The road to publication is long and slow even for work that many recognize has worth. In the category of “close but no cigar,” my novel, Tinker’s Damn, was not chosen by Forest Avenue Press for publishing. But Tinker’s Damn DID make it into Forest Avenue Press’s top 20 novels considered for publication during its open reading period, adding to the other affirmations this novel has received, even though it has yet to find a home. (i.e., it was a semi-finalist for the William Faulkner Creative Writing Award for the Novel; an excerpt was published in Ontario Review; and it has been equated with Seamus Heaney’s poetry in Sweeney Astray.)