With encouragement from friends and family members, I began to ponder writing a book about my walks. The idea blossomed into a reality when a Los Angeles Times reporter, the late Diana Marcum, contacted me at the suggestion of a local friend, Marie Henley, to learn more about my project. Diana and I spent two full days walking and hiking around Santa Cruz. I showed her my favorite graveyard, a butterfly garden in a sun-dappled alleyway full of monarchs and pipevine swallowtails and a creek along Olive Springs Road where we spotted bumpy green frogs in the water and damselflies the color of Robin’s eggs sunning on warm rocks.

We stopped frequently to chat with people, We met a man sitting on a curb playing his guitar, a woman organizing volunteers to tend the graveyard, and another who runs a hostel out of a set of six 150 year old wood frame cottages that were once owned by the family of Diana’s partner. Diana told me all about her partner’s barefoot summers visiting his aunts in these charming, evocative dwellings, called Carmelita Court, are now a Santa Cruz Historical Landmark..

In the spirit of recreating one of my typical walks, I packed my favorite walking sandwiches and we stopped for picnics. We talked for hours about the walking project and spent just as much time wandering off topic, talking about our respective families, aging, loss, and Diana’s newly released book, The Fallen Stones, about her extended stay at a butterfly farm in Belize. I had just read it along with her book about the Azores, The Tenth Island, in anticipation of her visit. I felt a little big-for-my britches tromping along with a published author talking about her books.

Diana wrote an article about my walks that ran in the LA Times in April 2022. She then kindly connected me with her literary agent and friend, Bonnie Nadell, who agreed to be my agent and has since helped me hone my narrative and find a publisher. Bonnie worked with Jake Morrissey, Executive Editor with Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, to secured a book deal. Our current goal is to have the book on shelves in January of 2026.

Want to write a book? I have the easiest recipe!. Just get an out-of-the-blue call from a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, then a call from the report’s literary agent, have that agent find a big five publisher for you and finally, land a book deal with that publisher.

But maybe I’ve omitted a few steps (and a few years). It didn’t start with the call from Diana. In fact, when I talked to people about trying to find my way into the publishing world they’d say things like, “try to get someone to write an article about you” or “get to know some literary agents.” or “get published in some journals and magazines. I would inhale gently through my nose, put on a serene smile, close my eyes lightly and use my eyelids as curtains to hide my rolling eyes beneath them. (a little trick I learned from my wife) I can’t just conjure up a journalist, and where does one go to rub shoulders with agents? I couldn’t see a clear route, or even a fuzzy one.

Seeking encouragement, I researched the process of publishing a book and learned that my chances of success would be increased if I had previously published a book (nope); if I had a Masters in Fine Arts or related degree (nope); If I was between age 18 and 49 (nope): If I had a platform of thousands (nope): if my book was anything other than a memoir (nope):if a had a literary agent (nope).If I had a compelling story (I hoped so): If I had decent writing skills (I’ve been told so): If I had the endurance for the rigors of the publishing process (I believe so).

I learned that of manuscripts submitted to publishers, fewer than one percent result in a published book, that chances of success increase to ten percent if you have a literary agent, and that getting a literary agent can conjure a metaphor. Needle. Haystack.

My friend Lochlan who has authored a few books convinced me that I could do this thing. They told me, “It’s going to be hard. Sometimes you’re going to feel like you can’t do it. Just keep doing the next thing and the next and the next. Don’t stop doing the next hard thing.” You never know whose words are going to stick, but from a sea of supportive and encouraging friends and family, Lochlan’s, “Don’t stop” imperative sunk in and it has followed me through every next hard thing.

Lochlan gave me the name of an editor, Frances Key Philipps, whom they’d worked with on a number of projects. A few days later on my drive home from work, I pulled off to the side of the road and called her. This was my first formal step giving the book idea a try. I was unduly nervous but I found my voice sufficiently to explain why I’d called. Frances was kind and funny and supportive. That phone call was six years ago. What started with a tentative first introduction has developed into a long distance friendship.

After untold hours of writing and physically cutting, pasting and rearranging strips of text on my scrap-strewn office floor and multiple ping-ponging rounds of edits and revisions with Frances, I produced a rough first draft and I got a text from Frances saying, “I think you should start running this by some agents or small publishing houses.” I immediately wrote her back and said, “Wait a minute, are you breaking up with me over text?” She replied, “No. I’m just suggesting we see other people.”

Thus started the process of trying to find an agent. I was warned by many that it could take weeks or months to so much as hear back from an agent. And that was if I was lucky. I heard about delayed responses (and no responses) and rejection letters and prefab emails that feel not just like a rejection of your work but a dismissal of your very being. I made a spreadsheet to organize my inquiries and braced for impact. Finally, using sites like Publisher’s Marketplace and QueryTracker, I found an agent who seemed like a possible fit for my project, got all my documents together, pressed “send” and took a deep breath. Within moments I got a return message requesting my full draft. I was stunned and thrilled. I sent the draft and waited a few days before I received my first rejection.

I then sent one inquiry after another until my spreadsheet displayed columns of details on seventy-three potential agents from the East Coast to the West, and a couple spots between. I got a couple very thoughtful, even quite touching, rejection letters, a few brief emails, and a slew of unrequited communiqués. My enthusiasm began to flag. I decided to try another twenty-seven inquires for a round 100.

But before I had a chance to work on another inquiry, Diana called about coming to Santa Cruz to walk with me and talk about the my project and all the logistics started to come together like two rows of zipper teeth seamlessly falling in line. They say it can happen. It can happen!

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California Coastal Walks