Life changes in ways we can’t predict
In life often we find doors opening to us that we never considered would be there. Such was the case when I wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper. The letter was never published, but the editor kept it in his file and years later called me because he was writing a book about old newspaper shops in the United States and he wanted to know whether I would sit down with him for an interview. We visited for a few hours and when he was leaving, I asked him who he was going to have publish the book. He figured he would offer it to the Minnesota Historical Society. Well, I said, if they aren’t interested, let me know and maybe we can work on it together. That’s what happened, and as a result I ended up publishing one of my best-selling books, Life in the Back Shop. Robert MacGregor Shaw captured so much of the flavor of life in those old newspaper print shops that the book found a ready audience across the United States. The book is close to being sold out. So it happened that the letter I wrote that was never published brought a whole new chapter to my life. The Strange Twists Of Life is the story of the letter and the book that it helped create.
This pamphlet was mailed to American Amateur Press Association members years ago. The first printing of Life In The Back Shop sold out becoming, by far, among my best seller! So I reprinted it and again have a limited supply of the book on hand.
It is one of some 21 books I have published since I began doing this in 1976. With luck, I will have a few more books in the coming couple years. With the services of my Linotype and Kluge presses, the tasks of typesetting and printing are made possible.
Any life lesson here? Yup, just keep on writing! You have absolutely no idea where it will take you.
Until later . . .
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