Orchid Blooms

Carnegie Mellon Today, Fall 2008

When Ralph Ashworth first tried pitching his mystery novel, The Killer of Orchids, to agents and editors 15 years ago, he didn’t have much luck. Sure, they liked the writing and they were intrigued by the plot, in which Jeff Redwing, a gay computer genius, investigates the murder of a Carnegie Mellon alumnus. But at the time Ashworth didn’t think readers would be ready for a gay detective, so when he submitted the manuscript he removed any reference to the hero’s romantic life.

“Editors would tell me, ‘We like the story, but something is missing,’” says Ashworth. “And I would think, ‘Well, you’re right…’” So he put the novel aside, took a job as a supervisor at a Borders bookstore, and concentrated on other writing projects.

Last year, he decided it was time to rewrite The Killer of Orchids, with Redwing as a gay man once again. Coincidentally, at around the same time, Borders announced a fiction-writing contest open to all 30,000 employees. The winning book would be published, sold in over 1,000 bookstores, and featured in the Borders newsletter, which is sent to 28 million people.

“Normally it’s a struggle to get one copy in bookstores,” says Ashworth. “This would have the full brunt of Borders’ promotional powers behind it.”

The deadline was six months sooner than he planned to have the book finished, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. Even though it was the holiday season and he was working at Borders six days a week, sometimes 10 hours or more each day, he pushed himself to keep writing, whenever he had time to spare. Exhausted, he managed to submit the book by the deadline.

A few months later he got the call. Out of over 200 submissions that Borders received, The Killer of Orchids was chosen as the winner.