"A Long Cherished Dream"

by Carla Vermaat

A couple of years after I translated Rene Appel's "Bloody Hot," British editor Maxim Jakubowski asked me to translate another Appel story and one by author/artist Carla Vermaat for an anthology of international crime stories he was working on. I did, and liked Vermaat's style enough to contact her and suggest that she send me a story for possible inclusion in EQMM's "Passport to Crime" feature.

Carla sent me a piece called "A Long Cherished Dream," in which an apparent murder turns out not to have actually been committed: at the end of the story, we find out that it was all just a dream. I asked her to change the ending so that the murder really does happen, she agreed, and Janet quickly bought the translation.

Looking at Carla's website, I found a painting which Laurie and I really liked. I asked Carla to sell it to me, but she wound up giving it to me instead, as a thank you for helping her to achieve her own long-cherished dream of English-language publication.

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