Welcome

    Rita Plush lives and writes in Queens, New York. Rita is an interior designer, writer, lecturer and teacher of the decorative arts. She has spoken at libraries throughout Long Island, at Hofstra University and CW Post-Hutton House. She is the Coordinator of the Interior Design/Certificate Program in Continuing Education at Queensborough Community College. Her articles on interior design have appeared in Times Ledger Newspapers, distributed throughout Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens. Her writing practice includes fiction and non-fiction, and her stories and essays have been published in many literary journals including The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iconoclast, The MacGuffin and Passager. .  Lily Steps Out (Penumbra Publishing May 2012) is her first  novel. 



    The idea for Lily Steps Out originated with a short story Rita wrote in 2000, about a woman whose husband has a heart attack and the effect it has on her and her adult son. She brought the story to her writers group,worked on the characters, the dialogue, the plot line, and found an agent who loved the book. Bidding wars and movie deals danced in Rita's head, but alas, though publishers saw Lily as a "funny loveable character" and "were much engaged by the book," a contract did not follow.
    Disheartened but not discouraged, she sought out publishers who accepted non-agented fiction. Again, compliments but no contract. "Maybe Lily is not meant to be?" Rita thought, set the manuscript aside, and began another novel. 
    Years passed, and Rita took another look at Lily, hired a professional editor to fine tune the manuscript, a graphic artist to design the cover, and was close to self-publishing when she put her hand in one of her coat pockets, and out came a scrap of paper with Penumbra Publishing written in her own handwriting. "What's this?" she said to herself. This was the publisher she'd been looking for, and off to Penumbra Lily went. The rest, as they say is history. Lily's history. She was meant to be afterall.