The light at the end of her tunnel (Colleen Mondor sells her first book)

A week or so ago, Colleen Mondor, Chasing Ray blogger and Bookslut reviewer (among other things), wrote to say that she would soon be able to share big news.  And so I waited, knowing, as I did, that Colleen had been at work for several years on a book she'd called THE MAP OF DEAD PILOTS.  It was a book inspired, in part by her work as co-owner of an aircraft leasing company, her knowledge of Alaska, her love for boundary-stretching literature, and her passion for melding fact and the imagination.  And it was a book agented by one Michele Rubin of Writers House, whose belief in this project Colleen has described in posts spanning several years.

This was an author and agent who would not give up.  Not in the face of so many almosts.  Not in the face of a rapidly changing industry.  Not in the face of so much that can feel so bleak when you are on the waiting side of a coin.

And so, this week, I waited for Colleen's news.

It came yesterday—news that this book, described in Publishers Marketplace as being "about Alaskan pilots navigating a world that demands close communion with extreme physical danger and emotional toughness" has been sold to Holly Rubino at Lyons Press.  It will go on the fall 2011 list.

I could not be happier for Colleen, who has cheered so many of the rest of us on, has gotten us talking about important book issues (diversity in storytelling, honesty in jacket design, the value of nonfiction for the young), and has never bowed to envy or bitterness.  Colleen Mondor has sold her first book, and she'll tell you more about it here.