If At First You Don't Succeed... A Writer's Success Story

This from The Author's Guild Bullettin of the Fall 2004

The way Novelist Karen Joy Fowler, 54, tells it, she went to a rading at a bookstore in Corte Madera, CA, and saw a sign that said, "The Jane Austen Book Club." She is a big Austen fan and was thrilled because she thought there was a book of that title. When it turned out there was no such book, "it occurred to me I could write the book I wanted to buy."

She did, and the book, according to the NY Times, is "one of the season's surprise publishing successes." This fourth novel by Fowler hit the best seller's lists.

Fowler was 30 when she decided she wanted to become a writer so she could be at home with her children. In 1980 she joined a peer writing group.

Her first novel, Sarah Canary, was published in 1991. It was accepted by Henry Holt after 27 rejections. Fowler continues with the writing workshop although her fame has exceeded that of its other members. She said, "I was not the most talented, not the most hard working, not the one to whom writing mattered most."

I succeeded because I was the toughest."