A Lowcountry Bride’s Publication Journey by May Chen and Preslaysa Williams

[Note from Frolic: We’re so excited to welcome editor May Chen and author Preslaysa Williams to the site today. They’re talking all things A Lowcountry Bride. Take it away, you two!]

Preslaysa Williams: 

I started writing A Lowcountry Bride over ten years ago. In 2010, I was sitting on my bedroom floor and folding laundry. My infant son was next to me in his baby carrier. Amidst all of my domestic duties, the first line for the book popped into my brain. That first line is now the beginning of Chapter Two in the finished novel.

My son is now school-aged, and I recently experienced the joy of holding my galleys of A Lowcountry Bride while my son recorded the moment on my cell phone. In that ten-year span, the manuscript for the story underwent many revisions and rejections on its journey to publication. 

In 2018, I was about to give up on the book, but then I saw Avon/HarperCollins announce an open call for own voices romance manuscripts on Twitter. The tweet said that the Avon editors were taking pitches at an upcoming writers conference, and so I gave it a shot. I signed up for an appointment with Executive Editor, May Chen. I was going to give my story, which featured an Afro-Filipina bridal gown designer, another chance. 

I clearly remember the day I pitched to May.  The air sizzled with nervousness, anticipation, and hope. The line extended outside the pitch room and down the hallway. I was a ball of anxiety. With so many writers present, many of whom were multi-published authors, I didn’t think I stood a chance, but I held on to a thin thread of a dream—a dream which started while folding laundry one afternoon eight years earlier. 

I had memorized my pitch, but when the moment came to deliver, my words came out all jumbled and stilted. May eased into a conversation with me, and we simply chatted about the story. She suggested that I add in a subplot with the hero, Derek, and his young daughter, Jamila, in order to make the story richer. She also added that it was up to me to do so since it was my story to tell. May didn’t ask me to send her the manuscript. It was a short and sweet conversation.

May Chen: Wow! I don’t recall this but then conferences can be overwhelming for me and the days become a blur. I love that Preslaysa and I met years ago and I’m delighted to know we had a good interaction. I don’t always offer suggestions at these pitch sessions so I must’ve known even then there was potential in this novel.

Preslaysa Williams: I left that five-minute meeting with a tiny ember of possibility. I saw a door of opportunity, and I spent the next year reshaping the story. I had no guarantees of receiving a publishing contract from Avon. I was writing on a wish from a short conversation at a very busy pitch event. I didn’t even have May’s contact information to let her know that I was incorporating her suggestions into the story. If I look back on it now, I was exercising a lot of confidence and faith, much like the heroine in A Lowcountry Bride. 

In 2019, I saw that Avon/HarperCollins was holding another event at a writers conference for own voices books. By this time, I had revised the manuscript, and so I quickly signed up for an appointment with May. I pitched A Lowcountry Bride to her again, but this time I mentioned that I added in the subplot we had discussed a year earlier. Did she even remember me? I didn’t know. I was acting on hope. This time May requested the full manuscript.

I left that meeting joyful. After returning home from the conference, I emailed her the manuscript and mentally braced myself for a rejection. I had been writing and submitting for eleven years and have racked up a stack of No’s from editors and agents. 

A few months later, on January 9, 2020 at 11:53am May called me and said she wanted to acquire A Lowcountry Bride. I screamed over the phone when I heard the news! I definitely wasn’t cool, calm, and collected. She gave me time to think about it. After we got off the phone, I drove to Target and bought an Avon romance novel. My little manuscript was going to become a published novel. That afternoon folding laundry back in 2010 paid off in amazing ways. 

May Chen: I love that Preslaysa remembers the date and exact time when I called! These are my favorite calls to make! Preslaysa’s path to publication is a great example of how timing and continuing to develop your craft play a large role. One may not have control over timing, but when an opportunity presented itself she was ready with a fabulous novel that she had been revising, shaping and refining her writing and voice over the years. She never gave up on her story, and we’re so lucky to be publishing this beautiful book.