Like many authors, Donna Cantor has had her fair share of setbacks and rejections.
“If I printed out all of my rejection emails, they’d reach my ceiling,” said the township resident, whose second novel, “Released from the Shadows,” was released in February.
However, Cantor also went through some setbacks that many authors don’t have to face.
In 2001, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time, doctors did not think she needed chemotherapy, and instead gave her radiation and surgery.
When the cancer returned in 2009, Cantor went through chemotherapy and had a mastectomy. The grueling process of undergoing chemo was made easier by staying productive, she said.
“You have four or five hours to kill. Half the time I was grading papers, and the other part of the time I’d write,” Cantor said. “Writing was actually therapeutic, as it took my mind off of my health situation. It took my mind off of that my treatment was to chemically poison my body.” Cantor has fought through cancer twice and followed her dreams of becoming a published author.
Cantor had enjoyed reading from an early age, and as she got older, she wanted to become a writer.
The native of Brooklyn, New York, is a graduate of Brooklyn College who also attended Pace University, earning an MBA in writing.
After college, Cantor worked for Vanguard Corp., a company that made military insignia and accessories in Sunnyside, Queens.
In 1995, she moved to Edison. A mother of three grown children, Cantor is an English professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, where she teaches expository writing, research writing and basic composition.
Cantor was published for the first time in 1999. Her book “Sunnyside,” about a woman living in the Queens neighborhood, was published by Harper Perennial.
Champlain Avenue Books Inc. published “Released from the Shadows” this year.
“Released from the Shadows” follows a man named Robert Zarro, who spent three years in a Massachusetts prison for selling drugs. He moves to Sunnyside for a chance to reinvent himself. Zarro works as the manager of a warehouse, where he meets Maggie Ocampo, an undocumented worker. Ocampo is an immigrant from Nicaragua and owes her life to the gang that brought her into the country.
“‘Released from the Shadows’ is a tale of love, humor and redemption, set in a gritty urban landscape,” the book’s summary states.
Cantor said she doesn’t think of the plot before writing. She instead thinks of the characters and sees what obstacles are put before them, and allows them to grow and develop on their own. Characters in “Released from the Shadows” were loosely based on people she worked with at Vanguard Corp., and the warehouse itself is the setting for numerous scenes in the book, she said.
Cantor lent her advice to upand coming authors.
“Make sure you have a day job. Unless you make it big, it’s very hard to support yourself as a writer,” Cantor said. “Don’t give up on getting published. With every rejection email you receive, send the manuscript out again and again.
“It doesn’t matter if it takes you until you’re 40 to get published. You’re turning 40 anyway, but you’re not guaranteed to get published.”
“Released from the Shadows” is available on Amazon for Kindle and in paperback. “Sunnyside” is also available in paperback on Amazon.