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UNL grad seeks
publisher for `emotional' manuscript
by Dane Stickney
Published August 4,
2002, in the Lincoln Journal Star
Sal Di Leo is not a
writer.
The 1977 University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate wants to make that
clear right away.
He does have a story, however, that he thinks deserves to be told.
So on a cold Minnesota day in January 1999, he sat down and pounded
out his life story, a manuscript titled "Did I Ever Thank You,
Sister?"
After six days of writing, laughing and crying, Di Leo was finished
with his story detailing his life as an orphan in Chicago, a student
at Boys Town and his struggles being separated from his departed
father and 11 siblings.
After his daughter, then a 17-year-old writing for the Minneapolis
Star Tribune, helped him edit the manuscript, Di Leo, a marketing
consultant in Minneapolis, began asking other people to read his
life story.
"Almost everyone told me it was a great, emotional story," he said.
"It felt good to hear them say that."
For the past three years, Di Leo has been circulating his manuscript
to friends, family and professional writers.
He's currently looking to publish his story, and he's even in the
process of selling it as a screenplay. Di Leo said his story has
garnered interest from Richard Friedenberg, who wrote the screenplay
for "A River Runs Through It."
But the writer who's not a writer wants to make one thing clear:
He's not going to overhaul his story just to get it sold.
After a well-respected editor in Minneapolis suggested some changes,
Di Leo and his daughter decided to ignore them.
"I don't want to lose something," he said. "Right now, it may not be
perfect in terms of the way it's written, but it has emotion."
And it's that emotion that has Di Leo excited about his manuscript.
He's been told to expect to sell it for between $100,000 and $1
million, he said.
But it's not the money or the glory that made Di Leo write.
"It was therapeutic," he said. "It helped me understand a lot of
things I had been wrestling with."
Copies of his manuscript can be purchased on Di Leo's Web site,
www.salsbook.com.
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