CHARLIE DELMAR

I well remember that fateful day when Jack signed Ty Miller to his first book. Pete Cokinos and I were enjoying a well deserved holiday on Rehoboth Beach when I received an urgent call from my land lady telling me to call Jack in the office. When I called, his EA told me Jack was on his way to North Carolina to sign an author and that I needed to meet him at the airport the following morning. Knowing that the "Prime Directive" at Wadsworth was that signing an author took priority over everything else, I canceled my holiday and drove home. When I met Jack at the airport, he had a bad case of hives (from some strawberries he had eaten, I believe) and was as miserable as any human I had ever seen. He had to take his shirt off as we drove the 100 miles to Saint Andrews Presbyterian College, a school I had never heard of, let alone visited. When we arrived, Jack was able to put his shirt on, but he fidgeted and scratched the entire time he tried to convince Ty to sign with Wadsworth, a publisher he did not know, that had virtually no textbooks in his field, but did have the strangest acting editor (as well as the most perplexed sales representative) he had ever seen. After a couple of hours, though, Jack was able to convince Ty that Wadsworth was the right publisher for him, or maybe he just wanted to get us out of his office so he could have some peace. Whichever, Jack "closed the sale" and the rest is history. That was probably the strangest (and most successful) book signing in Jack's colorful history.


Thanks, Jack, for that day and for your friendship.


Charlie Delmar