HI, Dotsie, sorry that link to my reading list didn't work. I think sometimes those "long" URLs don't go where they're supposed to. So, here is another way to reach it: If you go to Google, type this into the search engine:
"university of iowa" "sue william silverman". The first thing that will pop up on the Google list is a direct link to my list. So I hope this will work! If not, let me know.

Yes, I love LaMott's Traveling Mercies." But I haven't read the Weldon book. I'll have to check it out.

"Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You" got published by the University of Georgia Press because it won the Associated Writers & Writing Programs award series in creative nonfiction. This is an annual competition, and every year the winning manuscript automatically gets published with the UGA Press. (In other words, the UGA Press has a contract with the AWP to publish the winning manuscript, and every year there is a different judge.) Ironically, when I submitted my manuscript, I was 100% certain I would lose--having no self-esteem--and only entered because a friend of mine had won in the novel category a few years earlier. So imagine my shock! (By the way, this AWP competition has categories in each genre: short story collection, novel, poetry collection, and creative nonfiction.) In fact, I think the deadline is the end of this month, February. So, yes, winning a contest is certainly one way to get published.

With "Love Sick," though, I got an agent and went the New York route, with Norton. And now my poetry collection, "Hieroglyphics in Neon," is published with Orchises Press, a very small company. With the poetry, I happened to meet the publisher at a conference and asked if I could submit my manuscript to him. He said yes; then, he had it for months and months before he accepted it. So it can be a good idea to attend writers conferences, too, and make some personal contacts. Of course many personal contacts I've had have rejected my work, too, and will, of course, reject work they don't like, etc. But you never know! Sue