Reply #23: it's so worth it to talk to writers

[Wetzelbill]

James Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Welch_(poet) was a childhood friend of my father's. His own father, Jim Sr., would always come over to the house to visit. So, one day about 4 years ago, after I had written a short story I was looking at publishing, I called him and asked for advice. Within months I had a few stories released in a book. Since then I've been published in several other places, but calling him helped get me started. I have talked to Sherman Alexie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Alexie as well as some other authors too. All interesting people. Well-read, intelligent and virtually all are pretty liberal. So I'd say you should just go for it. :)