Initially I signed with a small publishing company, Candlemark & Gleam. Right as I did, the owner started going through a lot, and so it ended up taking a year or so for the book to come out, then soon after, she started talks to sell the company. As a result, it turned out to be a business relationship that didn't really work out for either of us. She offered me my rights to
Mixed Feelings back when another small publisher showed a lot of interest. Ultimately, they bailed by just refusing to answer my emails, so I decided to put Gwen out for myself.
I had an idea of what I wanted for the cover, so I looked around for designers and found the amazing
Michelle Preast, who managed to come up with basically exactly what I wanted, so a partnership was born!
Even though C&G didn't end up being Gwen's permanent home and things were a little rocky toward the end, I'm SO thankful to Kate Sullivan for making
Mixed Feelings the book it is. The mess I originally submitted to her had no business generating interest, but she saw something there and suggested I make changes. I rewrote the book and submitted it again and she dug it. We worked together, butting heads here and there, but made it a much better book than I'd created initially.