Rose Mula was an executive
assistant, a public relations specialist, and an operations manager
for a New England theater chain before discovering a passion for
writing. She has written business and trade articles to earn a
living, and humor for the fun of it.
Her work has appeared
in The Saturday Evening Post, Yankee, Modern Maturity, The
Christian Science Monitor, The Reader's Digest, The Philadelphia
Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, and more than a hundred other
magazines and newspapers. Actually-thousands of newspapers, since
one of her essays, The
Stranger in My Mirror (originally titled, The Stranger
in My House), was reprinted in Ann Landers' nationally syndicated
column in 1999, without Rose's byline. Ms. Landers explained that
she had received it from her cousin in Phoenix and wanted to share
it with her readers even though she didn't know the author. When
Rose left a phone message for her, Landers returned the call personally,
with gracious compliments and apologies, and she promptly printed
an attribution.
Meanwhile, Rose did
some sleuthing and found her Stranger running rampant (and
nameless) on dozens of websites, all but one of which claimed
no prior knowledge of the author but were happy to hear from her
and add her name. The exception was the owner of a site who claimed
she had had the story for over twenty years. Not true, Rose pointed
out, because in the essay she mentioned VCRs, which were very
rare back then, and ATMs, which didn't exist for years later.
Rose never was able
to identify the original kidnapper who stole her Stranger
away. A couple of years before, her hometown newspaper, The
Andover Townsman, published it. She assumes that a reader
scanned it, without her byline, and started the whole distribution
chain by emailing it to a friend who decided to share it with
other cyber pals. And the saga continues to this day, the Stranger
is still popping up in e-mails across the nation. Rose wishes
she herself can achieve the same immortality. Meanwhile, she can
reached by e-mail.
Rose Mula's new book, If These Are Laugh Lines I'm Having Way Too Much Fun, is now available at your favorite bookstore, through online bookstores, and from Pelican Publishing 800-843-1724.
