Ralph Ashworth first pitched his mystery novel, The Killer of Orchids, to agents and editors 15 years ago. The plot revolved around Jeff Redwing, a computer genius investigating the murder of a Carnegie Mellon alumnus.
"Editors would tell me, 'We like the story, but something is missing,'" says Ashworth (HS'73). "And I would think, 'Well, you're right.'"
Ashworth believed the missing element was a character development he didn't include in his submissions. Redwing was gay. At the time, Ashworth didn't think readers were ready for a gay hero. So he put the novel aside and took a job as a supervisor at a Borders bookstore.
Last year, he decided to rewrite The Killer of Orchids with Redwing as a gay man. Coincidentally, at around the same time, Borders announced a fiction-writing contest open to its 30,000 employees. The winning entry would be published, sold in Borders bookstores, and featured in its newsletter sent to 28 million people.
"Normally it's a struggle to get one copy in bookstores," says Ashworth. "This would have the full brunt of Borders' promotional powers behind it."
The contest deadline was six months sooner than his realistic time frame for finishing the rewrite. And it was also the holiday season, which meant he was working at Borders six days a week, sometimes more than 10 hours a day. Exhausted, he somehow managed to make the deadline.
A few months later, he got the call. The exhaustion was worth it. The Killer of Orchids will be available early next year.
—ROB CULLEN (HS'02)
