Welcome to my second installment of Birth of a Book. For those of you who didn’t see last month’s installment, LCNS2ROM – License to Roam: Vanity License Plates and the Stories They Tell,TM is a forthcoming book by myself with photography by award winning Manhattan photographer, Nancy Ney (nancyney.com). Our vision for this book is to relate 25 compelling personal profiles of vanity plate owners, using prose and photgraphy. That being said, we had no idea how wonderful and compelling some of these stories could be.

Take Rudy and Ally Masry, a couple who have been married for over 40 years and still act like teenagers affected by the first blush of love, for instance. “Rudy and Ally Masry are always together, even when they’re miles apart. That’s because, in 2003, Ally donated one of her kidneys to Rudy, who was suffering from end stage renal failure.” Rudy and Ally both have New York State issued “Donte Life” plates. Ally’s plate reads ‘DONOR’ while Rudy’s reads ‘DONEE.’ Of course, just because you know what a plate says, it doesn’t mean you know what it means. You would need to know Ally and Rudy’s story to fully appreciate just what was donated. You may go to www.LCNS2ROM.com to read Rudy and Ally’s profile.

This month we also interviewed Emily Perl Kingsley who’s vanity plate, “RAFLPRIZ” is attached to her BMW convertible. You guessed it, she won it in a raffle...a Special Olympics raffle. But, why was Emily at this event and who picked the winning ticket? That’s what Emily’s story is all about.

We have been designing a prototype of our book in order to have something to show to agents and publishers. This book is going to be different from other books which have been published, so we thought it best to have a “visual aid” so we can show them what our vision for the book is. Well, after a couple of failed attempts...the size is wrong, the graphics don’t work, the writing isn’t quite right, etc...we’ve come upon a design we feel will work and not only pleases us, but will please publishers and the book-buying market in general. Of course, we’ve thought that before...only time will tell.

Hopefully, if you haven’t really noticed vanity license plates before, you will begin to now. I invite all of you to follow our progress, here in The Montauk Sun as well as on our website: www.LCNS2ROM.com. You may submit your own vanity plate for consideration there also!! Wouldn’t you like to be featured in a book?
I look forward to your joining us on our long and winding road to publication. None of us realized how long that road would be, but we’re up for the journey and look forward to the destination. Keep an eye out for those vanity plates!!

NTL NXT MNTH (Until Next Month),
~Stefan