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Table of Contents
Bylines & Deadlines
by
Kimberly Vinje
CCB Publishing
British Columbia, Canada
Bylines & Deadlines
Copyright ©2012 by Kimberly Vinje
ISBN-13 978-1-926918-49-5
First Edition
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Vinje, Kimberly, 1970-
Bylines & deadlines / written by Kimberly Vinje.
ISBN 978-1-926918-49-5
Also available in print format.
I. Title. II. Title: Bylines and deadlines.
PS3622.I563B94 2008 813'.6 C2008-905706-6
Additional cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
United States Copyright Office Registration # TXu 1-579-438
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Extreme care has been taken to ensure that all information presented in this book is accurate and up to date at the time of publishing. Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Additionally, neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For other permission requests, please contact the author.
Publisher:
CCB Publishing
British Columbia, Canada
To Anyone Who Has Ever Dared to Try
Acknowledgements
To my parents Kathy & Jerry - you have given me so much and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough. You are appreciated and loved very much!
Thank you to my friends - especially Terri Konte, who challenged me to write this and Maria Hinkel, who drove me to pursue publishing it. I can’t forget Carol Rock for pointing me in the right direction to get this published and Lisa Warndorf and Vicky Mayer, the “Eagle Eyes” who edited this book for me. I owe thanks to Tammy Quatman for helping me with the website.
Cody, you are an amazing gift and so full of love. Thanks for letting me read portions of this to you so I could hear how the words sounded. More importantly, thanks for faking interest.
To Paul Rabinovitch at CCB Publishing, thank you for your patience and encouragement!
There are so many others… I’ll get you in the sequel!
Prologue
Kristine Larkin died at the age of 25 - just when she had begun to live her dream. She was an ambitious reporter, who worked hard to gain the respect of her editors and the people she approached when she had a good lead on a story. She was young and attractive - two strikes against her in the cut-throat fight for a byline. She ached to be taken seriously and grew more and more frustrated when she wasn’t. She didn’t hide that frustration well and commonly used sarcasm in her poor and unconscious self-defense strategy.
She knew rumors swirled when she was hired fresh out of a small town university by a paper as large and reputable as the New York Chronicle. That’s why she was more tenacious, more aggressive and more arrogant than the seasoned reporters could accept from an unproven kid with a journalism degree. She was unexpected in their world.
After a year, some of the reporters started to recognize her talents, but most of them still didn’t like her. The publisher and editors loved her. She raised the bar for some of the veterans who had become reactive and complacent. Instead of seeking a big story, a few of the reporters would wait for someone to drop one into their laps. They were living off their reputation. When Kristine arrived, she began to find the big stories on her own. She networked