Dickson and Anne Marie "Rie" Moss and we all painted the state green with our hiking excursions and adventures. Here's the result:

I stumbled into my second book by another incident of blind luck. A year later, as I was sitting pretty atop a stack of my hiking books (not literally, those things are slippery!), I got a call from my publisher. Turns out, there was a poor soul by the name of Scott Leonard who was toiling away on the Washington version of my book for the same publisher. Would we like to smush our books together to come up with Pacific Northwest Hiking, they asked? I didn't really have to think too hard about this deal-after all, it's kinda like two books for the work of one! So while poor Scott was working on his book, while I occasionally gave the bloke advice but mainly just maniacally rubbed my hands together and laughed heartily, remembering the trials and tribulations during hiking research that were now a thing of my past, I did some trail revisions, wrote the introductory chapters in the cozy confines of my own office, and called it a book. And in May 2005, we did just that. One note: If you buy this book, and you get lost in the state of Washington, just realize that I was only responsible for Oregon. Kidding! Kidding! I have full faith in Scott's abilities, and he's a good egg to boot. Here's the result:

I stumbled into my third book by sheer luck. No, seriously. I did. Turns out, my Oregon Hiking book editor, Marisa Solis, had vamoosed from Foghorn Outdoors and moseyed on over to Seal Press, which is another branch of the publishing company I've come to know and love: Avalon Publishing Group. A shiny new editor, Jill Rothenberg, had just joined the Seal forces, with a brilliant idea: A book about women and their dogs. Marisa cocked her head, perked her ears (note: I'm just elaborating here, as I wasn't technically in the room, but go with it), and declared "I've got it! You know that writer, Megan McMorris? She'll do anything! She's like Mikey of cereal fame!" Jill called, I said "why not?" and another book deal was born.

This book was really fun to write, because, well, I didn't have to write the whole thing. My role is something like a producer/director, a behind the scenes polisher/dog picture collector/contract send-er-outer and negotiator/cheerleader/taskmaster, etc. I'm proud to say that Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness and more recently, Sight Hound (check out her site at pamhouston.net) wrote the foreword, and notable contributors include Susan Cheever and NPR All Things Considered commentator Marion Winik, plus editors from Outside, Runner's World, and Fitness, and many stellar magazine writers and book authors.

For my fourth book, I toiled endlessly on the idea. Just kidding. Yep, blind luck again. You see, the powers that be at Seal Press decided they wanted me to compile a cat version of the anthology. The result, Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friends, came out in spring ’07. This anthology was supercalifragilistically cool to work on, because not only did I get to continue my excellent relationship with my editor at Seal, Jill Rothenberg, but I also got to continue some relationships with stellar writers I’d worked with for Woman’s Best Friend and add a few great ones to the line-up.

Well, enough of my resting upon my laurels (they’re scratchy anyway). What might I have up my sleeve to save for later, you may ask? I’m not quite sure myself, but I do have some ideas that are zinging their way across various desks and through inboxes in a fun little game that I like to call Finding An Agent. You know, someone to represent, yo (said with a thump across the chest). I’m also excited to start working on another series of the Mystery Quilt that I wrote a while back, check it out at electricquilt.com. Stay tuned for the next installment of quilt detective Mitzi McDruben’s adventures, with sidekicks Raoul and Ruthie. Okay, okay, as much as I love writing mysteries, I feel the need for the Full Disclosure here: My mom and stepdad own the company. I get the feeling that no mom-who-owns-quilt-software-company perhaps would = no-mystery-quilt-written-by-moi, but oh well. It’s fun anyway, no matter if me own mum is my client (thanks mom!).