I've published several medical papers before, also various short stories in student magazines (a long time ago) and a few included in an anthology about 5 years ago. I was offered a book deal for a novella but I didn't feel it was good enough, so I'm working on a novel hoping to become traditionally published soon. I also had several successful blogs with a large following, mainly creative writing and some opinion pieces and philosophical essays.
Editor for technical research publications for 20 years. I worked for two prominent publishing companies before starting my own business in 2005, surviving now thriving quite nicely in the big pond. I started my main personal/professional career track as a stay-at-home dad completing writing assignments at home (three daughters, partially explaining the perpetual deer-in-the-headlights look on my face). I didn’t write much in school, so my literary background is a cross between the Internal Revenue Code and Dr. Seuss. Regular feature articles in national trade journals, authorship of credentialed courses of study for continuing professional education, and creation of college study materials. I attribute my success to not having worked my way through a more conventional path of learning to write and establishing myself as an author (not that there’s anything wrong with the more conventional path). I have an irreverent streak, probably the cumulative result of my mother’s frequent admonishment, “If all your friends are doing it that’s a great reason to run like hell.” I had a poem published in best-selling Minnesota history and folk lore author John Koblas’ book, Jesse James Ate Here. Jack (may he rest in peace) wrote several books about the James and Younger gangs, and had an advance from his publisher for his next James book. Having run out of angles, and being a creative guy, he compiled information off the cutting room floor and wrote a book not about the history of the James gang, but about the many rumors and legends about James’ wanderings that had no basis in reality (such as bullet holes from James gang guns in the walls of the bank in Northfield, MN, amazingly embedded in a building that did not exist at the time). I wrote a poem entitled Horse Thief Cave for the book, which is about seeing and hearing rustlers if you look and listen hard enough. I’ll post it on the Poetry thread.
Hm... published my first story back in mid-school, and some poetry in student's magazines... Since then, in the last 15 years I've published short stories, poetry, literary reviews and translations in a bunch of journals and magazines (lost the count, to be honest, not because of the huge number but of share laziness ). Been the editor of a short-lived literary journal for 2 years, and a couple of fanzines. Participated in a couple of cross-genre (prose+visual arts) exhibitions, several mainstream prose anthologies, two SFF anthologies and a "Young prose authors" anthology last year (my favorite thusfar).
I'm assuming your "Young prose authors" involve working with kids, and I understand why it's your favorite. Kids will keep you grounded and in touch with reality. If you can get a kid interested in writing, or any other worthwhile activity, you can change a life. I always try to write a note of congratulation when I see anything in the local papers or school district publications about a student who has some kind of writing published. When I was a kid I got a note like that from a stranger after my name had been in the paper, and it made me feel famous. I'll usually send it to the school to deliver through a teacher so it doesn't seem creepy. By the way, I send only one "congratulation," not two. There's a word nerd here at the shop to whom I offered "congratulations" one time, and he asked why I was giving him more than one.
My goal isn't to get published, but instead be the most famous unpublished author in the world. If you publish my quote I will kill you. Ok I'm not really kidding, but seriously kill you. It's not a joke of a threat despite that I'm jokingly making a promise, to kill you.
Mainstream publishers, nope. So I probably don't count. But I do have 30 or so novels e-published by a small independent publisher (and in Amazon, Smashwords, BN etc) and I'm earning a small but fairly reliable income stream from them. I'd probably be a bit more successful except that I write for a very narrow niche market (other than the latest, which is SF/Horror, and I'm waiting to see the solid sales stats for that one).
After 25 rejections from mainstream publishers, I self published a true story through Amazon in 2012. In 2013, I bypassed the agent/publisher search and self published my first fiction novel through Amazon, and followed that up by going through createspace to produce a paperback version of the fiction novel. Currently working on the second fiction novel, have plans for a third and research has begun for a second true story book.
