So, a bit late to post this, but better late than never.

For those of you who haven't heard of Word on the Street, it's a yearly celebration of the book industry, held in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax. This year it was on September 27th.

For the past few years, I've been going, and doing the Pitch the Publisher event. It's where you pitch your book to a panel of three publishers based in Atlantic Canada, and they give feedback. Sometimes, if your proposal is good enough, they ask to read some sample chapters.

Talk about fast tracking.

So this year, I did it. And I pitched The Grandfather Clock, my children's chapter book that I wrote last October and have been continuously nursing. It's the first thing I've ever written to be based in Canada, and have anything to do with Canada really.

(Except that cloning story I wrote in grade 8. But that was set in the future, so I guess that doesn't count, really).

I went first. I was kinda nervous to stand there, in front of a mike and other authors and spectators and talk about my book, but after doing a million brewery tours and handling drunk people while being in character, this really paled in comparison.

And guess what? I won Best Pitch in my category! Two of the publishers expressed interest and so I gave them a package.

Now, people came up to me later who weren't there and asked me, "So, what does this mean? Are you getting published?"

No, it doesn't. It just means that they thought my pitch was the best in comparison with the other pitches they heard that day. It probably means they would read it. But it doesn't mean that it's under consideration for publication.

And there were some great ideas this year, in comparison with last year at least. Surprisingly, a lot of journalist-turned-fiction writers. Hurray!

So, I'm taking this as a good sign that this book is perhaps publishable. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Soon, soon.