Publishing dream comes true for English teacher

On May 17, 1974, a swarm of 400 police officers and FBI agents converged on a little bungalow in south-central Los Angeles. Their target: the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an anarchist group infamous for the kidnapping and brainwashing of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.

The police gave the SLA members 15 minutes to leave the house, but no one did. Someone started shooting. In the ensuing gunfight, the house erupted into flames. Everyone inside died.

English resource teacher Vickie Adamson remembers being shocked. She recognized the address: 1466 East 54th Street. It had been her family's home two years prior.

This unsettling coincidence is one of the many experiences that Adamson drew on to write her upcoming novel, "The Color of Love: A Romance in Black and White," expected to be released later this year by online publisher IUniverse.com. While Adamson is hesitant to reveal details, she admits that the book, though fictional, is structured around her own life. "If I started generally describing the premise of the book, people would say, `Well that's you, isn't it!'" she says, laughing. And there is no doubt that the roots of the book run deep.

A lifetime in the making

Adamson has always loved to write, even as a little girl. "Every day, I would go home and I would stick paper in the typewriter and type," she says. At nine, she finished her first play, "The Surprise Present." She still keeps a copy of it tucked away in a drawer at home.

This love of writing followed Adamson through college, where she received a bachelor's degree in English and a master's in African-American Literature, both at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Then, she jumped into the hectic world of teaching. Adamson was suddenly too busy to write, or even read, for pleasure. The problem has followed her to this day. "I find I am so bogged down in papers, paperwork and just the bureaucracy of being a teacher," she says. "Unless I'm very deliberate about making time for [writing], it doesn't happen."

But at the same time, Adamson began to tinker with the idea of a novel that explored the issues of race, gender and class - issues that had followed her from her childhood in Los Angeles. She finally sat down and began writing the book in 1993. Because her busy school life forced her to work mostly during the summer or while on maternity leave, it took Adamson nine years to complete the novel.

She shared the finished manuscript with her friends and family. They all loved it, but Adamson was reluctant when they urged her to publish. The novel, after all, was a personal endeavor. She had written it with just her close friends in mind. And she was wary of publishing companies, which she knew to be reluctant about printing the works of first-time authors. "Breaking into the publishing world would take a lot of time, energy and commitment," she says.

IUniverse to the rescue

Adamson began to change her mind this past April, when she came across an article in "The New York Times" describing online companies, such as IUniverse.com and Xlibris.com, that will, for a fee, publish manuscripts and make them available on online bookshops.

This system of publishing appealed to Adamson: She didn't want to spend months on end pitching to reluctant editors at companies like Random House or Scholastic. The online companies offered to publish her novel hassle-free. "It just seemed so easy and so inviting," she says. "They are presenting an opportunity for you to publish and then determine whether or not you have readership."

Adamson is now in the final steps of publishing her book with IUniverse.com. She can't wait to finally hold the finished copy of her book in her hands. "There's a feeling of excitement, of thinking that my book will actually arrive and that people can have it and read it and respond to it," she says, smiling. "Whether or not they like it, just the fact that it can happen is a wonderful thing. I'm thrilled."