The Karla Peterson Effect

“Talk about a dream/ trying to make it real…” Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics that are the “ties that bind” a former teacher turned author to a veteran columnist.

This essay is one that Karla Peterson would never author about herself. I knew if the story ever got out, it would be up to me to write it. Why?

If you know Karla Peterson, even superficially as I do, you will learn that she is the personification of humility. This is contrary to some major newspaper columnists, for whom tooting their own horn is part of the gig. Not Karla.

As a matter of fact, when she interviewed me recently for her review of my newest novel, Karla told me that she really didn’t know the effect of her writing makes on the readers for the San Diego Union-Tribune—or the affect, for that matter. I was flabbergasted and I am planning on making sure that in just my small sample size—Karla Peterson moves mountains.

We met in unusual circumstances. I read her 2002 essay on the power and wisdom of Bruce Springsteen’s album The Rising, which was inspired by the tragedy of 9.11. I was planning on teaching selections from that album to my juniors at Mt. Carmel High School, and she wondered how I was going to present Springsteen and the entire horrendous topic to seventeen year olds who had just lived through it, albeit on the West Coast. At that time I realized, as the saying goes, that we were ‘of the same mind.’

As years passed, we kept in touch, and after I retired from teaching, she was kind enough to read and review my novels—even though they were self-published; that is what makes her “Effect” so amazing. Fast forward to July 23^rd, the date she published her review of my latest novel Meet Me at Moonlight Beach—her headline: Author Writes a Love Letter to Encinitas. Needless to say it was very flattering. 

Within 48 hours, over 38 books sold on Amazon; the La Jolla Kiwanis Club asked me to speak to their members; Mira Costa College put me on a writers’ panel; and my reading at the local artsy shop Bliss 101 in downtown Encinitas was crowded with folks who had “heard the word” from Karla.

Then the unimaginable (for me, an indie writer without an agent or traditional publisher) happens. I call Barnes and Noble and plan to pitch my new book (since they did have a table of books with the sign: What Encinitas Is Reading!). Thinking I was just going to get another stink-eye from the mainstream bookseller as I have for 9 years, I am “shocked, shocked” to have the lovely Katie, the community Relations Manager, tell me “Mr. Pacilio, we already carry your books…and we have already sold some.”

“What?” is my first reaction, and that is followed by “How?”

To find the answer I race to the store to find Katie, who takes me to my books, filed under P in fiction. I catch my breath. I was an English teacher and the San Diego County “Teacher of the Year”; however, that means absolutely nothing to the publishing world. (And that is fair.) So to finally see my work on the shelves—well, it is a moment to remember. Then Katie politely says, “Would you like to autograph these copies?” My pen is at the ready. She even puts that green seal that read: “Autographed Copy.”

Then I ask the most important question: “How did this happen?” Katie’s response is that someone in the store must have read Karla Peterson’s column and realized what Karla herself told me, “I really enjoyed your book and I was pretty sure other people would, too.” So they purchased books from my distributer. We decide the books need to go on the aforementioned ENCINITAS table so folks can see it.

Before I leave, Katie asks me: “Would you like to speak here and do a book signing? I can order all your other books, too?” Would I? You bet I would! So thanks to “The Karla Peterson Effect” I will be speaking at the Encinitas branch of Barnes and Noble on Saturday, October 19^th from 2-4 pm. Drop the mike.

Karla Peterson WOULD NEVER write a column about how much her opinion matters. So I figured it was about time somebody else did. Thank you, Karla, for helping me out of “these ‘Badlands.’”

Karla Peterson is a longtime San Diegan whose beats at the San Diego Union-Tribune have included TV criticism, pop-culture, Comic-Con and San Diego people and lifestyles. She has won awards for entertainment criticism from the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors. A graduate of San Diego State University, she has been with the U-T since 1985.

Robert Pacilio taught English from 1977-2010 and has now written four novels.