Ever Ask A Publisher...For Permission?

Back in grad school I took a class on William Faulkner. It was one of my most favorite classes, also one of my toughest. In fact, it was the only class in which I didn't get an A (I got an A-, but I still tell people I got straight A's in grad school...).

For one assignment in my Faulkner class I decided to write a little story, an additional scene from The Sound and the Fury that I imagined happening after the book ended. I had so much fun writing it and my professor was very impressed at how it turned out--not enough to give me an A for the class (I'm not bitter...).

Right now, I'm collecting stories that I wrote both in grad school and after for a book I'm going to publish and I'd really like to include my Faulkner story for the collection. The problem is, I'm using the characters he created and even a small excerpt from the book for a For Profit project. I can't use the story without permission.

I was resigned to just not including the story, but my editor said she loved it, too. So I began to figure out just how one goes about asking for permission from a publisher to see if they'll let me use parts of Faulkner's story. Finally, today, I found the site I was looking for.

Now, I need to find out which page the excerpt was on before I can make my official request. Too bad I "read" it on audiobook...