When I was growing up I can remember my mother’s manual typewriter on the kitchen table…

My earliest memories are of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in our living room. One title captivated my attention for many years – Pistis Sophia. But I never once took the book off the shelf.
My mother began writing her book while I was in my early teens and in August of 2000 she had self-published The Many Waters.

From 2000 to 2006 I worked with my mom and Rosetta Stone Press learning how to market the book. My mother and I joined the Calgary-based Independent Publishers Association, and that was when my interest in publishing was truly born.

In 2009 I got my dream job.
I was unemployed and desperate. The Calgary economy took a dive in 2008 and it was extremely hard finding work. Never in my life had I experienced difficulty find a job. My sister, Cherry was a nurse and she helped me with my resume. She told me to create a ‘dream resume’ – to just let go and make a resume for my dream job, whether I believed that it existed or not.
My dream was to work for a publisher as an editor. I had studied editing from the Editor’s Association of Canada and I was passionate about writing and publishing.
Not long after I had created my ‘dream resume’ I got a phone call from a past co-worker of mine. She called me from her car and she said she was just talking to her community magazine publisher where her monthly business ads are, and she told me how the publisher was just telling her how she could not find anyone to fill a position at the company.
My co-worker said she just blurted out my name!
Well, the next day I met the publisher for coffee and she hired me on the spot. Within one month I was working in the editorial department and within one year I was the senior editor. For the next eight years I consciously watched and learned every process of the magazine publishing business. I was passionate about publishing magazines. I loved articles and working with writers; it really made me feel alive.

In 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer – right after my two younger sisters had been diagnosed with cancer. My sister Cherry was terminal and she reached out to Neale Donald Walsh, author of Conversations With God. With his guidance she began to write a book about dying. They communicated right up until a few days before Cherry passed away.
Her book, The Forgotten Song, was incomplete and though Neale had offered to assist her with publishing a book about dying, Cherry changed her mind about the theme of the book and decided to write what was most in her heart at that time. She asked me to finish the book for her, and two weeks before she died I completed it. She never got to hear the ending. I believe however, that she was there with me as I wrote the final chapter.
Two days before Cherry passed away I held the phone to her ear as she and Neale prayed together.

In 2014, only eight months after Cherry passed away, my mom died at the age of 80 years old. I promised myself that I would continue to keep her book alive. It was only shortly before my mom passed away, and as my siblings and I were packing up her books, that I held and opened the book that had caught my attention so many years earlier – Pistis Sophia.
Now, deep within me was a desire to continue my mother’s mission of sharing what she had found in her many years of study and research.

I could have continued under Rosetta Stone Press, but instead I chose to honor my mothers work and create a new publishing company.
My mom and I were very close and our birthdays were only a few days apart. When she died I inherited her beautiful opal ring.
In November 2014 I registered Opal Publishing as my own publishing company where I publish a magazine for writers and authors. My own love of writing and publishing is poured into the magazine where I can share articles on the craft of writing, interviews with authors, and book reviews with readers everywhere. And now, I am launching a new magazine, Opal Rising, to explore the metaphysical and energy modalities that are a huge part of my personal life.

CONTACT

Opal Publishing
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Email: opalpublishing.calgary@gmail.com