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NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: printed in The Tennessean on July 2, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------- Nashville writer's style impresses agent, who finds publisher for supernatural suspense thriller By Rick Moore Many of us dream of writing a book, but we don't know how to go about it. Even if we knew how to write an entire novel, we wouldn't have the faintest idea about getting it published or pursuing a book deal. The dream usually dies. Eric Wilson dreamed of being a published novelist for much of his life, but he had had no success through traditional avenues of publication. His novel, Dark to Mortal Eyes, was rejected over and over. Then he found success through an avenue he never imagined could lead to success: by reviewing other peoples' novels on Amazon.com. ''I went through the traditional process of sending out sample chapters of my novel, and it was rejected by every major publisher I sent it to,'' said Wilson, who lives near Priest Lake. ''And I couldn't find any publishers who would take unsolicited manuscripts, which meant I had to have an agent who believed in me, so I felt like I was hitting my head against the wall. Meanwhile, I've always been an avid reader, and I kept writing honest reviews of books I read on Amazon.com. ''I'd probably written between 150 and 200 reviews of novels,'' he said, ''some nonfiction, that I enjoyed. It was my way to justify my habit of reading and writing. One day I received an e-mail from an agent who was interested in seeing what I had written myself. I made sure he was legitimate before I sent anything to him, and I started talking with him and he agreed to represent me.'' Finding an agent was only one step up the ladder, though, and initially only led to more discouragement. ''He called me about two months into the process and said he'd found someone interested in publishing me, and I really got my hopes up,'' Wilson said. ''Then they turned it down, and I was pretty disappointed. I was wondering why I bothered to write the book in the first place. I basically gave up.'' A few months later, though, Wilson's dream came true when the 400-plus-page novel was picked up by WaterBrook Press, the Christian publishing arm of Random House Books, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Though Wilson is a Christian and a ''P.K.'', as he calls himself — a preacher's kid — his book is not a Christian novel per se. It is more of a supernatural suspense thriller, focusing on the character development of a young woman who was given up by her birth parents 20 years earlier, and her discovery of a canister that contains an evil supernatural force. Meanwhile, she and her biological father reunite in a search for her missing mother. As Wilson himself says in his foreword, the purpose of Dark to Mortal Eyes isn't to establish doctrine, but to explore earth's tensions between heaven and hell. Originally from Oregon, where his novel is set, the 37-year-old Wilson said he moved to Nashville three years ago with his singer/songwriter wife, Carolyn, and their young daughters, Cassie and Jackie, to be part of a creative community. Wilson recently returned from a book-signing tour of the West Coast and has had a book signing locally at Davis-Kidd. Wilson has a contract for another book that is in the works, and his childhood dream has come true. ''I read a lot as a kid, and I hoped maybe someday I could write stories and pass the same joy on to other people,'' he said. For more information about Eric Wilson and Dark to Mortal Eyes, see www. wilsonwriter.com. |
