Joan West

Co-Publisher & Sr. Editor, Fireside Publications

From stay-at-home mom to college professor to retirement. What can I do now? I wrote a novel and joined a writers' group and soon learned that, although I had published articles, novels were another story. I met writers who I thought were very good, but they couldn't get published. So, together with Lois Bennett with a similar background to mine, I established Bennett and West Literary Agency. We sold a lot of books and some of them to major publishing houses, but for the most part, the majors wanted nothing to do with first time writers. Can't beat them? Join them. And so Fireside Publications was born. Look at our website www.firesidepubs.com and you'll learn that we've published a number of books with the exception of Olivia Clair High's THE CRYSTAL ANGEL (a romantic suspense) and Peter Shianna's (LOVE TAG, now in printing) all first time writers. Claire and Pete's are both second works. It's fascinating and a work of love. And now, we've added a self-publishing imprint called Kadin Books. We're just getting started with it but are excited about it. It's one more way to help unpublished writers get published which always has been our mission.