Posted on

Christmas comes early for CC author

By Kate Hayden | khayden@charlescitypress.com

Tim Malven first imagined his protagonists in college, as part of a children’s literature course. Those two kids and their Christmas story would follow Malven from place to place until he finally found a publishing company to take a chance on the small picture book.

“I wrote this story and the instructor at the time thought it was pretty decent…Within the next five or so years I sent it to a couple of publishers, and got rejected,” Malven, a special education teacher at the Charles City Middle School, said. “I kept the manuscript for all these years, everywhere I moved, everywhere I went.”

Now a father, Malven’s story “The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t” found new life after he found the manuscript while cleaning through his desk. After reacquainting himself with the story, Malven decided to revise the last part of the book to feature a magical key, familiar to his own kids, that helps Santa Claus save the day for a family with little means.

“I just pulled it out and was reading it, and I decided after I read it to add a little more of my family’s flair into it,” Malven said. “We have four kids and so we kind of developed a little tradition over the years.”

Santa’s magic key makes it’s own appearance at the Malven household the night before Christmas each year, Malven said, to make up for the disappearance in chimneys at most modern houses. He submitted the revised story in March 2014 to Tate Publishing in Oklahoma City, and the book just missed a release day for the Christmas season, coming out in January 2015. Now Tate Publishing is marketing the book for the new holiday season, and Malven is donating two hardcover copies of the story to Lincoln and Washington Elementary in Charles City.

Seeing his first book in print has been a bit surreal for Malven.

“Back when I got rejected you kind of forget about it, move on. But I held on to it, and I knew when I had to move, I always took it with. I never disposed of it, and I’m glad I didn’t,” he said.

Malven will appear at two book signings, one at Birdie and Bo’s this Saturday at 10 a.m., who will be selling book copies and one reading-and-greeting on Nov. 23 at the Charles City Public Library. The book will also be for sale on Amazon.

Malven doesn’t have any current plans to follow up on his publishing debut, he said, although he’s not ready to discount future plans.

“It interests me. I’m going to see how this kind of rolls,” Malven said. “We’ll see what happens.”

Social Share

LATEST NEWS