Proving Your Past Achievements

I mentioned in a previous post that the publisher had asked for verification that Where Love Once Lived had won first place in two manuscript contests and how I was able to prove it. Yesterday, they contacted me and wanted proof that I had been in more than 40 Austin Lyric Opera productions. How do you prove that?

My first reaction was to tell them to forget the reference to singing. It didn't add anything to the value of the book. But then I thought, this is something I'm proud of and there is a significant number of words in the book about singing. Tony, the Austin Lyric Opera Chorus member in the story will be featured in a future book and I wanted the readers to know I have experience in this area.

So, I started looking for ways to prove my participation in the chorus. I have a stage photo with a wide border with the signatures of everyone in the production congratulating me for my 35th production. I probably have programs for every opera I was in, but both of these items would be difficult to copy. I wanted to find something digital to send to CreateSpace so that they could finish the press release.

Let me say here that I'm glad the publisher is concerned about accuracy of what they send out. That is comforting to me.

I checked AustinLyricOpera.org, but they seem to be in the midst of a website update and nothing useful was available. I couldn't even find email addresses to send to CreateSpace for contacting them.

So, here's what I ended up with:

• The photo of me in a variety of costumes shown above
• A list of operas I've been in from an old chorus website no longer in use
• The name and phone number of the chorusmaster

I don't know which one worked, but I got the press release today.