Going Full Circle

Last year, when the Public Safety Writers Conference in Las Vegas opened  with a brief history of the organization, I was delighted to hear about its beginning as the Police Writers Association with Roger Fulton serving as the founder. Roger was a member of the Chesapeake Bay Writers Club (in Virginia) at the time. Jane Deringer was his mentor. Roger, Jane, and I were all founding members of the CBW. In fact, Roger came up with the name--Chesapeake Bay Writers--which was selected as the winner of a contest. Jane was also instrumental in the founding of the Police Writers Association. I remember her advising Roger, judging contests, and attending some of the earliest conventions, at least one of which took place in Williamsburg, VA near my home town.

Roger moved away from the area, and I lost track of him. Jane died a few years ago--a tremendous loss to the Tidewater Virginia writing community.

As I attended the excellent conference presentations, I thought about how things have a tendency to come full circle and how pleased my friend and writing teacher extraordinaire, Jane Deringer, would be to see the evolution of PSWA. 

 

Earlier this week, I asked my publisher, Billie Johnson, to take a look at the blog I had written about book promotion. She was pleased with it, and I pointed out that this was another case of things going full circle. This time last year, I knew nothing about writing and promoting blogs. Billie turned me in the direction of Dani Greer and urged me to take her blog book tour class. I did and learned so much from her and from the other members of the class. That was another case of going full circle.

In writing, and in life, it's amazing and rewarding when things go full circle.