Expect Only the Good By Laura J. Oliver

So, this happened. Help me make something good from it.

The day before I left for The Netherlands a personal email appeared in my inbox from one of the five biggest publishers in the world. 

“Whaaat???”

The writer explained that she had found my profile on LinkedIn and that she was interested my work, noting in particular, the success of The Story Within, which I had published with the biggest of the Big Five: Penguin Random House. 

She suggested publishing a new book consisting of my columns, which she had seen because I post them weekly on LinkedIn. The proposed book would be a collection I have tentatively titled, “Something Other Than Chance.” So many of these stories have touched upon that phenomenon—how is it that I could impulsively call a loved one I hadn’t been in touch with for 25 years, the very day he discovered he had three months to live? How could I dream at 19 years old, that the midshipman I’d just begun dating was in life-or-death danger, then discover the entire Naval Academy was on lockdown for a shooter alert? 

Maybe this reaching out from a major publisher was also something other than chance. Fate? Fortune? Mom from the other side?

I sat there at my laptop in my sunny office, glancing at the sign above my desk that reminds me, “Expect Only the Good,” and it was like getting an acceptance letter to your reach-college opening with “We’ve been looking for you!”

I could tell from the way this woman described my work that she had read it. But, as trusting as I am, (truly of the genus extremis-gullible-dope), as a matter of due diligence I looked her up on LinkedIn and there she was. Kathleen K. A nice smile, probably in her forties, and yes, she worked for the publisher she claimed to represent. Holy Cow. Could it be I’d been plucked from obscurity? 

It was the letter I would have written to myself if I’d been momentarily blessed with superpowers. With one swipe of my palm, I’d end the war in Ukraine and Gaza, feed the starving the world over, ensure the health and happiness of my children, of all children, to the end of time, and, why not? Get a publishing offer from one of the Big Five. 

Because when you long for something you cannot control— world peace, permanent remission, a baby…publication– there is always a feeling that a bit of luck must be involved. Angels must attend you. You are going to need something other than chance.

So, I wrote back to ask for specific details about what the publisher was offering and this is when it began to feel just a little like running in a dream—where you never quite get up to speed. Each perfect, articulate response provided answers, yet they were answers packed in cotton—not quite clear.

“Let’s talk on the phone, or zoom,” I suggested—”let’s meet face to face.” 

“Thank you for that generous offer of your time,” Kathleen wrote, but the most efficient way to proceed is email.” She was going to send a detailed marketing strategy before we talked and even that demurring was perfectly encased in an intimate description of my work. 

So the conversation continued until finally I wrote, “If I am wrong about this I apologize, but I have the increasing sense that I am corresponding with AI, a computer program, and that you are not real.”

The immediate response was to thank me for my brilliant candor, my courageous honesty, my very human inquisitiveness, and to assure me, “It’s really me! Kathleen! Not AI!”

Except that ….everything about that response told me it was.

A quick google of “Scam, fraud, publishers, LinkedIn,” revealed that predators have discovered a new point of entry into the vulnerability of your longing—using LinkedIn to professionalize and legitimize their seductions. 

All I had to do was pay Kathleen $2,800 for publication and marketing. 

I still believe that so much that happens in this world is something other than chance. Not everything—I’m not yet a proponent of “everything happens for a reason”—that’s not how evolution works, for instance; and there is indeed chance. Ask the dinosaurs.

But a friend of mine met the love of her life on a plane. That flight, that moment in time, that seat. Is timing divine?

I’ve been too busy editing to prioritize publishing another book. Too busy to consider what I want to do with the rest of my life, to say scary things, to initiate change. But with this offer that was not what it appeared to be, the dial has been reset. Owning the dream as if it were possible, even for a minute, has made me remember that it is.

Everything is.

Sometimes what feels like a false step is the next step, you have only to act. And sometimes when we don’t move forward, the universe takes us by hand, whispering gently but emphatically, 

“Now.”

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Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.