Alessandra Ranelli

And I do think Matha has some things to say under all the humor, but it's a very different beast.

And I found as well that later on, I had a wave of requests before I got an agent.

And many of them requested, I think, because they were curious because there'd been such a big wave.

And a lot of them started by reading my essay.

And any agent who emailed me and said, my God, I've just read your essay, ultimately didn't sign me because they were expecting something different.

They were expecting me, not Sterling.

So I finished the book.

It took about 13 months.

And in that time, I won a pitch prize, the Blue Pencil Agency pitch prize, which gave me a half hour meeting with an agent I loved.

And I had entered the prize specifically because that agent was judging it.

And she had been recommended to me as a potential match from the only writing course I ever took, which was a Curtis Brown crime writing class.

which was taught by Vasim Khan.

And then they had a bunch of mentors who kind of managed the class.

Vasim recorded the lectures.

That's the only writing class I've ever taken.

And I met with her.

She believed in the project.

She mentored it a bit on the way and took a peek at some of the drafts.

And by the time the book was ready, she was pregnant and about to go on maternity leave.

So that was a