It All Came Down To One Strange Night In Kansas…

I’ve been saying all along that the story of how Roxie got published is so good it could be a book itself. I’m going to leave out a lot of the details and minutia, but here is the compressed version:

I knew I wanted to publish when I completed the last line of Roxie. Those who’ve read the book all the way through agree that the last line just sums it all up in such a compelling way. Now, don’t go flipping through your copy to the end, I want that to be a surprise! Anyway, I was ecstatic when I wrote it, reveling in the knowledge that I’d just completed something I’d only ever dreamed about. But my excitement was quickly tempered by the matter of finding a publisher. After much research into a field I knew nothing about, I opted to attempt the traditional route first, contacting the top literary agents in New York…then Chicago…then Bozeman, Montana, anywhere I could go to find someone who’d give it a chance. But they all said the same thing: “Sounds interesting, but what have you published before?” Nothing. “What was your highest level of writing education?” Grammar school. “How many writing seminars have you attended?” None. “Are you possibly related to a Kardashian?” Certainly not.

So I was at a crossroads, wanting the message of Roxie to hit the masses, though unsure it was ever going to happen…and then, in the spring of 2017, it did.

I should back up the story a bit, to a time pre-Roxie, almost ten years ago. I was living in Oklahoma City, four months into a five month training program that promised me only “a chance” at becoming an air traffic controller. The academy was stressful, especially since I had even less formal education in aviation than I did in writing. The hours were tough, the material was dull, the sleep was…non-existent. And worst of all, my wife, Michelle, was 800 miles away for the entirety of it, at our home in Chicago. With expenses high in Oklahoma and a looming mortgage payment back home, I was only able to see Michelle twice in five months, once me flying home for a wedding and once her flying down to visit me.

From July on, all of us students at the academy had an understanding that we’d be off for the extended Thanksgiving weekend. I planned to take that time to do the long drive back and forth between Oklahoma and Chicago for my third and final visit of the fall. But in the weeks leading up to that holiday, the agency decided they needed our group of non-essential employees to be present at the academy from three to midnight on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving. Not to train, not to advance our skills, just to be present. If I recall right, they planned to keep us occupied for the full nine hours with an assessment test for incoming controllers (typical federal government). As you can imagine, we were all disappointed with the decision. Missing a single shift could lead to termination, so I just succumbed to the assignment and began planning out which Popeye’s location I’d be eating my Thanksgiving dinner at.

But on that Wednesday, I received an unexpected invitation, from Jeff Manbeck of all people. He was a guy I barely knew. He wasn’t in my class, wasn’t assigned to my facility, wasn’t really someone I’d spent that much time talking to. He was just a guy, a guy I hung out with outside on breaks. We’d talked a bit. “Pretty crazy weather today. Not much to do in Oklahoma City, huh? Did ya see the Colts score on the way out?” That kind of guy. But I guess he saw something in me that told him I should tag along where he was going. Maybe it was that yearning look in my eyes, that one that conveyed my need to have some type of normalcy on such an important family holiday. Either way, he included me in the group that would be heading north to Kansas.

Benton, Kansas was a small town just north of Wichita. Jeff introduced me to his wife, Niki, when we arrived at their house. I met their kids, her parents, random guests whom now I don’t remember. Her family held a huge Thanksgiving event every year. But it wasn’t just family. The dinner was comprised of a bunch of tag-alongs, maybe four or five of us from the academy, friends of Niki’s siblings who were broke college students and couldn’t make the trip home either, a couple of foreign exchange students who didn’t even know what Thanksgiving was. I’d never experienced inclusion like that, but it was nice. We played football in the big field across from the church. When they all said a prayer, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. But I wasn’t uncomfortable. They seemed to know I was a non-believer, but they were okay with it. Looking back, it was my first real introduction to an assembly of Christian people, something that’s so normal to me now.

We ate our meal in the big auditorium opposite the sanctuary. We went back to her parents’ house to watch the Lions and Cowboys, all the normal things I was in need of. They played board games and this very unusual nickel gambling game that was unique to the family and elicited so much joy in them all. They were all so connected, all so joyous, and they adopted me right into it, as if I were a long lost cousin they’d been missing for decades.

At the end of the night, we sat on the front steps of the house. Jeff and I joked about nonsense, the trivialities and humorous occurrences of our everyday existence. Not once did we mention the academy or the stress of the program. Not once did we mention the distance from our families (his was in Indiana). We just talked like old friends. Niki and I sat on the steps and discussed books. She loved reading and was interested in my “writing” which at that point amounted to nothing more than a faraway idea, not a reality. I called home to my wife and my parents to see how things were going in Chicago and I tried to relay the story of what was happening in Benton, Kansas but there was no good way of describing it. Still today, I can feel the sensation I had on that November night. I can feel the air, I can smell the turkey, I can remember the quiet of the little town and the noise from within the busy raised ranch, but I can’t accurately put it all into words. It was just one of those special times, a time that came when I needed it most.

Jeff and I became closer after that. We found each other more often on breaks, spent time together outside of work here and there, organized with the whole class at parties, but ultimately the academy came to an end. We both passed our final exams and ventured off to our separate facilities, his in Indianapolis and mine in Chicago. We kept in touch for a few months, occasionally giving a phone call or a text message, trading stories of our new lives, but eventually, that stopped too. It was a short term friendship that served its purpose, but for me it all centered on that one beautiful Thanksgiving night that I haven’t forgotten since.

With a stack of rejection letters at my side, I sat before my keyboard nearly ten years later, wondering how I was going to get the powerful story of Roxie in front of the eyes of those who mattered. It was late at night and I was tired, a little from a stressful day of work and chores and tending to my children, but admittedly a little from the daunting task of finding a publisher. I knew I had a good book. I knew its message, that redemption is possible for all of us, had to be heard by someone. I perused the internet, wondering if I should reach out to this agent or that, wondering how I’d ever get into Publishing House A or Publishing House B. I was just about to give up for the night when I stumbled upon a publisher I’d never seen before. Its name? Redemption Press. I’d said all along that Roxie was first and foremost a story of redemption. It was my story, told through Blue and Smith and the girl with the brilliant lilac, characters that represented the redemption I’d experienced over the last ten years. And now I’d come across this company named Redemption Press! They just had to understand, I told myself. There must have been a compelling reason for the name, something more than just advertising. And they just had to take a look at Roxie!

I never contact a business without finding out about it first, so I started digging on their website. They were located in Washington state, just outside of Seattle. Their owner had an intriguing back story, something that made me think she’d give Roxie a chance. I clicked on their list of published books and scrolled down. I clicked on their policies and practices and scrolled down. I clicked on their list of employees and scrolled down.

And there, near the bottom of that page, a name jumped out at me. Niki Manbeck. I looked at it twice, and then again, and then again. Beside was a picture of Niki, Jeff, and family. I couldn’t believe it. Could this be for real? How had she ended up in Washington? Does she really work for this company? Would she even remember me if I reached out?

Well, she did. She remembered the whole night, my Thanksgiving in Kansas all those years ago. I told her I’d written a book about redemption and she was excited. She remembered us discussing my desire to write a book someday. She said she’d forward it on to the senior editor, and then informed me a day later that the editor loved it. Roxie seemed a dead project, hopeless in making it to the pages of print. But God’s intervention on a random holiday almost a decade ago spurred it along. “This has God’s hands all over it,” I remember Niki telling me. I couldn’t agree more. Whenever I have doubt, whenever something happens that doesn’t make sense in the moment, whenever I worry about an unplanned turn of events, I think back to this story. And I think about the same message written throughout the pages of Roxie. All of the sudden, everything feels a whole lot better.

And it all came down to one strange night in Kansas.