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party of a lifetime 73 her dreams a reality. The “sisterhood, camaraderie” that remained a part of the relationships that she held on to over several decades could be relied on even if she didn’t “see [those childhood friends] for 20 years,” because everyone could “get back together and it’s like you never missed a beat.” “Island Caterers,” Andy reiterated, “is no surprise” as a successful business in a short time. And he believed that “the best is yet to come” since Gina was at the helm of the team of party planners. Gina said she had to “mortgage my house, my children, my entire life,” in order to achieve her goal of owning their “building and expand” in other areas. The building, according to Gina, afforded the company “about 8 times the amount of space that we had previously.” This makes it easy to “compartmentalize all the businesses that had been developing over the time.” The company found that they had to put “a lot of money into the building that we didn’t intend to” but the “long term bene- fits are unrivaled.” Besides making the space inviting and comfortable for clients who come to visit and take in the Island Caterers’ family environment, the building makes it easy to develop the second busi- ness venture, Yankee Delites, on their premises where they can attract another kind of client to their spin-off product. In the face of the heavy responsibility of keeping the new build- ing in good working order, hiring and keeping good chefs and staff, working closely with her administrative staff, and getting out to meet- ings with wedding planners and other professionals, Gina said that she was now more aware of the importance of keeping her life and the business in perspective. She was thankful that her son was working with her and making his contribution in the area of building the over- all structure in which the other small business ventures fit. Gina also felt relieved that Andy was someone she could talk to about her plans for the businesses and the way in which inspiration came to her. At one point during his tenure at the business, she was talking about the way in which she first envisioned Island Caterers could develop long before the company was even established as an entity with multiple operations. Andy listened and encouraged her, whereas other people 74 minding their own business just looked at her askance. Gina said, thoughtfully, as she reflected on the work ahead of Island Caterers that: “it is just … very obvious to me that one must do the things that one loves. That it is easy to lose perspective on what’s important in life. And if you can keep that, then whatever you do, whether it’s your work or your play, or whatever you’re in, would be counted for double.” Chapter 5 Nadine’s Publishing Pyramid It is [my grandmother’s] voice that I hear. Her stories. Her way of putting things through humor, especially. A very dry sense of humor this woman had. She’d say things and you would be just dying of laughter, and she would be like, “did I say something funny?”, and you would be just cracking up. (Nadine, the writer) Nadine is “invested in clarity.” This became evident to her when she heard her daughter, Karen, speaking to her dolls. Karen explained to the dolls that there had to be a leader, and the other one had to follow. With that reminder about the purpose of her own business and the effort to provide services to writers who wanted to have their work published, Nadine returned to the room with her computer and sent off e-mail to the group that was causing her a lot of concern. She reminded them that one person had to lead, and the others had to follow. There was no time for the group to continue bickering about the work at hand. Karen, Nadine smiled, is so clear for a child of five years old. Nadine described herself as “someone who’s steeped in music, my father was a musician. And steeped in books, my mother was a big reader. Steeped in old-fashioned ways, my grandmother raised me.” 76 minding their own business These three “rivers” come together in her and it was joined with the experience that she gained from her teens as an immigrant to Canada where she lived until her forties. The move to the USA was prompted by her husband, also an immigrant to Canada, who got a job. Nadine recalled that her first job was at sixteen when she needed “pocket money and my mom wasn’t in the position to give me much of that, so I decided to go work.” This experience, for a first-time employee just out of high school in Trinidad, was where she “saw so many things that I wish I could change and fix about working, about reporting to people, and the decisions that they made for me.” Nadine always had in her mind that she would develop a “more personable” way of doing business. This was based on the fact that she saw in her second job experience, after completing school, that the company had a “way of doing business that was not human enough.” She always “enjoyed people” and “how they interact with each other.” She was particularly invested in the way that authority figures “truly are when they act with people” underneath them. The Vision Behind the Publishing Company To be invested in Personal Publisher and to feel successful, Nadine said that she felt she “could not have done this had I tried this fifteen years ago or even ten years ago.” The timing of her launch of the publishing company had to be in the present. “It had to be now,” the publisher insisted. “And it can’t be in the future. It had to be now. Because by then it would have been too late, I would have lost the trajectory the way and the direction of where I should be shining.” This awareness of the road that brought her to her present place in her family, her busi- ness, her writing career has informed many of the decisions that she has made about her role as an editor, publisher, and writer. “Every book has a personality,” Nadine said in a convincing tone. She even believes that “sometimes even the author and the book have separate personalities.” She gave an example of a book that she edited and shepherded to publication. Nadine explained that “when I saw the rough draft of the book, the manuscript of the book, I knew that nadine ’ s publishing pyramid 77 this book needed to have its own personality and it needed to stand out from what that author had done previously.” Her ambition was to create a “treasure chest” of memories that would stand up to the test of time. She was certain that “this book is not for today or tomorrow or ten years from now … for archives and should be here a hundred years from now” and people “should be able to open that book and still smell the newness when they open it.” This is the approach that she took with every book that was brought to her attention as the publisher. Every day Nadine has found that “there are more stories to tell.” She has gathered stories from people who “approach me with their stories, their children, their occurrences in life” and she keeps them in a folder. This folder represented her plans for a second book. She knew that she wanted it to be a “meaty book” and she wanted people to “be able to sink your teeth into it.” She was not discouraged that it was “taking a little bit longer” than she had envisioned. Again, Nadine reminded herself, that a book “was like a child.” Another project that was making its way into Nadine’s list of goals was the one about people “outside the Caribbean who are still out of the Caribbean but living in Icebox Land.” She wanted to do a book for the children of those expatriates so that they would know the stories of their ancestors. The stories, as Nadine envisioned them, would be placed in North America so that the young children would be able to connect with them. That publication would probably take a year before it could be presented to the public. Her aim in producing books was designed for “catching up with that colleague” who already had seven books published. Nadine sincerely wished that that female author would “slow down so I can catch up a little bit.” The author and publisher also shared her vision for the work that she shares with other creative people in her publishing world. There is one visual artist who has “started his own little company and he is brand new [to the business world].” Nadine lamented that this young man, in his early twenties, “doesn’t have a lot of people experience. Even though he is very good at what he does.” She decided, without any input from the artist, that she would take on “a mentoring stance with him.” What she wanted to do was take the obvious “loads of 78 minding their own business talent in his head and in his hands” and combine it with an ability to “know how to schmooze” so that he could make his way in the business world. To understand the kind of expertise that Nadine was making available to her young ward, we can look at the way that her editor considered the tasks that Nadine was accomplishing. Denise had tre- mendous appreciation for Nadine’s ability to multitask. She stated that “she doesn’t have a team managing her social media for her, as authors often do. Big authors. And she can interact with her fan base to keep them interested” in her opinions and “how she feels about things.” Philosophy for the Writers Foremost in the thinking that informs Nadine’s choices as she makes her way in her business decisions is the philosophy that she learned from her grandmother, Othile. Nadine remembered thinking that she wanted to share some of the wisdom that she had learned in her effort to write and publish her own work, with other authors. She recalled that she would tell them to “sit back a little bit and try to get some fresh eyes, walk away from it for a few days and try to come back at it with some fresh eyes and try to see if you’re on the right path and if you’re doing what you set out to do, even if you take a fork in the road, the end goal is still there it’s just a different way of getting to it.” Based on an editing job that she did for a writer who was working on a photo autobiography, Nadine learned that “one of the keys … to life on your own” is self-love. She insisted that success is based on “loving who you are,” and that “if you’re not loving who you are you have to fix it, you have to, otherwise tomorrow is another blah, another hole that you dug yourself.” The writer and photographer also learned the lesson that “doing what you love and you never work a day in your life” is a “profound” statement. After spending years when she would work for other employ- ers, “work for companies and I worked for a paycheck and I worked for something” she could gladly report that she was “being” and that she was completely certain that she was “doing what I should be doing and it feels so right.” What was even more important to Nadine at this nadine ’ s publishing pyramid 79 point in her life’s journey was that this way of doing her life was “not a grand thing. I’m not going to climb Mount Everest” since she is “afraid of heights” or “going to the deepest ocean” but that she was doing what she believed she “was meant to do.” Finding the humor in situations is one of the things that Nadine has learned from her grandmother, Othile, and continues to allow to inform her approach to life. She stated that she loves “seeing the humor in things” and that she has realized from her experience of a year at the business that “some of the challenges that I’ve been faced with … [have allowed her to] … not to laugh them off but to realize that they are temporary and they’re stepping stones and the more challenges I face, it means I’m doing something right.” Clearly, Nadine realized, that “if this was a smooth path I would probably be bored a long time ago and shut down the company and start my waitress [job] at McDon- alds, something mindless.” She insisted that some events, people, and “things are funny.” Another mediating factor in her approach to doing business and making it serve her vision for the company, and be a balm to her family, is the fact that this is “North America …. You need to pay the bills, no one is going to drop over and say, you know, ‘hey, I made an extra pot of rice’” and you can share it with me. Nadine knew since her early teens that if she “ever were to go into business for myself, first I need to deal with the people. And I would like to be in the position where even if the business wasn’t making money hand over fist, it had the reputation of being about the people.” So her choices of projects are very carefully selected from those that are brought to her attention. She categorically stated that: “What I do is very intimate. I need to know who you are in order to work with you and to provide you with the product you want. What I do is take your thoughts and help them become. And I can’t do that if a. I don’t like you, b. you don’t like me, or I have no clue where you are coming from.” How did this ethos evolve from her experiences as a writer and employee? Nadine accepted that looking closely at the quality of relationships in a working situation is of the utmost importance. She declared that “you’re vulnerable but it is one of the ways, one of the 80 minding their own business sure ways that you get the kind of clients you really want.” She recalled that she had to make some tough decisions early on in the business journey. There were people who she “looked at and said there is no way I can work with this person. And there are some, there is a possi- bility and there are some I really wanted to work with. But they didn’t choose me and that’s fine, too.” Since Nadine described Personal Publisher as a “company with heart” she was able to state that she could “only take one or two projects a year because I work directly with the author.” Nadine finds it impera- tive that she “be able to connect with the products that I work on, with the projects … [and] If I don’t connect … I can’t do it justice and the end product has nothing of me, and that just would never work.” The authors has always known that the art of “putting yourself on paper … whether its fiction … you’re still putting yourself out there” and it is a feeling that a person has “just exposed” themselves to the publisher, the writer needs to be “treated with respect,” and it is important that they be handled as more than a “marketable commodity.” Family, Friends, and Fame With a kiss on the face of the little one, Karen, Nadine named her daughter “COO,” her Chief Operating Officer, because the young one help her solved a problem with a project. Nadine reported that Karen said, “you have to do as I say. If you have an idea, tell me, but you will do as I say,” and went on playing with her dolls. After observing her daughter and listening to the dialogue that was going on between the dolls, Nadine got on the phone and “told people what I wanted them to do instead of listening to the ten different ideas and getting nothing done at the end of the day.” This is just one of the instances where her family members contributed to Nadine’s constructive approach to life and running her business. She also reflected on the fact that her spouse, Nadal, knows that “he will have to wait at point A, have a cup of tea, pastry, read a book (laughter) until I arrive at point B and then he’ll come across to point B. He cannot go to point B before I get there because he will get frustrated and impatient with me.” Denise, nadine ’ s publishing pyramid 81 the editor who has been working with Nadine since her first novel, stated that an actress would have to “portray that motivation” that is intensely represented in Nadine. Samuel, Nadine’s son, described his father as “very logical” and his mother as one who believes that if something “doesn’t exist, she’ll create it.” It is because of these two influences in his life that this young musician has come to feel that it “is so important to me having … both of those influences … in my life.” He repeated this conviction with his statement that “I really feel very ambidextrous in my approach to life because of my parents.” Even in the face of doing what she calls “a solitary art” of getting her photography done, text editing, and running the business, Nadine appreciates her family and the life that they have helped her to create. It was true that she “found myself adding five and six hours to a twenty- four hour day. There were a lot of late nights. And the reason I did that rather than taking my time during the days is because I am mom, I am wife and those things are vital to me.” By the same token, Nadine also admitted that “You cannot be mommy, wifey, while you’re working on a photograph or editing text” but she did not think that she “could be all I am today” without all those fabrics adding their texture in the quilt that is her life. Jona, the young artist who is her mentee, has his own understand- ing of the role of the balancing act that Nadine performs every day as a mother, artist, employee, and business owner. He explained that “she doesn’t do [all these jobs] to get accolades, she does it because she believes that she is doing it right. And, and that’s the same way I kind of approach … my own home life and again, I think that’s what makes us compatible with each other.” Even Denise, her editor, had to mention at different points in her reflection that “I understand better now the amount of things she is juggling in her life … working full time and her [dedication] to being a mother and a wife and all of those things … And I admire that because I myself … am a mother and a wife.” The challenges of “juggling” her family duties, and keeping a full- time job, helped her to understand that she had to add many hours to 82 minding their own business the quality of life that she has to maintain. “I am juggling but it’s … so innovating. It’s so alive, you know, there’s never a dull moment in my home whether I’m creating, whether I am watching my daughter and my son grow, whether I am sitting and chatting with my husband,” Nadine was proud to admit. And why did she keep up this hectic schedule? She pointed out that: “There is something new happening for my family and it’s like I sit back and try to look at it objectively and I am astounded and amazed and amused and bemused about what’s happening and, here I am, I’m loving … this place.” When she looked at the impact of her Caribbean heritage on the children and spouse who came to be her family in Canada, Nadine is amazed at the fact that the business she has created is teaching these three members about her background. The entrepreneur mentioned her interaction with her daughter when she looked on at her doing a rou- tine for a cheerleading rehearsal. “[Karen] was drifting from one end of the room to the next singing this Caribbean song, not knowing that she had just crossed all kinds of borders with that single step [called palance].” It thrilled Nadine to see how much of an influence she was having on her daughter by sharing her Caribbean heritage through the many activities that they participated in as business people. Karen “came back with brightly colored hats that someone had knitted for her and her hair all done up in twists” after her visit to Trinidad, visited the Caribana Festival in Toronto, Canada, and a book reading in Trinidad where Nadine got to visit with Nadine’s family and saw some of the sites where Nadine spent many of her childhood days. Even the fact that both children, Karen and Samuel, use vocabulary that they picked up as their mother told her stories and explained the meaning of the words to listeners had become a part of the history of the evolution of these cross-cultural family experiences. The children, Nadine dis- closed, used “expressions that are completely Caribbean but they’re using it to their friends and they’re telling their friends what it means.” Samuel is clear that his mother’s foray into performing and pub- lishing her work has had a profound impact on his career choice. After doing two years of college, he decided to pursue a career in music. He believes that his confidence in making the move from student to nadine ’ s publishing pyramid 83 independent producer has been bolstered by the active support of both of his parents. When he spoke about the way in which his mother bal- anced the duties of wife, mother, author, and publisher he noted that “she managed to write these books and take them to Trinidad … and despite the writing process, I never once felt that you know, my mom wasn’t there. Ever. I don’t think she would forgive herself if I could answer that question otherwise.” Nadal is described as a “brilliant man” and Nadine said that “his logical, mathematical approach to the world, you know, this plus this equals this, helps my artistic brain to get it together because he’s clear as to what he wants to do. He’s very clear …. He gets to the point and I don’t.” This fact of the two complementary perspectives has sustained their marriage for over eighteen years. Nadine said that the business of Personal Publisher is interesting to Nadal because he “sees the new- ness … he’s looking in so he appreciates the fact that this is all new and it’s interesting to him” and that Nadine’s approach to “a new toy” sup- ports this appreciation from her spouse who is not a Caribbean person. In fact, Nadine explained that Nadal “has said himself it’s like having a new wife every day because … I’ll be logical one minute. I’ll be flying off the deep end the next. I’ll be on my mountain creating. I’ll be in the kitchen singing a negro spiritual … it all depends on how I wake up that morning, so he’s quite happy with that.” Most importantly, Nadine believed that she was “teaching him about who and where she comes from.” Nadine understood that she had a vital role to play in her family’s understanding of her Caribbean heritage and the influence that it has on them. Nadine is “aware of my role as a teacher … and a mother to these two children and to my husband.” She detailed the fact that “the children are North American born but they are seeing the Caribbean through my eyes and I need to make it new and I need to appeal to their North American brain and upbringing and I see them using it, too.” Her son, Samuel, plays the piano and Nadine “heard him explaining what steel pan was to someone and how it works with his keyboard.” Samuel has also been overheard when he “explained commess to his friends and they now use the expression.” Nadine said that he has also 84 minding their own business used “some of the branded items that I have and he’ll be explaining what Personal Publisher is and what it means.” Riding Over the Speed Bumps Nadine was adamant when she explained that “You need to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head and while it’s nice to travel and to produce books and to create stories, life has a way.” She knew early on that she had “to be practical” and that it was essential for the well-being of her family that she had to “try to do [family and Personal Publisher]at the same time” so that neither would suffer. She under- stood that she made thirty hour days a norm, “maybe to my own phys- ical detriment, but I stretched my day so that there could be more of me for the people I adore and still be able to produce and to be the kind of a publisher, editor, writer, photographer that I know I can be.” There were also challenges to overcome in the actual production of the work that she presented to the public. When she was awarded a feature in a local newspaper it got her moving at a faster pace than she had ever had to work at in this genre. Nadine remembered that there was “no way I was going to slide through any of the challenges that I faced in my photography with the feature. There was no way I could take and just point and shoot each photograph.” The result of her resolve to excel in that public arena was that she “did hundreds [of photographs] within the eighteen weeks” and got the acclaim that she wanted from those who read her articles and saw the photographs in the regional newspaper. She wanted people to feel that her photo- graphs represented “exactly what the place looks like.” The first hard cover book project that Nadine worked on presented other creative challenges. Not only did she have to learn computer software that would give her the desired effect that she envisioned, but she had several difficult communication hiccups with the author of the book. Nadine knew that the book had to meet high standards because it was being presented as an archive of the writer’s career on stage and television. She decided that “most English speakers … read from left to right, so I wanted when they first opened the book, nadine ’ s publishing pyramid 85 the eyes go immediately to the left and then to the right so it could compliment and then the eyes get used to that way of looking at the book. By the end of the book they know what they are looking for.” Stepping away from that book project, knowing that she had won a major victory as a publisher and business owner, it was easy for her to admit that: “the more I learn about people, the more I learn about myself because I firmly believe that we’re all slivers of mirrors and as you see someone do things or react in certain ways, you see how you react to them and how, … you grow.” Getting people to work well with Nadine had its steep learning curve in the first projects that she directed. She explained that she “used a local graphic artist who is an absolute joy to work with as to what I meant” when I asked for certain kinds of products and he was able to provide what she needed for the photo autobiography. She was happy that “if he didn’t come up with [the right image] the first shot by the second or third shot he was on the same page with me.” Getting the timing right with the printers also “kept [Nadine] up at night.” Her concern through the whole production journey was always that she could meet her own expectations. She divulged that “A large challenge was in creating what I saw in my mind’s eye. From my mind to the screen to the actual product, it had to be seamless and I wanted to make sure that the vision I had for the book was in keeping with the author and then the final product was in keeping with all that had come before me.” Then there was the major issue in Nadine’s evolution of under- standing that one book project was not her personal creation, but that she was “shepherding” the book to the shelf and its reading public. She admitted that there was a struggle within herself and that she had “to keep reminding myself of that, not to take over the project. To allow the author to be in that book. And to guide the nuances of it, the specifica- tions, … inside that book, it needed to be all her and I think that was one of the biggest challenges to keep reminding myself of that.” Jona, the young artist who has been mentored by Nadine over sev- eral years, thought that he had a good insight into his artist/mentor/ collaborator. If he had to counsel Nadine on the next steps that she should take in her business life, he would tell her: “Nadine, if there’s 86 minding their own business anything I want you to know, is that I very much see your true colors as the color that you try to represent yourself as through the literary works you produce …. I hope you continue on this path, and know that I know who you are. I don’t think you’ll have difficulties doing that because you’re not one to look backwards, you’re one to look for- wards.” Business Is as Business Does When Nadine opened the first box of books with copies of her first novel she took a moment to give thanks to her grandmother, Othile, for her wisdom and guidance while she was growing up in Trinidad. The author described her reaction to the event: I sat and stared at the cover [of the book] for a while, and then I went and I got a candle, don’t ask me why. I just got a candle, I got a white candle. And I set it up next to a plant I had just potted, a brand new plant … it was just barely out of the soil. And my grandmother’s ashes and I set them all together, my first book. My icon, my mentor, my queen, she was there. And this new book, this new life, and the light from the candle, I did not have any clear idea why I was doing that, but I have a photograph clip of it right there … and I just sat there and I looked, I looked at this and I thought “Wow, I did it. There is my book.” It was easy to glean the impact of Othile’s influence on Nadine’s stan- dard operating procedure with her own book production, her clients, and her business regimen. Explaining the background of the way that she approached her writing voice, Nadine explained that “It is [my grandmother’s] voice that I hear. Her stories. Her way of putting things through humor, especially. A very dry sense of humor this woman had.” This was how the first book of stories about living in North America, after growing up on a Caribbean island, came into being. It was this voice, or the attempt to duplicate the humor that this grandmother’s perspective represented, that led Nadine to success with her expatriate audience, and then her homeland fans while she was away from her country of birth. nadine ’ s publishing pyramid 87 Jonas, Nadine’s mentee, recalled the fact that “She’ll always tell me make sure you hide a hummingbird somewhere in here, even if it’s an icon or a little, tiny thing that’s inconspicuous, I believe it’s ’cause she wants to know that that’s there because that’s no different than having you know, like a good luck charm or something that ties back to who she is. And that’s what she carries with her.” This, he believes, is the spirit that enlivens Nadine’s work and connects her to the ancestral roots in her native country. Jona believes that Nadine “is a humming- bird … she does float around like that. And she has the energy to pro- vide … her success in all walks of her life.” Denise, the editor who worked on Nadine’s second book, offered this insight into the writer’s gift for capturing real voices in her stories. Nadine, the editor explained, is committed to “being authentic to the characters, being authentic to where these languages come from, being honest [in her approach and] she’s Trini[dadian], but she’s very good with writing [Trinidadian] dialect. You know, when it sounds authen- tic, it sounds real and it’s very funny.” The importance of paying attention to the writer’s voice is also observed when Nadine works with other writers and their publica- tions. She gave an example of a book that she was editing and pre- paring to have published by her company. Hours would be set aside every day that Nadine worked on the book so that she could read the text and speak with the author on parts of it that weren’t clear. Nadine said that “You have to be as proud of that work as the author is. And if you’re not, then you better move on to the next work. The next project.” Since Nadine early on decided that she “needed to create a company that would first of all deal with the author” it was easy for her to make time, in an already busy day, to be with the author every step of the way to the final production. This focus on detail and persons is the reason that the publisher only does one or two projects a year. In one instance Nadine sat with the writer and asked her “what she envisions. I’m always on the phone with her, keeping in touch with her at least like two or three times a week. To see how she is doing … and let her know how I’m doing with her work. Because I have her baby.” 88 minding their own business Whereas Personal Publisher is the place where Nadine produced her own book, Personal Publisher Press is the business that handles “editing services, graphic services, research for [writers’] printing,” and recommends a printing company for the jobs that her clients rep- resent. The publisher makes sure that “everything that I’m doing for a client, I’ve done for myself.” The printing company, Nadine insisted, delivers a quality of work that included “material, their turn around time, their price is excellent.” There is also a service from a graphic artist from Trinidad, and Nadine said that the woman “has her own business and I bring as much of my business to her to illustrate covers and inside images” of books. Based on her own experience with pub- lishing her first book, Nadine understands that the writers who hire her must pay and the money is “going to come out of [their] pocket especially for your first book unless you hit it well.” It is no surprise to her that “there are a lot of writers out there who won’t hit it well. But they have their niche, their family, friends that want to see them print” and this makes it a viable investment for the writer. Denise, her editor, has commented on the fact that Nadine “has committed to producing something that is a world class product, and she is a good writer, she understands story. She is an editor herself, which makes it even better, so I think she will determine that even though she’s doing this herself, and she’s issuing it herself, it is not going to be so sub-standard” which is something that she admires. She has also been impressed and pleasantly surprised that Nadine is both an artist and someone who has valuable business experience. She remarked with a touch of glee that Nadine “is a creator” and, most importantly, a “knowledgeable business woman.” When Nadine listed the activities that she would include on a bullet list for someone who wanted to become a publisher she included the fact that the person must “like the people” that you have to work with on a publication. Next, the enthusiast should register the com- pany; “decide what kind of business plan you have” and find “a certain amount of capital”, even if it’s “maybe not much to start off with.” Wise people, Nadine admitted, would realize early on that “you’re doing it all yourself before you can grow beyond that” and this means that you nadine ’ s publishing pyramid 89 must consider whether “you have the time to give to [the business] because it’s very time consuming.” The author and publisher insisted that a young investor had to be clear about their rationale for doing the business because “if part of them [says it is] because the money is good, [I] would be like: ‘it is great talking with you; I wish you all the success, thank you,’” since that should be the last reason that Nadine believed to be the motivation for getting involved with writing and working with authors. As Nadine extrapolated on the intimacy of the writing and editing process she continued by revealing that the authors “have given you ownership or co-ownership of their child and as a child they want to be sure that you’re treating their child well, with respect.” If this process means that the editor and publisher have to “put aside a couple of hours in a day where I take a segment of her work and I like to go in order from first to last page, read it through, go back, read it through again,” to make sure that quotes are correct, that is the com- mitment that the job demands. Coming Events Cast Shadows Theater productions, novels, photography were all part of the plans that Nadine conjured for her business as a publisher and a support system for writers. Comments that included a description of her rest- lessness reflected the fact that she felt her previous experiences were “all preparatory, they were all giving me the tools by which I can now look at the words, look at my publishing and couch it and nurture it to the point where the finished product of my projects and my books will be worthy.” What excites her most about this stage of developing her business is that it’s all new. She reported that “I’m loving the changes it’s going through because it’s finding its niche. It’s getting comfortable in its skin. It is changing each time and becoming even brighter, even better, even more attractive to the soul that’s within me, that’s trying to be born.” She predicted that the changes she was experiencing would ensure that “each year it’ll be new” and that there is no “end to this path” of evolution for her. 90 minding their own business From her cache of photographs, culled from several projects and the feature presentation that she was invited to do for a regional newspa- per, she is starting to think about a coffee table book. Nadine admitted that her slow uptake on the project was partially due to her humility. She noted that “I shoot a lot of photographs and there are some in there that I know, without being self indulgent, that are good. And more than one person has suggested that I compile these and make it into a photo- or sort of coffee table type book.” This project, however, is not the one that is keeping her up at night making plans for a production that she can share with her readers. Although Nadine was keeping the details under wraps, she was willing to divulge that the next presentation from her company would be “the most Caribbean thing you will see outside of the Caribbean.” She was aiming the work at the expatriates from the Caribbean and she planned to “be as truthful as one can be in this life” when she told their stories. Her prediction was that these readers were “going to flock towards this” form of storytelling. She was so excited about planning the venture that she found herself “waking up in the middle of the night smiling” since she was envisioning “the things that I can do with this, the amount of areas I can touch with it, the things I can say at this Download 0.6 Mb. 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