Your talent and creativity continued to amaze us in 2013. We worked hard to make your manuscripts the best they could be but our efforts would not have been successful had you not presented us with such strong material. We are in awe of your energy and productivity.

More than anything, 2013 was the year of the historical novel at the Word Process, perhaps reflecting recent interest in this genre in the marketplace. We reviewed stories about:

• Bronte, Sicily in the wake of Garibaldi’s 1860 rebellion;
• a plot to assassinate the pope;
• multi-generational sagas covering the settlements of the upper northwest, great lakes’ region, and Wyoming with a history of Yellowstone National Park;
• a story about a valuable map in 1940s/1950s Appalachia;
• a stalker in 1940’s Nashville;
• spending time with Ben Franklin during the colonies’  fight for independence;
• the FBI and organized crime in California in the 1970s; and
• the AIDs epidemic and the growth of the gay civil rights movement.

Last year was also big year for business books. We edited books on the new rules for competition in today’s digital age, on successful partnerships between investors and professional advisors, on how to be an effective project manager, on protecting the family legacy, and on getting around loopholes in the finance and accounting laws.

We have been inspired by spiritual books on native American drum circles and the code theory that explains the hidden pattern of life.

We have learned from your other non-fiction books about kenpo karate, the importance of multicultural education in the United States today, and how political waves of revolution in the Arab world have impacted women there.

Your “how-tos” have instructed us on the successes that come from letting go of “the little you” and thinking big, relationships between men and women, and losing weight while still eating out at restaurants.

We had fewer memoirs then in past years, again maybe reflecting the saturation of the market. But the ones we had were strong. One centered on LA’s Comedy Store where young comedians like David Letterman and Jay Leno got their starts in the 1970’s. Another was a harrowing depiction of war by an air force physician’s assistant who served in Afghanistan. Others were about growing up Italian in New York in the thirties, suffering sexual abuse in Montana, and dealing with the difficult emotions that come with caring for elderly parents.

In 2013, we worked in every fiction genre–

 Paranormal and fantasy:

• Normal people – a systems analyst, a forest ranger – are pursued by unknown enemies  in a world  of knights and fair princesses
• A newspaper reporter falls in love with a demon
• A  young man gets sent to a mysterious reform school and must battle for his life in the past

Chick Lit:

• Hilarious adventures of a Thai journalist in Washington
• A love triangle that develops when Cinderella marries someone who isn’t Prince Charming

 Suspense:

• A terrorist plot to bomb New York City
• A boat captain’s attempt at a drug heist goes horribly wrong
• A freelance photographer on assignment in Miami gets involved with kidnapping/murder plot

Science fiction:

• A medical plot including everything from prehistoric man to genome theory and inter planetary travel
•  Residents of another planet come to earth to save some of their own

 Young Adult:

• A multicultural urban fantasy in which a 14-year-old Chicagoan must battle a dragon
• The Spider gang encounters ghosts and solves an old mystery
• A lost teenager figures out how to survive in the wild

Mainstream:

• What happens when twin sisters don’t get along

You have had a great publishing year as all the postings on our Facebook page attest. Some of you have found traditional publishers and numerous others have self-published. Others are working with agents or in the process of publishing. It has been exciting to see your books in print and to post your accomplishments as our trophies. J

To all our authors and would-be authors: skip the resolutions and just continue to follow your muses. We can’t wait to see what you produce in 2014.

 

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.

~T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”