I landed the job of overhauling the 2nd edition of The Insiders’ Guide to Phoenix–which included writing a lot of it from scratch–based on my years of experience as a travel writer covering the Valley of the Sun. I was able to bring one of my good friends, Paul Morris, on board. The project didn’t enable me to retire, but it was great experience and I enjoyed managing such a large project and learning more about the publishing process as it related to books. Erika Serviss, my editor at Globe-Pequot, was fantastic to work with. It was also my last big nonfiction writing project I took on before I got pregnant with my son.
The best thing about doing the project was when my eight-year-old noticed it on a shelf and said: “Mommy, your name is on this! I didn’t know you wrote a book!”