She believed in her story, and sold her first novel.
... with a very special publisher as an advocate.
Sitting across the table from writer Lora Chilton as she tells you about her new novel, 1666, it’s easy to forget just how difficult it is to write a novel. Or to write anything at all, really.
Then she tells you a little of the story of where she’s been since you knew her as Lora Jobe, a Memphis City Schools board member and nonprofit executive in the 1990s and 2000s. The saga includes divorce, a tumultuous journey to California and back, and a devastating cancer diagnosis followed by chemo and recovery (!). That’s not even including the 58 queries she sent out and contests she entered as she was writing 1666, just to have the chance to get her novel published.
Yes, you read that right: 58 queries/contests.
“I had read a story about an author who, on her 48th query, got an agent and got her novel published,” Lora said. “So I said to myself, get to 48 before you get discouraged. Then, when I got to 48, I was like, why am I going to stop now? Also, I believed in the story more and more, and I felt like it was on me to make it so compelling that someone else would want to read it.”
Obviously, Lora Chilton is made of strong stuff.
The story that birthed the novel might give you some idea of why. In 2007, Lora’s father, late in his life, happened to mention for the first time that he was a member of the Patawomeck Indian tribe, which has deep roots in Virginia. Surprised, Lora asked more questions, and discovered that the men of the tribe were massacred by white colonists in 1666, the women and children sold into slavery in Barbados. The harrowing story of two of the women’s journey back to Virginia to rebuild the tribe as it’s known today forms the basis for the novel.
“Lora’s the ideal author,” said Vicki DeArmon, Co-founder and Publisher of Sibylline Press, which was Lora’s query number 58. “She’s proactive, connected, smart. It’s a fabulous book and she’s not holding back in terms of letting people know about it.”
Vicki ought to know: An experienced veteran of the book publishing business, she founded Sibylline to publish “the brilliant work of women authors over 50,” as the banner on the website reads.
The spark of the idea for Sibylline came to Vicki and her friend Julia Park Tracey (now Executive Editor at Sibylline) during the pandemic, when Julia, an already-successful author, had another book manuscript ready but couldn’t sell it.
“Even without COVID, there was this sort of blockage from publishing houses for older women; they weren’t ready to publish our work,” said Vicki. “Julia’s book (The Bereaved, a novel about the orphan trains of the 19th Century, published by Sibylline) was named one of the Top 100 Indie Books of 2023 by Kirkus. Anyone paying attention should have snagged it.”
So Vicki teamed up with friends from her past in publishing and launched Sibylline, named for Sibyl, a Greek prophetess of “prodigious old age” whose prophesies were handed down in writing. “We don’t work with anyone we haven’t known for 10 years,” she said. “How great is it to work with great women you know and trust?”
“I don’t think we were ahead of the wave,” she said of the idea of focusing on women over 50, “maybe right on top of it. Lessons in Chemistry opened a few doors — Bonnie Garmus was a quality author in her 60s publishing her first book (in 2022). Our niche is books written by women over 50, but they’re for all readers.”
Vicki sounds a little amazed at how quickly Sibylline has taken off, but, as she points out, “for me, all roads led here.
“I think Sibylline recognizes what we do and what we’ve done our whole lives, it’s the culmination of our greatest wisdom. The amount of joy, even on a hard day, is so worth it. It’s a natural bridge to all these fabulous women.” Lora’s novel, which publishes April 2, is part of just the second season of books published by Sibylline.
At 64, Vicki isn’t planning for retirement any time soon, if ever. “I don’t think we should have any diminished expectations at this time of life. Once you commit, the universe always opens up in that direction … it’s an organic path that develops. When I was 25, I thought hacking my way through the forest to find the trail was what I should be doing. If I had the confidence then that I have now, the trail would have opened more easily. Now it’s doing that.”
As an author herself, Vicki has deep compassion for the authors she works with. “What bravery and boldness, to put yourself out there for comment and critique. Your book is your heart and soul.”
She and the editors at Sibylline work to build community among their writers as they teach them about marketing and the book business. “You’re not out there facing your publication date by yourself. At our latest author retreat, the women bonded with each other. To me, that represents the biggest part of our community and is something I had not foreseen. You have a big community of women all rooting for you.”
Lora agrees that Sibylline was “kind of perfect” as her first publisher.
“Women in this demographic, we’ve seen a lot, we’ve lived through a lot,” she said. “I think there’s just inherent wisdom in our stories that need to be told, whether through fictional characters or memoir.
“It’s just this wealth of knowledge that we’ve gathered.”
1666: A Novel publishes April 2, with events in Memphis on April 6 and April 9. For more about Lora Chilton and her novel, read Jane Roberts’s story in The Daily Memphian.