On a sun-filled day in June, I was sitting in the center of Oslo on a bench outside my local church, checking my email constantly. It was now or never, I thought.

I’d done what you’re not supposed to do, but everyone does. I’d sent my short story collection to several publishers, well to two, to be exact. Life with a three year old, a new child coming and a full time job didn’t offer up the greatest opportunities for future writing, unless it got picked up by a publisher as opposed to an early retirement in my desk drawer. There was life all around me where I sat. A steady flow of buses, children balancing on the edge of the pool, adults hiding in the shade under the trees which flanked the pool on both sides, framing the way to the church.  

Then the email arrived, the one I’d been waiting for, the email that I wanted to, but still felt reluctant to open. Nicely formulated, starting with an excuse for the time it had taken. They’d even had an external consultant to read it, but the conclusion was still the same, unwavering and depressing. “The texts are not up to publication level.” The mail finished off by saying “I hope you will continue to write and that I hear from you at a later occasion.”

Later? I thought, there will be no later occasion. This is it. I could stay a reader, but I would never be a writer. As if by direction, the sky clouded over, the buses started to annoy me and the wooden bench began digging into my lower back. I wouldn’t write a sentence again, it wasn’t for me. I would from now on close my senses to the impressions that had created texts which were below an acceptable standard for publication. 

I got off the bench to walk the short way home when the phone rang. It wasn’t my fiance, it wasn’t my employer, it could be a seller. But I took the phone and was met with a friendly talkative voice. She had read it, she liked it and she wanted a meeting. There would be a book, she was from another publisher.  

I’m not religious, but on that summer day in June, on that sunny bench outside the church, I could have become religious. Before I left I replied to the email. “I greatly appreciate your feedback, both yours and the external consultants. In the meantime, for your information, my manuscript has been approved for publication by another publishing house.”