Synchronicity & Spirit Communication

In 1984, Chris Cox, an editor at Ballantine Books, bought my first novel, In Shadow. He was the editor for my next ten books, was also a writer, and went to the Amazon and to Colombia with us when Rob and I led travel tours for writers through Avianca Airlines. He’s in that tiny picture at the top of the post, the guy at the far right. He was a complete original, funny and smart, adventurous and compassionate, and had a Virgo eye for detail, a valuable asset for an editor. I have always felt enormous gratitude to him for launching my career as a writer.

He died in 1990, one of the many young men of that time killed by AIDS. At his memorial service in New York, Susan Sarandon spoke movingly of her long-time friendship with Chris, which dated back before her first movie. I later was told by Chris’s friend and fellow editor, Cheryl, that Sarandon had paid for a private nurse for Chris during the final months of his illness.

I also spoke at that memorial service, remembering Chris’s sense of adventure on the trips he took with us. He was the first to suggest we get off the boat and traipse through the jungle, the first to board an inflatable raft at night that took us through a tributary, surrounded by a cacophony of jungle sounds. He was the first to eat the piranha we caught, the first to trade trinkets with the locals for a beautiful owl that we brought onto the boat and set free at the jungle camp where we stayed a couple of nights.

I had bought this wooden sculpture, the traveling man, on one of those trips and talked about how it exemplified Chris’s intrepid spirit.

After he died, I eventually lost touch with the people in his circle – Bob Wyatt, who was then editor –in-chief at Ballantine, and Iris Bass, who had been Chris’s wonderful assistant.

Periodically over the years, I “call” on Chris to get the publishing ball rolling. It goes something like this: Hey, you guys on the other side, can you help get stuff moving here? This group of publishing folks consists of Chris, our first agent Diane Cleaver, Kate Duffy, who was my editor at Kensington, and several writers. So, several days ago, en route to Orlando to celebrate Rob’s birthday, I called specifically on Chris and this time I added, Give me a sign that you received the message, ok?

Two days later, I received an email from the editor at Page Street who bought our book on precognition, Sensing the Future, which comes out in January 2017. Marissa said she loved the book and was sending it on to the copy editor. She then sent an introductory email to me and the copy editor. When I saw the copy editor’s name, Iris Bass, I thought no way it can be the same Iris. Then she emailed:

Thanks Marissa and hello Trish –

Not meaning to “weird you out,” Trish—esp. given the genre of this book—but we already know each other, sort of. I am the Iris Bass who was Chris Cox’s assistant 25+ years ago when you were writing mysteries for Ballantine. Not all that weird, actually; publishing is a surprisingly small world.

Publishing may be a small world, but it’s not that small and the odds impressed me. And I knew that Iris was the sign that Chris had received the message.Save