I was approached at a convention sometime in the second half of 2014 by two, sweet lady publishers concerning a project they had jointly cooked up.  "We're doing an anthology about tomatoes," they declared, "and we'd like you to submit something to it."
"Tomatoes," I repeated, stupidly.
"Yes, tomatoes; stories, facts, anecdotes, history, recipes..."
"A story about at tomato?"  I hadn't quite wrapped my mind around it."
"Yes, submit to us a story that heavily centers around tomatoes."
"Okay," I said a little evasively, "I might be able to do that, though I do have quite a few projects in the queue.  When's the submission period?"
And I thought it silly, and I thought it unlikely that I would have time anyway.  Still, before the weekend was up, the sweet ladies and their idea had charmed me.  I had an idea for a story burbling about in my brain.  I conceived the idea of a wizard who needed to be away for a few days and needed to have someone keep the varmints out of his garden, and thus my tomato hero was born.  
      You'll find the my story, The Beauty of Being, in the Omoeba Ink publication, Tomato Slices, in August.  If you contribute a little something to the Kickstarter in the next month here, you'll get some prize for being so nice, and might even get a copy of the anthology/cookbook a little sooner.

Thank you,

        Robert J. Krog

http://www.amoebaink.com/TomatoSlices.htm

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amoebaink/tomato-slices