NIIHAMA, Ehime Pref. -- For most writers, the road to publication is paved with rejection slips. Not so for British expatriate Marisa Ishikawa, 35, who lives in Niihama-shi, Ehime Prefecture, with her Japanese carpenter husband and their two small children. Ishikawa dashed off her first novel in between English classes and during her toddler's naptime and then sent the first three chapters, unrevised, to a literary agent.
"A week later, I got a letter of rejection," Ishikawa says, "but the letter was so nice -- it wasn't just a print-out -- that I immediately sent off the book again. I posted it on a Friday and the following Wednesday I got a fax telling me to send the rest of the book as soon as possible."
About a year later, Ishikawa's novel, "Short Change," was sold to the well-known international publisher Simon and Schuster. The book was published in May, 2000 under the pseudonym Julia Notaro.