Like many people, Heather Gudenkauf thought she had a novel in her. But that's where her story breaks from the usual.
She wrote that novel and got a literary agent. And then she found a publisher (Mira Books, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises) willing to give her an advance-against-royalties deal. And then The Weight of Slience sold more than 300,000 copies.
It's rare enough for an aspiring author to actually finish that dreamed-of novel, but in the book world today, it's virtually unheard of for a previously unpublished writer to have the success that Gudenkauf has found. "That's what I've been told," she said in a phone interview last week, promoting her April 16 appearance at the Bettendorf Public Library.
