The Bird Sisters

Goodreads Giveaway!

2011-12-05T23:01:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! I didn't want any of you to miss out on this lovely giveaway! 24 copies of The Bird Sisters are up for grabs over at Goodreads. Thank you Crown/Broadway!

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/17830-the-bird-sisters-a-novel

XO Rebecca

Guest Post by Doreen Mcgettigan

2011-10-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

It was about this time of the year. I sat on the front porch with my bonus daughter Heather

and rubbed her eight months pregnant belly.

I created one thousand reasons in my mind why the baby boy

was not kicking like a little football player.

Kyle Christopher was born on a warm, early fall day.

He was transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

My daughter, Joan and, frantically searched for a christening outfit.

Kyle was baptized and dedicated that day. One minister forgot his oil.

The skinny, tiny boy was connected to monitors and a feeding tube.

It was difficult with all the apparatus, I had to hold him. To me he was perfect.

He was diagnosed with Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome. Yeah, we never heard of it either.

It is extremely rare. Rare like less than 200 diagnosed.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/949125

The doctors were not optimistic. We learned everything we could about the syndrome.

We learned CPR and feeding tube care.

It was likely Kyle would never walk or talk. Four families and countless friends came together

to offer their support for these young parents.

Matt and Heather were simply amazing. I will never forget the first smile Kyle blessed me with.

Against all odds Kyle grew, slowly.

He attended Easter Seals. I could write a book on the love I have for this organization and the extra

ordinary love the teachers have for our worlds

most precious angles. They taught Kyle sign language. We learned to sign.

We taught Kyle’s baby brother and his cousins to sign.

His feeding tube was finally removed; he was able to eat real food. I will never forget the time

I was feeding Kyle spagettios. I thought he was finished.

I reached for the napkin to wipe his face and he tapped his little pointer fingers together. [the sign for more.]

His first word for me was more.

I cried. On September 15^th we will celebrate fourteen years with Kyle.

The baby boy that wasn’t supposed to live for 72 hours. There must have been some magic in

the Wesson oil that minister used.

Doreen Mcgettigan is the author of the bittersweet book BRISTOL bOYZ STOMP, which will make its debut in just a few short days! You can find her and the book at http://www.doreenmcgettigan.com

The Paperback!

2011-10-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,
I am finally coming out of the hardcover cloud that I was in (and the moving across the country cloud, too) and just in time...

The Bird Sisters is arriving in paperback on November 22nd, with a lovely new cover! It's been chosen at a Target Emerging Authors pick, too! Here is a preview for all of you:

As always, thank you so much for your support! XOXO, Rebecca

Guest Post!

2011-06-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

In the Palms of Angels

by Terri Kirby Erickson

Several months before the release of my new collection, In the Palms of Angels, I didn’t have a venue for the launch party. Every place I thought about having it was too expensive. An art museum I enjoy visiting actually wanted a thousand dollars for one evening’s rental!

I was to the point of having the party in my own backyard when Chaplain Joanne Henley of the Derrick L. Davis Forsyth Regional Cancer Center, suggested I have it there. I’ve been volunteering at the Cancer Center for some time now, and she thought it would be perfect for me to have my party in their large “conference” room, (which really is huge!), not to mention the fact that it sports its own kitchen! I was thrilled with this idea, although a few people later suggested it might be depressing to have a celebration in a medical facility.

In my view, however, the DLDFR Cancer Center is a place of hope and healing, so after receiving permission from Executive Director Sharon Murphy, we forged ahead with our plans to create a magical evening for everyone who attended. Chaplain Henley, GI Oncology Nurse Navigator, Julie Pope and others, were wonderful in helping us achieve the perfect “look” for the room, transforming an already engaging facility into a gorgeous showplace!

My publisher, Kevin Morgan Watson of Press 53, voiced an idea that had already occurred to me—that I donate 10% of book sales for the evening, to the Cancer Center to thank them for this kind and supportive gesture. It turned out that I was able to donate even more than this amount with one of my long-time friends, Tim Plowman, writing a check for his copy of In the Palms of Angels that included an extra hundred dollars! I decided to match his generosity and donated a hundred dollars over the ten percent I had promised.

At Chaplain Henley’s suggestion, the money went to the Center’s Simstein Fund, which was set up by the family of the late Dr. Lee Simstein, to offer financial assistance to patients who cannot afford the costs associated with cancer treatment. I was so honored that Mrs. Simstein, her daughter and grandchild were among the 150 plus guests who attended the party on April 7. It was an evening I’ll never forget!

As I stood at the podium that night, I felt very grateful and blessed. Beside me was the exquisite painting (that is on the book cover) entitled, “Frances,” that my uncle, artist Stephen White, dedicated to our dear family friend, 91 year old Frances Y. Dunn (the person I want to be when I grow up!). In front of me were so many people they were literally spilling into the lobby. A few folks were scrambling to bring in extra chairs until there wasn’t room for another human being in that space. Among the audience members were people I love including my husband, daughter, parents, publisher, other relatives, friends, neighbors, fellow writers and even my fifth grade teacher; some faces I recalled from other readings; and many others I’d never seen before.

One face I didn’t expect is an icon of American literature, John Ehle, and I can tell you, I was thrilled to see him there! I was later told that one of his favorites of the poems I read from In the Palms of Angels is called, “Making the Biscuits,” so I was very glad I chose that particular poem.

I just want to briefly mention two friends who couldn’t be there that evening, but I know were there in spirit—Ron Powers, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Mark Twain, A Life and co-author of Flags of Our Fathers, who wrote a brilliant Introduction to my book, and beloved syndicated columnist, Sharon Randall, who I’m honored to say, wrote a lovely paragraph for the back cover. I am very grateful to both of them for their glowing endorsements.

All in all, April 7 turned out to be a perfect evening, and truly a triumph for all poets and poetry that so many people would come to the launch party for a book of poems. What no one knew, however, was that my husband, Leonard, would be undergoing a biopsy in another week or so—and we were waiting to find out if he had cancer, himself. It felt at once ironic and surreal, but we were and are determined to think positively.

It turns out that he does, indeed, have prostate cancer and his surgery is scheduled for June 29. We are optimistic for a full recovery, and appreciate the prayers and support of so many caring friends, including readers who have been so kind with help and advice.

It has been nothing but a pure blessing from the time I decided to write poetry for publication until this moment, when I am busily promoting my third book and getting ready for this challenging medical journey that my husband and I are facing together. My poetry writing has been a solace and balm for me, and I’m very grateful for all the wonderful people I’ve met along the way. I love the title of this new book because I have long felt that we live our lives in the palms of angels—those benevolent and beloved beings who protect and guide us. And I hope if you decide to get a copy of your own, that you will enjoy reading In the Palms of Angels as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Peace and love,

Terri Kirby Erickson

June, 2011

Topsail Island

Excerpt from In the Palms of Angels,

We knelt near

the shoreline

gathering shells,

pieces of sea glass,

stones. Wind

salted our faces,

sent a kite circling,

filled a red sail.

Curtains danced

in cottage windows;

a flock of gulls

wheeled. Joy,

joy, joy, they cried—

flying far out

to sea, becoming

pinpoints of light.

Terri Kirby Erickson is the award-winning author of three books of poetry, including her latest, In the Palms of Angels (Press 53). Her work has been published in numerous literary journals, anthologies and other publications, including The Christian Science Monitor, JAMA, Verse Daily and the North Carolina Literary Review. She was recently one of eleven winners of the international Nazim Hikmet Poetry award. For more information about her work, please see her website at: http://terrikirbyerickson.wordpress.com You can also order the book on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Palms-Angels-Terri-Kirby-Erickson/dp/1935708279/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1, in fine bookstores or other Internet venues.

Keep Writing, Even When It Hurts by Kathryn A. Brackett

2011-06-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

Keep Writing, Even When It Hurts by Kathryn A. Brackett

When I was born, I was small enough to fit into an adult’s palm. My father was afraid to hold me as he peered at my premature shell, hooked to machines. I’d made my entrance into the world a month earlier than I should have. My brother, ten years old at the time, kept saying my face looked like a crumpled, red dishcloth.

My debut left quite a physical and emotional impression on my mother. She lay in a room somewhere, struggling through toxemia, a condition that caused blood pressure spikes and hazy vision that made it hard to see the baby she’d tried to hold inside her womb to full term. Doctors predicted we wouldn’t leave the hospital alive, but my mother and I did, eleven days later. She took me home, along with a long scar embedded in her skin. Her Cesarean mark carries a story to this day, a story she conveniently rebirths in her mind each time I THINK I’m too grown to listen to her, or one she shares with me when I feel like crawling into the ground after a large disappointment has beaten me nearly unconscious. As the baby of the family, you can imagine how many times I’ve heard the Caesarian story against my will. As a writer, you can imagine how many times I’ve needed to hear it to keep going in this profession.

It took eight years to publish a short story from my collection. Before then, I’d sent stories out to more publishers than I care to remember. The form letter rejections became snakes in my mailbox, waiting to bite me as soon as I pulled open the lid. The electronic ones waited boldly in my email inbox, while the notes of encouragement from editors were bitter-sweet gifts. Some of my work received recognition in fiction contests but all of them were rejected for publication over and over again in literary magazines. For a long time, I walked around with a hunchback of disappointment poking out from the back of my neck. Yet, despite the frustrations, I kept reworking the stories. I kept putting my work out there until my first acceptance came from an editor who wanted to publish the piece in an anthology. Another story was picked up in a print literary magazine a year later. This year I’ve placed work in my second national writing contest, published in an online journal, and received an honorable mention in an international magazine.

A woman in my writing group shared a quote with me from Winston Churchill that summed up my journey to publication: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Despite the physical and mental beating my characters have given me over the years, I couldn’t, and still can’t, let go of them until they are ready to sustain themselves. They have driven me to several degrees of insanity since I first ‘met’ them. I’ve worked entire days without moving from my desk, I’ve wrestled in bed with visions of their faces bubbling up in my head, I’ve soothed Ganglion cysts near my wrists from all the typing. Like any writer, I’ve loved my characters, I’ve hated them, I’ve even been afraid of them, not of who they are but of who they want to become and what it will take of my life, my soul, to fulfill their needs that have become my own.

Family members or friends who aren’t writers will often say, “I don’t get it. I thought writing was just putting ideas on paper. How hard is that?”

I tell them what Red Smith believed, “Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.”

And then they stare at me as if I’ve spouted out a mathematical equation in a foreign language. See, non-writers don’t understand that writing is an endless fight of passion, sometimes painful, sometimes completely enrapturing. They don’t comprehend why we cry when a character dies. They don’t get why we have post-it-notes all over the house or little notebooks in our purses/back pockets.

“You’re weird,” they say. “Why care about someone who isn’t real?”

“But they are,” I declare. “They are!”

And still, I get that confused look. Maybe some things should remain a mystery, like how I can’t figure out why anyone would eat beef that’s still bleeding on the inside, or interpret half the slang in my teenage cousin’s text messages when I have a master’s degree in writing. Her messages are an enigma, just as a writer’s way of thinking puzzles people who don’t compose stories on paper from their imaginations.

Writers are a special breed. We love our characters as much as we love people we can touch. We think it’s “normal” to talk to ourselves a little more than we should, and when people say we’re eccentric, we think of ways to put them stories without their permission. Writers embrace the oddities, the celebrations and the disappointments of their craft.

I can’t help but ponder what Dorothy Parker said about writing: “If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you."

Or Norman Mailerv: "Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day."

And Jessamyn West: "Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential."

As a writer, you have to accept the pain as much as you accept the pleasure. You have to listen to your characters as you listen to your mother’s stories of your birth. Being a writer is hard work, and if you’re fully embracing your talent, then you know how easy it is to think about giving up when nothing in the future looks promising, but you also know how hard it is to turn your back on a dream that’s kept you company from the moment you opened your eyes in the world. Though the process of writing can be a struggle at times, you keep fighting, you carry on, because you can’t imagine doing anything else that makes you this crazy while giving you such pleasure at the same time.

Kathryn A. Brackett earned her MFA in Fiction from the University of Pittsburgh. Her work is published in or forthcoming from Waccamaw Journal, Mythium: The Journal of Contemporary Literature, and Expecting Goodness & Other Stories, an anthology of fiction chosen by C. Michael Curtis, senior editor of The Atlantic magazine, and runner-up in the Independent Publisher IPPY Awards for the top collection of short fiction in North America in 2009. Her stories have received national and international recognition in WordHustler’s Page to Screen Short Story Contest, judged by Sara Gruen; the Carrie McCray Memorial Literary Awards, the Stony Brook Short Fiction Prize, and the Carpe Articulum Literary Review, among others. You can find her and her blog at www.kathrynbrackett.com.

Introducing Paul Elwork and Michelle Reale

2011-05-24T07:17:00.000-07:00

SSM 2011: Conversation between Paul Elwork and Michelle Reale, 5.20.11

In honor of Short Story Month 2011, I thought it would be fun to chat a bit with a short-story writer I know, Michelle Reale, about her work. Michelle has published many short pieces, largely flash fiction, in a variety of journals. She has also published a chapbook of her work entitled Natural Habitat (Burning River Press); her second story collection, Like Lungfish Getting through the Dry Season, is forthcoming from Thunderclap Press in 2011, as well as another short fiction collection, If All They Had Were Their Bodies, from Burning River. Michelle’s fiction has a compressed power and clarity of language that is both arresting and often deeply unsettling. She gives us engaging characters that suggest haunted pasts and troubled futures, all with warmth that never gets sentimental and a brutal honesty that avoids cynicism.

I asked Michelle to send me several links to her work and she replied with the following stories: “What Passes for Normal,” “Shells,” “Current,” “Frantic City,” “We, the Women,” and “Three Stories": Honeymoon, Local Custom, and Bone in the Throat.” Sample through them and see for yourself the qualities I’ve listed above. And now, let’s pick Michelle’s brain a bit…

Paul Elwork: These stories are so well-rendered, reading them is a bit like paging through a book of illustrations full of shadows and striking details. Dysfunctional family dynamics run through these selections. The mother in “What Passes for Normal” is absolutely frightening in her sociopathology and ability to put a good face on things for people outside her family. Can you put your finger on what draws you to this subject matter?

Michelle Reale: I will say that if there is a flaw, I will see it before most people will. I am very shy and I have been all my life. Being shy often means that you “participate” from the sidelines. In school, people thought I was mute! But I watched very closely, always. And I listened, and still do listen, very carefully when people talk. Even in conversation there is a “text” and a “subtext,” if you will. We are all schizophrenic in so many ways. Living in polite society often means sublimating what we are really thinking and feeling. We compartmentalize our feelings, what we will say and to whom and in what context. But I can see the underside of nearly everything. And I also know that people are not always what they seem: the good aren’t always so good, and the bad aren’t always so bad. Some of my fiction will really exploit that dark side of human nature. “What Passes for Normal” was hard to write in some respects. Our society does not like flaws. We abhor what isn’t “pretty” and we shun those who fall out of the strict parameters of “normal.” I don’t even really know what normal is!

Families, too, fascinate me. What an absolutely complex relationship system. I like to explore what happens there. We can live with people our whole lives and not really know them—we are all unknowable in that way, so when I write about people and families and relationships, I am really trying to figure things out. I realize that this is not very original—I think most writers are after the same exact thing—we are writing to make sense of things. My characters are flawed, indeed. They suffer. They are not pretty. They hurt inside and then they hurt others. My job is to make them live on the page to regret it. And if I get a reaction from a reader, I suppose I have done my job!

PE: Nobody really knows what normal is. It’s one of those myths of polite society. And I like the notion of discovery you proceed with. Does anyone write really good fiction if he or she goes in with it all figured out and ends with absolutely unchanged notions?

I agree that family dynamics are an endless resource for inspiration. What informs your fiction more: Your own family dynamics, past and present, or your outside observations? Or is that too difficult to tease apart?

MR: I have to say that I am not a person who sits down and outlines or any such thing. For myself, I simply don’t see the value, most especially because for me writing is an exercise not only in creativity, but in discovery. Often, I may have an idea in my head, the way I think a piece may go, but then it goes in the opposite direction. I don’t think the writing mind is rigid—at least not for fiction. I have written an academic book in my field—now that book I most definitely had a game plan for—and I laid the groundwork very carefully. Fiction, however, is a whole different ball game, requiring more heart than mind. I don’t want to think when I write fiction—does that sound strange? But I really don’t. I want to hit bedrock of truth somehow and I can’t do that with my brain. Brain turns fiction into formula. As a reader I am turned off by that right away. As I writer, it frightens me.

My fiction is informed not so much by real incidents either in my life or the lives of others, but from impressions of incidents. How something made me feel, how it might have made others feel. I think about the fallout from messy emotional situations. Things like that. I was recently buying coffee in a Dunkin Donuts where they also have Baskin Robbins ice cream. I watched in horror as a mother practically bullied her daughter who looked to be about 10 or 11 to me into getting two scoops (“might as well,” she kept saying) instead of just one on her cone. When she relented (she had her arms crossed over her chest—a very defensive position) the mother proceeded to make fun of the fact that she’d never get a boyfriend with all of that belly fat she had around. I stood there with my mouth open. I felt an instant stab in a vulnerable place inside of me. How awful.

PE: Such a staggering, loaded moment. It’s definitely one where your guts kind of clench from the emotional impact, even as part of your mind recognizes something that applies straight to fiction. It also sounds like a moment right out of one of your stories.

MR: I went home and wrote about it. It hasn’t made its way into a story—yet, but it will surely surface somewhere. Think of all the strange (and sad) dynamics going on there. There is a truth there somewhere. And my fictional truth may not be that family’s truth, of course, but it is fiction, after all.

PE: What are your thoughts on writing in longer forms? I find it fascinating how writers are drawn to different forms, like visual artists using certain materials, or singers working in different keys. Do you have any plans for longer works or any in progress?

MR: I hear this debate a lot with writers: whether to write in longer form or not, especially if they’ve been writing short, short prose. No one ever asks a poet that question! I have long considered myself a miniaturist—even when I was writing (awful) stories that were 10–12 pages long. What I was trying, all that time (I now realize) was to get to the shorter form.

PE: Sure, that makes sense—and it isn’t a matter of right or wrong, but one of personal inclination. I remember Joyce Carol Oates writing somewhere that any literary idea can be expressed in a poem, a short story, or a novel—it’s just a question of how you want to feature it stylistically, what kind of effect you’re going for, etc. I completely agree. You’ve got to go where your interest takes you and trust that.

MR: I am more and more interested in distillation, how to use fewer words. I use Virginia Woolf as my guide and concentrate on those “moments of being”—when I can see and feel an entire world in a gesture, or the look on a face. I also work in themes. Right now I am pursuing a certificate in Peace Studies because I am interested in all of the conflicts and revolutions in the world. As a result, I am writing prose poems about my experiences abroad and my encounters with immigrant populations, fleeing turmoil in inhospitable places. I was in Sicily twice in April and witnessed the not-so-ambivalent feelings the Italian government has toward those fleeing their countries (especially North Africa) to its shores. I am Italian-American and this moved me profoundly. I had the opportunity to speak with men from various countries that have been stripped of dignity, trying to make a new life there. I saw with my own eyes the confiscated boats where they seize these people (mostly men) and detain them or make their lives miserable enough until they leave for somewhere else, other places that also don’t want them. I cannot, for instance, write a novel about something like this, because I do not have the interest in a sustained narrative about a certain number of characters. What I do have is an interest in writing many, many prose poems that I feel will be more powerful for their “staccato” succinctness and that represent a wide variety of encounters, impressions, and especially strong images. I could change some day and decide to challenge myself and write a novel, but I am not sure that I even have the capability, to tell you the truth. The intersection of prose and poetry is where I really like to be right now. In fact, I have felt more comfortable in this form than in any other. I plant my feet firmly in this place, write, and get better and better. I still have so much to learn, but I am nothing if not a very patient person!

Michelle Reale is an academic librarian on faculty at Arcadia University in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Her work has been published in a wide variety of venues, including Eyeshot, elimae, Pank, JMWW, Gargoyle, Word Riot, Monkeybicycle, Moon Milk Review, and many others. Her work was included in Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2010. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Paul Elwork lives on the outskirts of Philadelphia and is the father of two sons. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Philadelphia Stories, Short Story America, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Word Riot. His novel The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead (Amy Einhorn Books/Penguin Group) is available online and in bookstores everywhere. For more information and links to short fiction and other content, please visit www.paulelwork.com.

Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong By Jolina Petersheim

2011-04-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

Jolina Petersheim's blog, The Happy Book Blog, at a year old has been featured twice on Southern author River Jordan’s Clearstory Radio. Currently it is syndicated with The Tennessean's "On Nashville" Blogroll, featured under author Jessica McCann’s “Stuff for Writers,” award-winning freelance writer Melissa Crytzer-Fry’s Blogroll and numerous other creative writing sites. Jolina lives in the mountains of Tennessee with her Mohican-man husband, their 40 acres of untamed territory, and one unruly but lovable Southern novel-in-progress set on a tobacco plantation in northwest Tennessee.

Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong

It almost felt like we were Peeping Toms as my husband and I clustered around the computer screen, avidly watching the most intimate details of this young family’s life for the twentieth time in less than ten days. We laughed when the couple picked on each other, fretted when their offspring didn’t seem to be thriving the way we thought they should, wondered if all of them would be able to stand the harsh elements pervading their setting, and secretly questioned the parents’ abilities to keep their three offspring alive.

No, we weren’t watching the latest “reality” TV show churned out by Hollywood, but a family of bald eagles my husband had discovered through an online live cam. I had caught him watching them last Sunday, and although at first I couldn’t understand the draw, I soon became as addicted to their interactions as he. The mother and father shared the responsibility of their brood: the one sat on the hatchlings while the other flew over the dense Iowan woods--scouring it for rabbits, ravens, and even a fish whose scales reflected like tiny mirrors angled toward the sun. It actually took my breath as the mother/father (I still cannot tell them apart) ripped hunks of meat from their partner’s latest catch and carefully depositing it into their offspring's uplifted, chirping mouths.

Last evening, before I went for a walk in the graveyard, I watched one of the hatchlings teeter toward the edge of the nest on unsteady claws and flapping, downy wings. Less than five minutes later, when I was tying my tennis shoes, my husband called from the office, “Honey! C’mere! Quick!”

When I came into the office and looked at the screen, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Both of the parents were in the six foot, one and a half ton nest, and they were balancing a tree branch between their yellow beaks. One of them then took it from the other and put it at the edge of the nest where the hatchling had just been.

“They’re doing that to keep the babies from falling out,” my husband explained. I told him to call if they did anything else exciting, and I’d come tearing back.

Sometimes when I walk to the graveyard beside our apartment, I completely forget why it is there. Encamped by rolling hills, swaying saplings covered with pink cotton ball blossoms, and soaring mountains, it seems no more a place for the dead as Mars is for the living. But last evening, it was different. I guess it was because I was tired, and that bald eagle family had gotten me thinking about family life in general. I guess part of it had to do with the past month and a half, and though I don't want to go into much detail to protect those it is more greatly affecting, I will say that it has been one of the toughest experiences of my life.

So, instead of trucking up and down that paved pathway, I walked onto the grass and swatted down before the gravestones. I looked at the cameoed photograph of a woman who’d died when she was years younger than I, yet born a decade before the birth of my own mother. I traced my fingers over the dates of the departed, and my heart ached for the couple who’d been severed by death because the other half of their whole had kept on living. In their photo, although neither of them were really smiling, I could see the love they’d shared in the way she put an arm around his shoulders, and the way he gently clasped it with one of his callused hands.

The sun was setting behind the distant hills, so I decided to head back toward our apartment. After spending a day wearing long sleeves in eighty degree weather, I’d also decided it was time to switch out my winter and summer clothes. This is a task I despise more than any other; I would rather alphabetize the contents of my refrigerator than sort and refold all of my clothing. Despite this, I lugged all of my summer totes into our bedroom, started shucking sweaters from hangers, then paused and walked into the living room. I needed some music to get me going. Feeling slightly sentimental, I scrolled down through the playlists on my laptop until I found the one I sought: Wedding Mix.

Singing off-key to Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, Air Supply, and Dan Folgelberg, I suddenly got a second wind and soon had two totes completely emptied into drawers and refilled with sweaters. Then a new song began to play: “Love Life Us Up Where We Belong.” Because of what has transpired over the past month and a half, the lyrics resonated with me in a way they never have before. It spoke of living in a world where few hearts survive, how long the road is, how there are mountains in our way, but that love would lift us up to a place where -- and here I even got goose bumps -- eagles cry on a mountain high.

Needless to say, I was knocked into an emotional abyss before the second verse. Recalling that husband and wife gravestone when she’s not even dead, I began getting teary-eyed. Then I recalled how it said at the very bottom, “To know him was to love him,” and those tears, they started rolling.

Darting into the office, I stretched my arms out toward my husband and blubbered, “To know you is to love you!”

My husband, still watching the bald eagle family in between listing eBay items, looked back at me standing there with tears streaming down my face and said, “What? What happened?”

I pointed toward our bedroom and half-laughed/half-sobbed, “That song! Regardless of what we face, love will lift us up to a mountain high!” I then pointed to the computer screen where the father/mother eagle was tenderly feeding his/her young. “Just like them! Just like that bald eagle family!”

My husband pushed his rolling chair out from beneath the desk and stood. “Oh my, honey,” he said, “you’re really tore up.”

Wiping my face on my long shirtsleeve, I laughed, “I know! I don’t even know what happened!”

He walked with me back to our bedroom, which was strewn with chunky knit sweaters and sleeveless tanks. Reaching out his finger, he tapped down the volume on my laptop.

“Don’t!” I hollered. “I like it loud!”

“I know, but the song’s making you cry,” he said.

I wrapped my arms around him and looked up, “Yes, but these are happy tears, Randy. Happy tears. I’m just so, so blessed.”

Now, as I write this out on our land, my husband is strengthening our future home -- our love nest, if you will -- and I am sitting in the sun after having helped him pick up pieces of siding and fascia. And I know, regardless of how long our journey together is, how many mountains present themselves as we travel it, that love will continually lift us up to a place where we belong...just like those eagles.

(Live cam for bald eagles can be found here.)

Launch Day!

2011-04-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

I am about ready to get on another plane to start this tour off, but I was thinking about all of you on my first plane ride and for the first time I was crying not out of fear but out of joy. You all have made this journey so wonderful for me. You've picked me up. You've offered your arms. You've wiped my (many) tears. And I will never be able to tell you how that saved me and my little book over the last year and a half. I love you all and I mean it. You have my heart.

With Love from the Detroit Airport,
Rebecca

1 Day Before The Bird Sisters Launch!

2011-04-11T05:19:00.000-07:00

I can't believe we are almost there! I want to wish everyone a great day -- I am trying to enjoy this day before I hop on a plane to Pennsylvania and officially get things rolling with The Bird Sisters. Thank you to all of you for being such wonderful supporters of me and the book. And of course friends!

Love,
Rebecca

BOOK CLUB IN A BOX--4 days until Launch Day!

2011-04-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone -- I wanted to let you know about a GREAT giveaway happening c/o the amazing Dawn from Too Fond of Books. She is generously giving away up to ten hardcover copies of The Bird Sisters and a skype call with me for a book club. If you are part of a book club and are interested, here is the link: TOO FOND OF BOOKS

The Nervous Breakdown

2011-04-03T07:52:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone-- I wanted to share with you a lovely feature on the Bird Sisters at The Nervous Breakdown, which includes a self-interview, an excerpt, and some other pretty wonderful things. Thank you so much for all of your support! I can't wait to go on the road and meet so many of you! http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/category/fiction/

XOX Rebecca

Thank you!

2011-04-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone for putting up with my Facebook accounts recently -- they have been compromised and I am working on getting them restored. This has been a bit of a nightmare, and it's all of my friends who have been getting me through. Visit me on Twitter or at my website if you need anything.

Thank you again for your support and your love and patience.

It's now only 10 days until the Bird Sisters launch! If you pre-order the book and would like me to send you a signed bookplate, simply email me at thebirdsisters {at] gmail {dot} com

Also, GREAT NEWS! The Bird Sisters is a Fiction Pick for Barnes and Noble for April! What an honor!

XOXOX,
Rebecca

Launch Day for Jessica McCann

2011-03-31T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hold On for the Ride (or How to Write a Novel)

by Jessica McCann

Writing your first novel is like a walk in the park. Really, you say, it’s that easy? Before you rush to judgment, allow me to share a story about one particular walk in the park with my dogs.

My rescue pup, a super-loveable German Sheppard mix, has some “issues” around other dogs when she’s on leash. Maybe she's protective of me. Maybe it's a doggy dominance thing. But a few years ago, during a hike in one of our many Phoenix desert preserves, we happened to cross paths with a rambunctious golden retriever and its owner. Both dogs pulled at their leashes, lunging toward one another with noisy growls and flying saliva. It was unclear if they wanted to play or fight, but we weren’t about to risk finding out.

As I struggled to gain control of my unruly pup, I stumbled over a large rock in the trail and went sprawling into the dirt. She continued to pull at her leash, and I continued to hold on. She dragged me about four or five feet, my legs flailing behind me, through the rocks and desert grit. The retriever finally passed us, its owner shouting horrified apologies back over his shoulder, and my dog finally eased up. I took a deep breath and pulled myself to my feet. My knees were shaking. My shins were bloodied. My husband came rushing to me, apologizing that he had been unable to assist, since he had our other large dog on a leash and needed to stay out of the fray.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” I finally managed to say, looking around for witnesses, my voice breaking, tears welling in my eyes.

“No,” my husband said with a huge grin. “That was awesome! I’m so proud of you. You held on.”

Had I let go, we might have had a dog fight on our hands. Had I let go, our girl might have run away into the desert. Rattle snakes, dehydration and the busy highway were just a few of the dangers she would have faced. I had no choice but to hold on.

Writing a novel is like THAT walk in the park. Or, at least, it was for me. I had to risk a little embarrassment, risk getting a little bloodied, to get the job done. I had a story I desperately wanted to share, and so I had to hold on.

We’ve been through a lot of dog training classes since that fateful day on the desert trail. But my girl can still be unruly at times. Sure, we could have taken her to back to the rescue shelter, given up on her in favor of an “easier” dog, one more manageable. But she’s part of the family. When she drops her tattered sock-toy in my lap and patiently waits for me to throw it -- her helicopter tail whirling, her big brown eyes dancing -- I can’t imagine the heartache I’d feel if we had given up on her.

I’ve been through a lot "training" myself since I started writing my first novel, despite my previous experience and success writing nonfiction. Multiples drafts, critiques, revisions, queries and rejections were part of the long process leading to a polished manuscript and a publishing contract.

My debut novel, ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF FREE, was inspired by actual events. It tells the story of Margaret Morgan, a free woman of color in 1830s America whose perfect life was shattered when she was kidnapped and forced into slavery. It was a challenging, emotional, sometimes painful story to research and write. Sure, I could have put it in a drawer, given it up in favor of something easier to write. But the gratification of telling Margaret's story in a way that might touch or inspire those who read the book has made all the hard work worthwhile. When the UPS truck pulls up to my house with a box full of books -- fresh from the printer, with crisp pages and ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF FREE emblazoned on the glossy cover -- I can’t imagine the heartache I’d feel if I had given up my quest to tell Margaret’s story.

Whether you dream of writing a novel or of some other goal, my advice is to go for a walk in the park and hold on for the ride. Life is only half-lived if you haven’t bloodied your knees at least a couple times.

***

Happy Launch Day, Jessica!

If you're interested in purchasing Jessica's beautiful novel here are some helpful links:

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Different-Kinds-Free-Jessica-McCann/dp/1611940052/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301580562&sr=1-1

Barnes & Noble

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/All-Different-Kinds-Of-Free/Jessica-McCann/e/9781611940053/?itm=1&USRI=jessica+mccann

NOOKbook

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/All-Different-Kinds-of-Free/Jessica-McCann/e/9781611940268/?itm=2&USRI=jessica+mccann

The Never Ending Re-Write by Beth Winegarner

2011-03-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

When I was in my late teens, I would proofread my dad's market-research reports for extra pocket money. They needed it; my dad had a habit of inserting a comma every time he paused to look at his notes, take a phone call, or leave the room for a snack.

So, among other things, I would remove all those extraneous commas.
Unfortunately, he had another proofreader – a professional one.

One time he told me, “When you proofread, you take all my commas out. And when she proofreads, she puts them all back.”

That summarizes how I feel about the revision process: you could spend your whole life taking commas out and then putting them back in again. I love drafting, because there is a clear beginning, middle, and end. You know you're finished because everything you meant to put into the book is in the book, in more or less the order you intended.

But then, one day, you sit down to begin rewriting. That's when you
realize – with horror, embarrassment, or even a sense of mistaken
identity – that the book you thought you wrote in no way
resembles this book at all. As you read your long, rambling,
semi-coherent sentences, you wonder, “Who wrote this? It's awful!” And then it sinks in: you wrote it. And you're going to have to fix it. And it's going to take forever.

Oh, I get it. Rewriting is important – probably more important than
the writing itself. After all, once you get a look at your draft, you
think, “Thank God I didn't let you out of the house looking like
that.”

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I have friends who adore revision. My friend Katie, who works at the
newspaper I left two years ago to have a baby, said she really enjoys
going back over her text, again and again, to make it sparkle. My
author friend Jon blogs pretty often about his revision process, with
the kind of enthusiasm most people reserve for high-intensity sports
or really great meals. To my mind, he might as well be raving about
scrubbing the toilet. But his books get published and favorably
reviewed, so I try to evoke him when I sit down to do the deed myself.

Of course, I also keep Anne Lamott in the back of my mind, and her
advice about “shitty first drafts,” as she put it in Bird By
Bird: “For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not
rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is
to write really, really shitty first drafts. … All good writers write
them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific
third drafts.”

Right now I am revising my most recent book, a nonfiction guide for
parents to the most controversial teen influences: violent video
games, the occult, heavy metal, and so on. Everything you've been told
will make your kid homicidal or suicidal. I wrote it during the second
year of my daughter's life, through sleep deprivation and tantrums and
shifting nap schedules, stealing time when I could.

At first, I was impressed that someone as tired as I was could string
coherent sentences together, let alone compose 90,000 words of mostly
intelligent prose. In fact, my first impression of the finished draft
was that it read like it was written by someone with many more
functioning brains cells than I have. I allowed myself be impressed
for a little while.

But then I sat down to revise it, and I wanted to put my head in the
compost bin. This was after I let several editor friends read
sections of it and provide feedback. I thought I was composing
readable, approachable prose. Instead, I was writing sentences such,
“If you're worried or even frightened about the music you hear blaring
out of your teenager's bedroom – or the names and symbols you see on album covers, posters, and t-shirts – then the last thing you probably want to do is pay more attention to them.”

Oh, there's nothing technically wrong with it. It's grammatically
correct. It makes a point. It's just that it goes on. And on. And on.
Other sections of the book have sentences like this one, only they're
weighed down with long, academic words that made even my editor
friends chafe. If they couldn't sit through it, I can't expect
heartland parents to pick up the book.

I've already taken one pass through most of the book, doing what I
thought was a good cleanup job. But now I'm taking another pass and
realizing just how much more rewriting it needs. It's like each draft
clears the way so I can see everything else that's wrong. Sure, it's
an important process, and the book will only benefit from it. But it's
such a slog – one that doesn't have a clear ending point. I don't do
well without clear ending points. And I know that when I find a
publisher for it, the editor will want yet another rewrite. I'm game,
but I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

When I was working as a reporter for daily newspapers, I could tell
when I was done writing and revising, because it was time to send the
story to my editor. I'm accustomed to that kind of deadline, one that
comes at you like the tunnel-cleaner in Labyrinth. This time, I
don't have a deadline. Theoretically, the revisions could go on
forever.

When I offered to write this guest blog, I thought I was going to
offer some tips on rewriting, but I find that I don't really have any.
I mean, when I sit down for a revision session, I pretend I'm not
doing it. I distract myself with Facebook or blogs. I write something
else (like this piece – nevermind that it needs revising, too).
Anything but rewriting. And then, when I can finally focus on
the task, it's only for an hour or so at a time – more than that, and
I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin.

But then, I read back through the hour's work and realize how much
better my book is. How many fewer snags and hiccups there are in the
sentences. How much clearer the meaning.

At least, until the next time I open the document and see how much
more needs to be done.

Bio: Beth Winegarner is a journalist, author, and poet currently
splitting her time between toddler-raising and writing a new
nonfiction book on controversial teen subcultures. She also blogs
about these subcultures at http://backwardmessages.wordpress.com, and
has had pieces published recently in Mother Jones and
Radical Parenting. She lives in San Francisco with her partner
and daughter. For more, visit http://www.bethwinegarner.com.

--
http://www.bethwinegarner.com
http://backwardmessages.wordpress.com

Getting Back to Business by Nancy Hinchliff

2011-03-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

Nancy Hinchliff owns and operates a bed and breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky where she also blogs and writes on line at Examiner.com, Eye on Life Magazine, Pink magazine and Hub pages. You can find her blogging at Business and Creative Women’s Forum, Inn Notes, Inn business A Memorable Time of My Life, and Louisville Bed and Breakfast Association In 2008, she co-authored Room at the Table, for The Bed and Breakfast Association of Kentucky for which she won their president’s award for outstanding work. She is currently working on a memoir titled Operatic Divas and Naked Irishmen: An Innkeeper’s Tale, a humorous and poignant account of how an admittedly asocial retired school teacher reinvents herself as an Innkeeper. This intimate tale recounts 16 challenging years of self-discovery.

Getting Back To Business

...the business of writing, that is. For the past two or three months, my memoir has been sitting on an obscure corner of my desk upstairs in my office...out of sight...out of reach...out of mind. I haven't gone near it. What I have been doing is trying to figure out what in the world is wrong with it. Why do I only like Chapter 8 and Chapter 12?

I have three fourths of the book complete. And now I see that I have to do a major re-write on it. Why? Well, I finally figured it out. I can't hear my voice...at least I can't hear it all the time. It comes through in different places, like in Chapter 8 and Chapter 12, but it does not infuse the entire book. And that really bothers me.

So, what to do about it? Well, I finally retrieved my manuscript from my desk on the third floor...that's a start. Then I divided it into four sections. Each section has around four chapters. Now, what I am doing is re-writing every day for a set amount of time. I am going chapter by chapter, sticking with it until I have it the way I want it...looking for my authentic voice and planting it on the pages one sentence at a time.

Just what is writer's voice anyhow and how do you find your own? According to Wikipedia,“Writer’s voice is a literary term used to describe the individual writing style of an author. Voice is a combination of a writer’s use of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text (or across several works). Voice can also be referred to as the specific fingerprint of an author, as every author has a different writing style.In creative writing, students are often encouraged to experiment with different literary styles and techniques in order to help them better develop their “voice.” Voice varies with the individual author, but, particularly in American culture, having a strong voice is considered positive and beneficial to both the writer and his or her audience.”

Finding your writer’s voice may be compared to expressing your personality in real life. It's that authentic way of thinking, speaking and telling that each one of us has. “Confident writers have the courage to speak plainly; to let their thoughts shine rather than their vocabulary.” says Ralph Keyes, author of The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear I strongly believe that one way one can find their true voice is through blogging on a regular basis. When I first started blogging a few years ago, I focused mainly on the content of what I was writing and was not too concerned about the way in which it was presented, as long as the grammar and punctuation was correct. I was not really writing to connect with my readers.

In the Elements of Style, Strunk tells us that "style is an expression of self, and [writers] should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style – all mannerisms, tricks, and adornments." I believe that if one continues to blog, their voice will eventually be freed. “As you become proficient in the use of language, your style will emerge,” writes Strunk “because you yourself will emerge…” so the more comfortable you are with the rules for good writing, the more your writer’s voice will shine.

I have found this to be so true. And, it wasn't until I felt my true voice starting to come out that I even entertained the idea of writing a memoir. I wanted that memoir to be an expression of "me". But somewhere along the line, in trying to complete my work, I lapsed into my old ways of focusing on the content, not on my reader. And that's what I'm trying to get back.

Now, I am working that out, chapter by chapter. I am reading my writing aloud to see if it really sounds like me. This is very helpful, by the way. I had already stopped comparing my writing to other writers. Comparing how you write or your writer’s voice to other writers is destructive and suffocating. So, my motto is: admire other writers’ styles but nurture your own. And focus on ways to improve your confidence as a writer.

*A final tip: try picturing one specific reader — one that you're not trying to impress – and just communicate with her.

Bird Sisters, oh my!

2011-03-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

You can now read a nice, long excerpt of The Bird Sisters c/o my lovely publisher!
http://scr.bi/gEH4dm

Literary Citizenship By Cathy Day

2011-03-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

Cathy Day is the author of two books: Comeback Season, a non-fiction novel (Free Press 2008) and The Circus in Winter, a short-story cycle (Harcourt 2004). Her stories and essays have appeared most recently in The Millions, Fiction Writer’s Review, and Ninth Letter. She lives in Indiana and teaches at Ball State University. She blogs about novel writing and teaching novel writing at The Big Thing.

Literary Citizenship

I’ve been teaching creative writing for almost twenty years now, and here’s something I’ve observed: what brings most people to the creative writing classroom or the writing conference isn’t simply the desire to “be a writer,” but rather (or also) the desire to be a part of a literary community.

Deep down, we know that not everyone who signs up for the class or the conference will become a traditionally published writer. Well, so what? What if they become agents, editors, publishers, book reviewers, book club members, teachers, librarians, readers, or parents of all of the above?

My students attend MFA programs, yes, and they publish, yes, but they aren’t my only “success stories.” Some are literary agents; in fact, Rebecca’s agent, Michelle Brower, is a former student of mine. They subscribe to lots of literary magazines. They have founded and edit magazines, too. They’re editors. They write for newspapers and work in arts administration. They maintain blogs. They review books. They volunteer at literary festivals. They participate in community theatre. They become teachers who teach creative writing. Most importantly, they are lifelong readers.

How do I know all this? Well, there’s this thing called Facebook…

Lately, I’ve started thinking that maybe the reason I teach creative writing isn’t just to create writers, but also to create a populace that cares about reading. There are many ways to lead a literary life, and I try to show my students simple ways that they can practice what I call “literary citizenship.” I wish more aspiring writers would contribute to, not just expect things from, that world they want so much to be a part of.

Here are a few of my working principles of Literary Citizenship:

1.) Write “charming notes” to writers. (I got this phrase from Carolyn See.) Anytime you read something you like, tell the author. Send them an email. Friend them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. Not all writers are reachable, so you might have to write an old fashioned letter and send it to the publisher or, if they teach somewhere, to their university address. You don’t have to gush or say something super smart. Just tell them you read something, you liked it. They may not respond, but believe me, they will read it.

2.) Interview writers. Take charming notes a step farther and ask the writer if you can do an interview. These days, they’re usually done via email. Approach this professionally, even if you are a fan. Write up questions (I prefer getting one question at a time, but some prefer getting them all at once). Let the writer talk. Writers love to talk. Submit the interview to an appropriate print or online magazine. Spread the word. There are many, many outlets, some paying. I really like the interviews published by Fiction Writer’s Review, like this one.

3.) Talk up (informally) or review (formally) books you like. Start with your personal network. Then say something on Goodreads. Then Amazon.com or B&N. Then try starting a book review blog. Or a book review radio show, like a former student of mine, Sarah Blake. Submit your reviews to newspapers and magazines, print or online. God knows, the world needs more book reviewers. Robin Becker at Penn State and Irina Reyn at Pitt are just two writer/teacher/reviewers I know of who actively teach their students how to write and publish book reviews. Remember: no matter what happens to traditional publishing, readers will always need trusted filters to help them know what is worth paying attention to and what’s not. Become that trusted filter.

4.) If you want to be published in journals, you must read and support them. Period. If it’s a print journal, subscribe. If it’s an online journal, talk them up, maybe even volunteer to read. One of my favorite writers, Dan Chaon, had this to say about journals: The writing community is full of lame-o people who want to be published in journals even though they don’t read the magazines that they want to be published in. These people deserve the rejections that they will undoubtedly receive, and no one should feel sorry for them when they cry about how they can’t get anyone to accept their stories. You can read his incredibly practical advice here.

5.) If you want to publish books, buy books. I don’t want to fight about big-box stores (evil!) vs. indie bookstores (good!) or about libraries (great!) or how truly broke you are (I know! I’ve been there, too!) or which e-reader is “better” for the writer or the independent book seller (argh!). I just want you to buy books. Period. It makes me angry to see the lengths relatively well-off people will go to avoid buying a book. Especially considering how much they are willing to spend on entertainment, education, or business-related expenses. If you’re a writer, you can file a Schedule C: Profit or Loss from a Business, and books and magazine subscriptions are tax deductible.

6.) Be passionate about books and writing, because passion is infectious. When I moved back home again to Indiana this past summer, my husband and I set out to buy bookshelves. The first furniture store we entered didn’t even carry bookshelves, the second carried only a single type, and the third (which we bought, because they were on sale) were really intended to be decorative shelves, not book shelves. Mind you, I wasn’t really surprised by this. I grew up here, after all. If you find yourself in a literary desert, rather than fuss and complain about it, create an oasis. Maintain a library in your home. Share books with your friends, co-workers, children, and community. Start a book club. Start a writing group. Volunteer to run a reading series at your local library. Take a picture of your bookshelves and put them on Facebook. Commit to buying 20 books a year for the rest of your life.

Question: What is the secret to getting published?

Answer: Learn your craft, yes. But also, work to create a world in which literature can thrive and is valued.

Bird Sisters Pre-Order Special!

2011-02-28T09:14:00.001-08:00

Signed Bookplates, Donations to the Audubon Society, check out The Bird Sisters Pre-Order Special! From February 28th--March 7th! Thank you, as always, for your lovely support.
http://www.thebirdsisters.com/purchase-book/

Navel Gazing by Lisa Cihlar

2011-02-25T08:56:00.000-08:00

Navel Gazing
By Lisa Cihlar

"Most poets write and publish far too much. They forget the agricultural good sense of the fallow period. . . " Irish poet Michael Longley

April is National Poetry Month and like many poets I write a poem a day. In June a friend of mine suggests another 30/30 (30 poems in 30 days) and I jump on board. I am a prolific poet even when not writing to challenges. That noted, there comes a day in mid-summer when I begin to feel as if everything has been said. My brain echoes empty. It is time to step back and begin observing.

Close focus becomes the thing. How does a bumble bee climb into a pink and white hollyhock and become covered with pollen? How do green beans manage to hide on the plants through five pickings and mature into full-size dry pods? And the yellow and black garden spiders that come out in August to build their webs with the zigzag down the center making them look so much bigger than they really are; is that lemon yellow, or smiley face yellow on their abdomens? These are things I need to see firsthand, year after year. As a poet of images, my brain needs to re-catalog so that I can get things right on the page. Think too of other poets you know who are masters of observation. Elizabeth Bishop’s “Big Fish”: his brown skin hung in strips/like ancient wallpaper or Mark Doty’s “A Display of Mackerel”: like seams of lead/in a Tiffany window./ Iridescent, watery. James Wright, Deborah Digges, Robert Frost. I do not know if these poets took breaks from writing to just observe, but I know from the poems that they were indeed studying their worlds intensely.

It takes time to study things closely. Not only the natural world, but the world of human relationships too. You probably lived with your parents for at least 18 years as a child and young adult. You are the best expert in the world on how that relationship worked and how it formed you and is still forming you. That is your PhD in human behavior. Call your current relationships continuing education. Take time to study things and consider the past, maybe take notes, this will all inform your poetry.

I also need to saturate myself in other writers’ poems. I read poems all the time. To be a good poet I believe the writer needs to read a lot of poems, ones they like and ones they do not. When I take time away from the writing I read even more, poems that are new to me, and poems that are not. I memorize lines that I love. I feel a need to say Do I dare to eat a peach? over and over to myself and to anyone within hearing range to make that rhythm part of my soul. I need to find out for myself if the chickens and the rain glazed wheel barrow are really all that important (they are!)

Recently, I found myself taking an unintentional break from writing. A medication that I was on was squashing my creativity. The anxiety this caused was horrible. I felt sick to my stomach every time I sat down to write and nothing came. Taking an intentional break is a different thing all together. You can even schedule it so that you have an appointment with the paper in exactly the number of days you choose. Never call it writer’s block because you are not blocked, you are opening yourself to the world.

Not working on a poem every day is freeing and it builds up a kind of pressure that makes pens and blank paper look so inviting. My hand fondles ball-points, clicking them over and over. When I begin to get so annoying in my habits that I make other people crazy, it is time to begin again. September feels right—back to school, the end of summer, leaves starting to color up, and birds flying frantic, practicing for the trip south. Now I will write.

**Lisa J. Cihlar's poems appear, or soon will in numerous journals including: The Pedestal Magazine, Green Mountains Review, Qarrtsiluni, elimae, and Pirene's Fountain. In 2008 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in rural southern Wisconsin. She raises more tomatoes than she can possibly use, yet she always runs out of the ones she freezes sometime in March.

Starred Library Journal Review!!!!

2011-02-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Lovely news from the wonderful Library Journal Review:

Rasmussen, Rebecca. The Bird Sisters. Crown. Apr. 2011. c.304p. ISBN 9780307717962. $24. F

What a pleasure to become acquainted with Milly and Twiss of Spring Green, WI, as these aging sisters invite us to accompany them back to a summer in the mid-1940s when they were both at the threshold of adolescence. As their falling-apart family is in desperate need of repair, the girls try to patch up their estranged parents' relationship. Milly is as sweet as Twiss is contrary; the two have decidedly different approaches to the challenge. And both are quite taken with their older teenage cousin Bettie, who comes to spend the summer with them. Ripe with surprises, this visit will mold and shape the sisters' lives for years to come. Rasmussen's debut novel is full of grace and humanity. Her heroines are fearless and romantic, endearing and engaging, and her poetic prose creates an almost magical, wholly satisfying world. VERDICT While readers may desire to know more about the sisters' interest in "bird repair" (in their later years they tend to the needs of injured birds), this wistful but wise story is enchanting and timeless. A splendid choice for those searching for literary coming-of-age novels.—Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA

Semper Fi (In Other Words: Have Some Heart, Rebecca)

2011-02-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

** This is a blog post I did for the lovely Amanda Hoving and wanted to share it here, too.

Semper Fi (In Other Words: Have Some Heart, Rebecca)

By Rebecca Rasmussen

The first time I walked off the course and back to the starting line I felt justified in my choice to quit. I was in terrible pain. I had lost my breath. I had cramps in my legs, in my heart. Girls were passing me on all sides. Their ponytails were swishing right out of my view. So here’s what I did: I simply walked back to the place I’d started.

The year was 1992, and I was a freshman in high school, thirteen years old. I had a shaky relationship with just about everyone in my family, though I remember my mother coming to this cross-country meet, my first. I remember she wore my dad’s boxy old yellow windbreaker, which I took from his closet the last time I visited him and my stepmom in Spring Green, Wisconsin, though I don’t remember why.

“You’ll do better next time,” my mother said, when she saw me near the starting line.

I’ll tell you this: a part of me wanted to get in the car with her. To stop and pick up pizza at Malnati’s on the way home. To rent a funny movie and eat sour cherry candies. To forget about cross-country and move on to field hockey or dance. Or chess even.

But I’ll also tell you this: an even bigger part of me wanted something else entirely, something I couldn’t put a name to, but knew as a secret deep in my heart. And that’s what I got—exactly what I wanted—that early Saturday morning in September, while girls sprinted into the chute and parents cheered and brightly colored ribbons flapped in the breeze.

“Come here right now,” my coach, Mr. Baker, said to me, in a voice I thought only parents were allowed to use.

“I think I’ll take her home,” my mother interrupted.

“Not yet,” Mr. Baker said and pulled me away from my mother, which I remember thinking was impressive. People didn’t say no to her.

When we were alone behind a grand old Illinois oak tree, Mr. Baker asked me why I’d stopped running, why I came walking back, why I gave up.

I told him what I told you. Cramps. Pain. Breath.

“I don’t care if you’re the last girl out there and you crawl in on your hands and knees,” Mr. Baker said. “You don’t ever give up like that, do you understand me?”

“I couldn’t go on,” I said, looking at the electric leaves up in the tree.

Mr. Baker put his hands squarely on my shoulders and looked me directly in the eyes, which nobody had ever done before. (I come from a long line of side-glancers.)

“You can always go on,” he said very seriously.

I don’t know why, but I wanted to wrap my arms around this man. His strength and strange, unwarranted belief in me was what I’d been looking for in members of my family and what members of my family couldn’t give me just then, and here Mr. Baker was, a man I barely knew, a man with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.

“I wasn’t going to win,” I said, knowing then that that was the real reason I’d quit.

Mr. Baker smiled. “This is the first brave thing I’ve seen you do.”

“What?” I said, beginning to smile, too, though I didn’t know why.

“Tell the truth,” he said, and hugged me so securely I thought I’d turn blue. “You’re a good kid, you know. I think you’re going to be all right.”

(Words that were so wonderful I started to cry.)

***

I don’t know if you can teach someone to have heart or not, but that’s what Mr. Baker did for me that day and that strength of heart is what I’ve carried with me all these years. If a door closes, I find another one to try to open. If ponytails are passing me, I go after them instead of giving myself over to negativity and turning away.

Crossing the finish line, having guts and grit, is what’s important to me. Knowing that I didn’t quit—that I don’t quit—makes me proud, confident, happy.

These days, I’m a writer more than I’m a runner, though I still try to hit the pavement four or five times a week. Writing, I’ve learned, takes the same tenacity, the same hard work and hard-won belief in one’s self. I’ve seen so many talented writers give up, and I want to grab them by the shoulders and look directly in their eyes and tell them what Mr. Baker told me. Keep writing even if you have to crawl on your hands and knees.

My first novel is coming out with a large New York press in April. From the outside, my story looks so easy and breezy and, well, full of beauty. The truth is that I fought for my book every single step of the way. I fought for it when people kept saying no for months and months and months. I fought when they said, “we need to think about sales figures.”

I am fighting for it even now.

And you know what: it probably won’t sell a million copies, I probably won’t be able to quit my job and shop at Whole Foods for herbs and nuts and fish, and I probably won’t wake up and see my name in The New York Times any time soon.

But on April 12^th, I’ll be smiling. I promise you that.

Writing a book, finding an agent and an editor, finding my way through all of the no, you can’ts! has been the longest race of my life and I’ll have finally made it to the chute—without fanfare, maybe—but on my own two feet.

(A thought so wonderful I know I will cry.)

***

I haven’t seen Mr. Baker since I was a senior in high school. Is he alive? Is he still coaching running? I don’t know.

That warm September day at the cross-country meet was the beginning of a relationship that changed my life. He taught me about being brave, about being bold, about fighting for what you want and deserve in life. He taught me about nourishing myself in every sense of the word.

He told me about his time in Vietnam, about never giving up even when people around him were dying in muddy rice paddies.

I’ll never forget what he said.

Right before the next cross-country race, Mr. Baker and I exchanged presents, if you can call them that. I gave him my father’s old yellow windbreaker, which he wore to most every meet for the next four years, and he gave me a Semper Fi flag he’d had since the war and which I still keep in my treasure box in the closet.

Whenever I find myself alone on the course now, in the middle of a race that’s even less defined than when I was a teenager, I think of Mr. Baker—those blue eyes and that flag—and I keep going.

I keep hearing him say, have some heart, Rebecca.

Nature's Creative Influence by Melissa Crytzer Fry

2011-02-09T16:54:00.000-08:00

Nature’s Creative Influence

By Melissa Crytzer Fry

When a peregrine falcon circled over my head during a jog this week, words began to swirl in my mind, matched only by the intensity of each hurried wing beat above me. I realized my writing topic was right before my eyes. Birds!

These feathered creatures play an unmistakable role in Rebecca’s upcoming debut, THE BIRD SISTERS, but they also symbolize what I feel can be a writer’s best creative inspiration: nature, the outdoors, unbridled open spaces, wildlife, fresh air.

There’s just something about nature and its ability to inspire – the way it can tug at your heart, leave you breathless, awestruck, and hungry for more. A simple walk in the park, a jog in the wilderness, or a glimpse out the window at the birdfeeder … For me, these brushes with nature somehow lead to a magical free flow of ideas, an ability to see more clearly, providing life lessons and writing inspiration – both freelance and fiction. All fodder for our novels.

The following excerpt documents an emotionally inspiring experience I had with a roadrunner pair that nested in our house-under-construction. I just happened to be outside when I heard the faint clack clacks of the first grounded fledgling:

I found myself caught in a dance of watch-and-see vs. stop-and-help. From the start, I wanted simply to observe nature, not interfere with it.

The hours passed as I regularly checked on Rocky’s whereabouts, my eyes constantly scanning and my ears tuned to his calling, though my physical presence hidden. Despite the loudest chirping Rocky could muster, his now waning attempts to reach his parents were in vain, despite their close proximity.

When dusk fell, my stomach knotted. I knew what lay outside the perimeter of our house: coyotes, owls, hawks, rattlesnakes, bobcats, gila monsters. Had I done the right thing by simply letting nature take its course?

Relief flooded over me the next morning at the sight of Rocky’s toes and tiny claws peeking from beneath the rocks where I left him. I realized, however, that something was terribly wrong. His feet were rigid, extended.

When my husband helped me gingerly lift the large rock off his tiny body, I was assaulted by guilt. I should have stepped in – with tweezers and fresh bugs, a warm makeshift bed. Surely he’d have let me feed him, if I had only done it.

With a warm washcloth, I picked up Rocky’s stretched body, his eyes closed, his feathers limp, but his chest still moving. He was clearly in for the fight of his life. As I tried to warm him, he attempted to lift his little head and made a faint squeak, giving me hope. All I needed were kissing bugs, longhorn beetles, harvester ants. They were in abundance on our property!

But as I sat with him in the sun, my tears fell freely, plunking onto his little body. I knew that I was too late. And when his body shuddered, that last little breath escaping from his beak, I knew I had a decision to make. Return him to nature? Give him a proper “human” burial?

My poor husband did not know how to console me as I sat sobbing with the precious gift that rested in my hands. At least, I reasoned, he hadn’t died alone. He had the warmth and comfort of another creature next to him in the end.

But even with the sadness wrapping its way around me, I still knew, in that moment, that I had witnessed something miraculous. I was a close-up observer to nature’s beauty and its cruelty, to the desert’s awe and its ire. I was privy to this little bird’s beginning, his parents’ devotion, their fatal mistakes.

I realized that this delicate dance between life and death that occurs in the desert every day – this fragility – is probably exactly the reason so few people have that rare opportunity that I was afforded. To see nature in its rawest form. To experience it with the heart.

As we contemplated what to do, we decided to stay true to our commitment as respectful observers of nature. Through wet eyes, we gave Rocky back to Arizona’s harsh Sonoran Desert, hoping his life might sustain other life.

Melissa Crytzer Fry is an award-winning freelance writer and journalist living out her writing dream in southern Arizona, among wildlife ranging from javelina, bobcats and quail to mountain lions, coyotes, tarantulas and Gila Monsters. She is the author of the What I Saw nature/writing/creativity blog (http://melissacrytzerfry.com), owner of AZCommPro Communications, and a fan and writer of women’s literature (currently chasing the publishing dream).

AWP!

2011-02-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday, I was a very lucky girl and got to have dinner with these talented ladies!

Tanya Egan Gibson, Barbara Drummond Mead, Therese Fowler, Siobhan Fallon, Rebecca Rasmussen, Heidi Durrow, Eleanor Brown, Caroline Leavitt, and Sarah Pekkanen

Booklist Review!

2011-02-02T13:21:00.000-08:00

Here is the Booklist review! Yipee!!

Rasmussen, Rebecca (Author) Apr 2011. 304 p. Crown, hardcover, $24.00. (9780307717962).

Born to two star-crossed lovers turned emotionally estranged parents in rural Wisconsin, Twiss and Milly grow up in poverty, continually trying to forge a bridge between their mother and father. Things turn south the summer their father gets into a car accident that cripples his burgeoning professional golf career. Their cousin Bett comes to live with them for a few months and brings with her a storm of knowledge about love, truth or consequences, and something even more devious, which threatens to cripple the family. As Twiss and Milly reach late adolescence, they must decipher the world of relationships on their own, causing Twiss’ wild-woman tendencies to grow stronger and pushing Milly toward Asa, the doctor’s son who mows their lawn and seems to share her affections. This novel is told from the perspective of the sisters as girls and old ladies still living in the same house, looking back on their young lives. A charming yet sober tale of two girls struggling to grow up amid family turmoil and poverty, this is a welcome debut from Rasmussen.

— Julie Hunt

How I Became a Daughter of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt

2011-01-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

How I Became a Daughter of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt

In bleak midwinter 2002, I moved to rural Lancashire, in northern England, an incongruous place for an American expat. The first months were so oppressively dark, I felt I was trapped inside some claustrophobic gothic novel. But then came spring in a tide of bluebells and hawthorn. The wild Pennine landscape cast its spell on me.

I live at the foot of Pendle Hill, famous throughout the world as the place where George Fox received his vision that moved him to found the Quaker religion in 1652. But Pendle is also steeped in its legends of the Lancashire Witches.

In 1612, seven women and two men from Pendle Forest were hanged for witchcraft. The most notorious of the accused, Bess Southerns, aka Old Demdike, cheated the hangman by dying in prison. This is how Thomas Potts describes her in The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster:

She was a very old woman, about the age of Foure-score yeares, and had

been a Witch for fiftie yeares. Shee dwelt in the Forrest of Pendle, a vast

place, fitte for her profession: What shee committed in her time, no man

knowes. . . . Shee was a generall agent for the Devill in all these partes: no

man escaped her, or her Furies.

Once I read this, I fell in love. I had to write a book about this amazing woman. Bess became the guiding voice and power behind my new novel, Daughters of the Witching Hill.

Reading the trial transcripts against the grain, I was astounded how her strength of character blazed forth in the document written to vilify her. She freely admitted to being a healer and a cunning woman, and she instructed her daughter and granddaughter in the ways of magic. Her neighbors called on her to cure their children and their cattle. What fascinated me was not that Bess was arrested on witchcraft charges but that the authorities turned on her only near the end of her long, productive career. She practiced her craft for decades before anybody dared to interfere with her.

Bess’s life unfolded almost literally in my backyard. To do justice to her story, I had to go out onto the land—walk in her footsteps. Using the Ordinance Survey Map, I located the site of Malkin Tower, once her home. Now only the foundations remain. I board my beautiful Welsh mare at a stable near Read Hall, once home to Roger Nowell, the witchfinder and prosecuting magistrate responsible for sending Bess and the other Pendle Witches to their deaths. Every weekend, I walked or rode my mare down the tracks of Pendle Forest. Quietening myself, I learned to listen, to allow Bess’s voice to well up from the land. Her passion, her tale enveloped me.

History is a fluid thing that continually shapes the present. As a writer, I am obsessed with how the true stories of our ancestors haunt the land. Long after their demise, Bess and her fellow witches endure. This is their home, their seat of power, and they shall never be banished. By delving into their story, I have become an adopted daughter of their living landscape, one of many tellers who spin their unending tale.

Mary Sharratt’s critically acclaimed novel Daughters of the Witching Hill is now available in paperback by Mariner. To learn more about Mary and the true history of the Pendle Witches, visit her online: www.marysharratt.com . Also, check out this wonderful docu-drama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT-In065-gA

Enter to win one of 30 Copies of The Bird Sisters

2011-01-19T06:16:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone! I have great news. My publisher is offering up 30 copies of The Bird Sisters on Goodreads. I wish you, all of my friends, could have a copy (I wish I could have a copy!), but this is the next best thing...

Here's the link if you want to enter:

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/7789-the-bird-sisters-a-novel

Love & Hugs!
Rebecca

It's DEBUT DAY for Heather Newton's Novel!!!

2011-01-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

*** Please join me in celebrating Heather Newton's debut day for her novel Under the Mercy Trees. Heather is an incredible woman, an incredible writer, and a dear dear heart. If you can afford it, I hope you'll support her by buying her novel. Or asking your local library to order a copy. Or anything else you can think of. I am brimming with happiness for Heather today. And clapping with true vigor and my whole heart! xoxox, everyone. ---Rebecca

Thoughts For Publication Day by Heather Newton

My mother, Suzanne Newton, is a writer, author of nine novels for young adults published by Westminster Press and Viking. Her first book, Purro and The Prattleberries (about a cat who discovers magic berries in his yard that enable him to speak) came out in 1971 when I was in the first grade. What I remember most about the publication of that book is how thrilled my school librarian, Mrs. Mullins, was to have the children of a real live author attending her school. For my remaining five years at A. B. Combs Elementary I could do no wrong in Mrs. Mullins’ eyes–she let me check out as many books as I wanted, whenever I wanted, for as long as I wanted. It was awesome.

On the eve of the release of my own first novel, Under The Mercy Trees, I decided to ask my mom what she remembered about getting her first book published. In many ways her experience was similar to mine, but in others the Information Age has made my publication experience radically different from hers.

My mom wrote her first book on a manual Hermes typewriter, using carbon paper to make herself a copy. Back then writers could actually send their manuscripts directly to publishers without having an agent (gasp!) and that’s what my mom did. Over a two-year period she sent it out to one publisher at a time via snail mail (simultaneous submissions were a no-no) until finally she got back a thin envelope instead of the fat “we’re-not-interested-here’s-your-book-back” envelope. She told me that when the mailman delivered the thin envelope she went inside the house, locked the doors and took the phone off the hook so no one would interrupt her while she opened it. When she read the acceptance she was over the moon, just as I was when my agent called to tell me HarperCollins wanted to publish my novel.

You can imagine what the editing process was like before the age of the personal computer. My mom had to make revisions on her Hermes. The galleys arrived as long unwieldy reams of paper. Once the book came out, her publisher clipped copies of reviews and mailed them to her–her only indication of how readers were receiving her book.

In contrast, I had a computer to make the many revisions necessary to get my novel into publishable form. When my agent sent it out, most editors wanted an electronic file they could read on their e-readers. And during this past year, thanks to the Internet and Google Alerts, I have been able to read every review and reference to my book the minute any mention hits cyberspace.

One downside of the Internet is of course that it can rob you of writing time if you let it. It can also make a debut author horribly self-centered–the temptation to constantly see who is talking about you and your book is powerful. The benefits, however, far outweigh the negatives, and I don’t just mean the opportunity to get the word out about your work via blogging, Facebook and the many other social media sites now available to authors.

For me, the most wonderful aspect of coming of age as a writer in the Information Age has been getting to know other authors on line this past year. These writers–mostly women and mostly debut novelists like me–are wonderful, interesting, talented people whose support and encouragement has really changed how I view my writing life. I no longer see myself as standing alone waist-deep in surf as waves buffet me and I struggle to remain on my feet. The community of writers I’ve found has allowed me to change that metaphor. I now feel like I’m nearing the end of a marathon with a lovely crowd of supporters cheering me on as I approach the finish line. In turn, I get the privilege of cheering for them and celebrating their successes. I’m so grateful.

Introducing Jessica McCann: Debut Novelist

2011-01-13T13:38:00.000-08:00

What's Missing from My Writing

by Jessica McCann

The first book I wrote was a murder mystery. The Missing Clock features murder, suspense, a smooth-talking private eye and a surprise plot-twist at the end, Scooby Doo-style. I was eight when I wrote it. The book was neatly bound with two staples. It also included a color illustration of the clock in question, a priceless heirloom encased in gold and sparkling gems.

My mom, a voracious reader, was my first fan and my first critic.

"I like it," she said. "But you should describe the clock instead of just drawing a picture."

It was my first lesson in the importance of revision, though I didn't know it at the time. My second lesson came years later from my high school English teacher, Mr. Churbuck, senior year. Revision, he said, was vital because it gives you a chance to add what's missing. And there's always something missing. The only way to earn an A in his class was to turn in a minimum of three drafts with every assignment -- one handwritten, complete with scratch marks, scribbles and arrows; one typed and littered with red-inked edits; and a typed final draft, which he would inevitably litter with red-inked edits of his own. By the end of the year, I was turning in four or five drafts, stacks of edits so thick they were barely harnessed by my second-hand stapler, and reveling in the fact that the only red mark on the final draft from Mr. C was an A+.

My mom's fierce love of books fueled my early desire to write; and Mr. Churbuck's fierce devotion to the art and craft of revision is what made me a writer.

Fortunately, those influences led to the creation of my second book, a historical novel. All Different Kinds of Free reveals one woman's courageous fight for freedom during the dark period of slavery in America. I was 38 when I finished writing it. The book went through countless drafts and revisions. It received a couple semi-finalist nods as a work-in-progress and a major literary award as a completed manuscript. I had landed an agent and was on submission to publishers when I gave my mom a printout to read.

"I like it," she said, handing it back to me roughly two weeks later. "I want to read a sequel."

###

Jessica McCann, a professional freelance writer and novelist, lives with her family in Phoenix, Arizona. Her nonfiction work has been published in Business Week, The Writer and Phoenix magazines, among others. All Different Kinds of Free (Bell Bridge Books, April 2011) is her debut novel. She welcomes interaction with readers and writers at her website (www.jessicamccann.com) and on Twitter (@JMcCannWriter).

That's What Friends -And Books - Are For by Malena Lott

2011-01-09T07:54:00.000-08:00

I'd hate to think of a world without friends. In an age when friendships can be made without meeting face-to-face thanks to the shrinking world made possible by the Internet, it's easier than times past to reach out and help someone or reach out and get help. At least that's what I'd like to think.

In 2008, I joined Twitter, after my good friend, the funny Wichita photographer and detective, Ken Davis (@davis1862), told me how much fun it was. (Okay, not a direct quote, but something like that.) Back then, Twitter was a much smaller social club. Now it might be harder to get a response to a tweet because people are so busy and perhaps following so many people, but it has led to some great friendships for me and some great personal and professional growth. Facebook has grown even more intimate for me because I've reconnected with old friends that led to real-life coffees and martinis and I love getting to stay connected in my busy mommy world.

My favorite aspect of social networking is the "pass-it-on and pay-it-forward" qualities. Of course one can choose not to do these things, but RTs (retweets), sharing on FB and commenting on blogs and links helps spread the word about worthy causes, breaking news and niche interests. My niche interest, of course, is books and my blog Book End Babes has grown to include a dozen book bloggers (called bookettes), nearly a hundred guest authors, more than two hundred book give-aways and loads of connections between readers and authors and readers to great books.

In my third novel, FIXER UPPER, the politician's wife, Macy Baxter, figures out the life she really wants after the one she has is no longer working. Her ambitious husband is more concerned with getting elected to the U.S. Senate than saving their marriage and she has never worked outside the home, held a tool or really stood up for herself. All that changes when she heads home to evaluate her own broken home and see what it will take to renovate her life. Find out more about Fixer Upper, new contests, excerpt and more at www.malenalott.com or on Amazon or smashwords.com.

Of Attics and Inheritance by Mara Buck

2011-01-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

My mother was an only child, a careful girl preceded by an only-child mother, equally docile and precise, so their toys and books were in remarkably pristine states when I came along. I was also an only child and there any similarity ended. I was not destructive, not wanton; I merely was interested in how things were made; their components. I did in fact write on pages of books --- I had taught myself to read at a rather precocious age since I heartily disliked the laboriously slow process of being read to --- and I created my own versions of new books from the old, a pastiche of childish chaos, and a truly unfortunate choice for any potential collectible resale.

(Whatever was I thinking?)

Left to my own devices in the attic, rummaging through boxes of books, old magazines, any printed matter I could find, I devoured, gobbled, gorged. By inheriting so-called children’s books from another age, I inherited the stilted vocabulary of those authors as well. Unfortunately, my family’s storage was heavily slanted in the direction of the “moral” tales of Pollyanna, Elsie Dinsmore and the Bobbsey Twins, all loathsome for myriad reasons. I was temporarily rescued by Alcott (whom I still found insipid despite Jo’s gumption), was distressed by the cruelty in Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe, and thoroughly enjoyed Jack London and Frank Buck, and the nature-adventure life they portrayed, although I suspect if I revisited them today I would find the tales seeped in prejudice.

From kindly neighbors I was given hand-me-down Golden Books aplenty which seldom interested me since they were so short (a five minute read at best) and also decidedly lacked drama and character development, and moreover they were “pleasant” and I’ve never been particularly good at pleasant. Then I discovered 'Twain' as if some guilty secret under the covers: The Prince and the Pauper, Tom Sawyer and Huck. Here was some stuff! Boys got to do things beyond playing with dolls and keeping their clothes neat. What a fabulous idea! I still have a soft spot for ol’ Sam and I did indeed once build a raft, which floats forever in my memory. A lovely metaphor, but in actuality, it sank.

Perversely however, as is my penchant (that Edwardian vocabulary again), today I would award favorite childhood book status to the story of Miss Flora McFlimsey by Mariana, bought specifically for me (not inherited!) by my grandfather, who on the Christmas that he died, gave me the accompanying doll as well. A thoroughly charming story, Flora was a forgotten doll in the attic (I could identify) that was resurrected as a Christmas gift and freshly-beloved thereafter; lovely illustrations without becoming too saccharine. I believe there was a mouse involved ---isn’t there always? Contrary to Tom and Huck, Flora delighted in tiny lacy handkerchiefs, buttoned shoes, and arrived complete with a trunk full of feminine foibles to tempt even the most stalwart of denim-wearers; a book and a doll that I did not destroy. Flora was mine alone, she was instant memory, and you do not destroy memory.

Irrespective of their literary value, the characters in children’s books burrow deep into our subconscious, and sometimes we unwittingly parrot their personae, even into adulthood. We are Peter and Wendy, Tom and Huck, Jo March, Dorothy, Christopher Robin, and even some of us (I say with a shudder) Pollyanna. I myself shall always tiptoe out of that attic alongside Flora on a magical Christmas Eve to a place where there is a happily-ever-after fresh start, despite wearing the costume of a discarded century.

Flora, the doll, rests resplendent in tissue in my own attic, along with her book. The photographs of my grandfather are downstairs, with me.

Mara Buck writes and paints in the Maine woods. The manuscript for her novel Highway To Oblivion was named a Short-Listed Finalist for The Faulkner-Wisdom Prize. Recent prize-winning poems appear in Carpe Articulum and in Caper Literary Journal, with other work included in Vwa: Poems For Haiti and on Poets For Living Waters. She is the creator of the gallery-sized installation “A Year In Oblivion” a daily art chronicle of the life of a breast cancer patient, examples from which will soon be published in Drunken Boat.

More of her writing may be seen at: http://www.redroom.com/member/MaraBuck

Her videos may be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/user/marabuck

And, an art/poetry/video for the World T

Publisher's Weekly Review

2011-01-03T07:20:00.001-08:00

Here it is folks. Thank you Publisher's Weekly. I held my breath the whole time I was reading it. Phew...now I can breathe again!

The Bird Sisters
Rebecca Rasmussen, Crown, $24 (304p) ISBN 978-0-307-71796-2
Rasmussen's debut novel begins like a typical coming-of-age story, but reveals itself to be a singular portrayal of familial sacrifice and loss. As elderly women, sisters Twiss and Milly live alone in the house where they grew up in Spring Green, Wis. They spend their days tending to injured birds and roaming their land, lost in memories. For Milly, there is the constant reminder of what could have been. Twiss spent her childhood happily trailing behind their golf-pro father, but Milly dreamed about a family and children that never happened. There was hope for a young Milly, until an accident strips their father of his golfing abilities and sets in motion a series of events that rips apart the already unstable family. Dad retreats to the barn, and mom bemoans her choice to marry for love, leaving behind her wealthy family; a cousin who was thought to be a friend becomes an unexpected rival; and the sisters are left with only each other. As young women, and as old ones, they learn that their relationship is rewarding, but not without consequence. Achingly authentic and almost completely character driven, the story of the sisters depicts the endlessly binding ties of family. (Apr.)

Time Like the Present by Stephanie Anderson Witmer

2010-12-30T11:01:00.000-08:00

Tracy Heyman Photography

My house is quiet. Blessedly, gloriously quiet.

It’s four days after Christmas, and I am still in the throes of the four-week winter break (sometimes it’s very good to be a professor). My husband has taken the week between Christmas and New Year’s off, and this morning, he got up with our 19-month-old son and let me sleep the sleep of my former, childless self, unmarred by a to-do list or thoughts of what Benjamin will wear to daycare or the alarm clock of my son’s early-morning calls for me from the confines of his crib.

When I finally do wake up at a luxurious 9:25 a.m., I find the house utterly still. I pad from the bedroom in my new red Christmas slippers, past my son’s closed bedroom door, past the closed guest-room door, and descend the stairs. More quiet. Benjamin had likely just gone down for his morning nap, and my husband and our dog likely did the same in the guest bedroom, so as not to wake me.

In the kitchen, I piece together the clues of the morning I have missed: A container of cinnamon on the counter and an orange bowl on the kitchen table, empty except for the edges, rimed with sticky flecks of oatmeal. A discarded spoon next to it. A sippy cup with a splash of milk still in the bottom. I glance into the living room and see books and trucks strewn across the floor and couch. More toys lined up on the TV stand like a motley train.

There are things I know I should do while I have the chance during Benjamin’s morning nap, like wash the breakfast dishes so that the oatmeal doesn’t form a permanent crust in the bowl or vacuum the rug or put away more of the Christmas gifts. On many days, I would do those things, or I’d decide to grade some papers instead.

But I don’t do any of those things today. Today I pour myself a cup of coffee in the biggest mug I can find, I make myself a bowl of oatmeal with vanilla, maple syrup, raisins and a liberal sprinkling of the cinnamon left on the counter. Mug in one hand and bowl in the other, I make a beeline to my office, and I write.

Sure, today is an example of a day in which I have absolutely nothing planned and can just sort of trot through it without a care. Lunch at our favorite little neighborhood cafe sounds nice … Perhaps I’ll make a cake later … Or soup … I should go for a walk and shoot some photographs with my new camera … Or to the library …

Thoughts like these on days like these warrant the use of the ellipses. But most days aren’t like today, and are punctuated far differently. They are crazy, harried, ultra-planned sorts of days. They are exclamation-point days, and not the good, surprise-party or you’ve-won-the-lottery kind of exclamation points. They are days that are often terse and demanding, like a drill sergeant.

When you’re pregnant and then have a newborn, everyone always talks about sleep: How much sleep are you getting? How is the little one sleeping? Are you sleeping when the baby sleeps? Don’t you miss sleep? Isn’t sleep great? Most definitely, the lack of sleep was a rude awakening for both my husband and me, but it wasn’t that we never slept again—we just didn’t sleep all at one time as long as we wanted to.

But all that talk about sleep somewhat prepared me for the eventual time when I stopped getting it. It was the lack of time that really threw me. I’ve always been one to have lots of projects and ideas living in my head, and some of them would even make their way out of there into actual, physical incarnations of themselves. Now most don’t, and probably won’t.

I have found that after I had a child, I have become much more selfish with my time. First, because I teach three days a week, on the days when I am home with my son, I want to fill every moment with books and walks and adventures and the potential for memory-making, which is my own way of overcompensating for the days he spends with his grandparents or in daycare.

During the times I have to myself, like right now, I want to fill that space by doing what I want to do. I feared when I first had Benjamin that I’d never read a book or write a sentence for pleasure ever again, but I’ve actually written more regularly since he’s been born than I have since graduate school. I began taking photographs. I started a blog. I don’t cook as much as I’d like, but it’s not uncommon for me to bake muffins or bread on a random Tuesday morning just because I feel like baking. Time has become the most valuable currency in my life.

Part of this is time, but part of it is my fear of losing myself entirely to motherhood and my job. I love both, but they are not the only parts of me. I find myself staying up later than is smart or healthy at night to write, simply because I’d rather forego a bit more sleep than a bit more of myself and my own creative needs. Both of my primary jobs—being a parent and being a professor—require a lot of my time and energy, and both require me to fulfill the needs of others. My son needs me (and his dad) to feed him, dress him, give him a bath, put him to bed, to love him and keep him safe. My students need me to teach them how to write and report accurately and ethically, to grade their work, to give them feedback, and prepare them for the great beyond that is their post-college working life.

Most importantly, both my son and my students need me to show up and be present. So does my husband. So does the rest of my family. So do my friends. And so do I need that of myself.

Stephanie Anderson Witmer is a freelance writer and an assistant professor in the Communication/Journalism Department at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. Her work has been published in national and regional magazines, including Better Homes & Gardens and Susquehanna Style. She has an M.F.A. in creative-nonfiction writing from Penn State University and blogs about parenting and cooking at www.smittenblog.com. She lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with her husband, son and their dog.

Tis the Season...Gifts Unseen! By Amanda Thrasher

2010-12-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

Tis the Season…Gifts Unseen!
By Amanda M. Thrasher

To say some things are meant to be is an understatement; this past weekend was an example of such for me. It started with a State 4A Championship game at the Dallas Cowboy’s Stadium, in Arlington TX. We sat in front of a lovely young couple, making eye contact and small talk, a time or two. It was an exciting game and the Aledo Bearcats are State Champs again! The following day I had a signing that was very important to me for personal as well as professional reasons. First and foremost it was the official launch of, ‘A Fairy Match in the Mushroom Patch’, it was at my local Barnes & Noble, and as CRM, my Mentor hosted the event and I did not want to disappoint. I also had the privilege of meeting a very special lady, Beverly Hutton.

During a book signing for, ‘Mischief in the Mushroom Patch’, a lady I had never met purchased two copies. I couldn’t recognize her face, or point her out in a crowd. But, I do know we must have spoken, because I handed her a business card and asked her specifically to let me know what she thought and weeks later she did just that! Her contact came in the form of an email. She introduced herself and described how she had read and enjoyed my book. She went on to say that her daughter would have loved it too. At the end of her beautiful email she made a request; a suggestion if you will. She said, “Amanda if I may ask, could you possibly create a character with a disability? My daughter was bound to a chair and I wasn’t supposed to have her for very long. I was blessed with her for longer than I thought, but she always asked me, ‘mommy where are the fairy tales for me?’ She would have loved this and so would the children from the camps she used to attend.”

I thought about that email before I replied, because it had touched me so. I emailed her back and said, “If you give me just a minute to think, I may be able to do that.” I had two major concerns. First and foremost, I had to be respectful of her request; secondly my mushroom patch and its characters were already in place. I did however manage to create the most beautiful little fairy you can imagine; her name is Pearle. Though Pearle is bound to a wheel chair, I refer to it throughout as her chariot. Although, the reader knows she has no use of her legs, there’s really no need to discuss this, since it’s always understood. All of the fairies know and accept her as is; but more importantly she is comfortable and loves herself too. It slows her down not one little bit and she is loved by all of the others in the patch. Her gift is to fly effortlessly when she is free to do so; it is the perfect trade off. She never complains and is happy all the time, because she knows no other way to be. The other fairies dive in her lap and she gives them rides to the bathing room and often plays her favorite game ‘make a ‘fairling green’, spinning as fast as she can in her chariot while the others try to stay aboard and try desperately not to turn green!

It was the oddest thing; when Beverly walked into Barnes & Noble I recognized her immediately; though I didn’t know her. We embraced and shared a moment only she and I understood. I was stunned when she pulled out the most beautiful photos I had ever seen; they were of course of her daughter, Jeni and she gave them to me! This book is dedicated to Jeni and Beverly bought several copies. As I signed the books, I asked her, “What will you do with all of these books?” Beverly said, “I shall take them to the hospitals that treated Jeni and children like her.” I was so touched that I asked her, “Do you have contacts there still, and if so, may I go with you?” She said, “Would you do that with me?” I assured her not only would I do that, but that would be ‘our thing’, in honor of Jeni from now on. We will visit those hospitals and read and talk about writing; it will bring us all so much joy, will it not!

Which brings me to another beautiful moment that was meant to be; that beautiful young couple at the game was from Aledo, the stadium was in Arlington and the book signing was in Fort Worth. During my signing that couple walked into Barnes & Noble to Christmas shop; we recognized each other immediately. They were as stunned as I was. There had been 27,330 people at the Dallas Cowboy’s Stadium the previous evening and yet, there I was in front of them; the author. They had no one to purchase my book for, but they did! I suggested they donate it to a children’s home or hospital; they named one immediately. “I happen to know for a fact I will be visiting that one,” I said. “When you donate this book, please tell them the author will come and read it. You can tell them that YOU know that for a fact!”

We are surrounded by beautiful gifts; though often we cannot see them. I choose to take pleasure in the simple things; they bring me the most joy. I can’t hold them in my hands, look at them or touch them; but I can feel them deep within and that’s good enough for me!

***********

My name is Amanda M. Thrasher; writer by heart first and author second to that. I was born in England but moved to Fort Worth, TX, when I was fourteen years old and reside there still. I have been writing stories and poems since I was nine years old. After leaving the corporate world to focus on my family, writing full time became a priority. The Mischief series is very special to me; a story written for a woman I loved very much. It was my mother who said, “Amanda you write all of the time and yet send nothing in; send your work in, if only for me.” My mother loved fairies and collected them all over her house and yard and was incredibly ill when she made the request. She never saw “Mischief in the Mushroom Patch” or “A Fairy Match in the Mushroom Patch” in print. Mischief in the Mushroom Patch was written for her.

The Mischief series is written with the intent to bring back fairy tales in a delightful new way. I hope that I have managed to do this. I would like my little readers to escape momentarily into an unbelievable, believable, place, one filled with adventure. Though the books have gentle life lessons entwined throughout, the children learn them without realizing so. It is written purposely with polite characters, that judge each other not as demonstrated through their love of beautiful little Pearle. The characters are nice and kind because that’s the way it is supposed to be. “There’s a lot to be said for kind.” I personally believe our children are losing these types of classic fairy tales. No scary characters in the mushroom patch or good vs. evil, just whimsical and lovely, that too, specifically written that way.

I love the whole writing and creating process because I simply love words. To me writing is like beautiful art; unique to the writer that crafts them. I love the fairy world I have created and hope my readers do too. My favorite words…“Why not!”

Huffington Post

2010-12-20T06:04:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone: I wanted to share with you some wonderful news. Today, I am on the Huffington Post. If you have a chance, check it out. And thank you, always, for your support. It helps me so much!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/virtual-book-tour_b_796297.html

With Love from Florida, Rebecca

A Guest Post by Author Kim Wright

2010-12-15T06:29:00.000-08:00

Kim Wright has been a freelance writer for 25 years with a special emphasis on food, wine and travel. She lives in Charlotte NC and Love in Mid Air is her first novel. You can find her at www.loveinmidair.com and http://www.amazon.com/Love-Mid-Air-Kim-Wright/dp/0446540447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268018577&sr=1-1

I teach writing workshops and one of the questions I'm frequently asked is at what point you should solicit feedback from other writers. My thinking on this has changed over time - the longer I write, the more eager I've become to get feedback earlier in the process, at least from amateur readers.

By “amateur” I mean people who aren’t agents, editors, or teachers in an MFA program. It’s up to you who you ask, but it’s worth taking time to consider who might serve best in this crucial role of first readers.

I only show work in progress to other writers. A lot of my friends are writers so it’s an easy call to also make them my first readers. For other people, avid readers work just as well. And some brave souls use their spouses, lovers, mothers or siblings as first readers. It’s really a matter of personal preference. I like using writers because once they tell you what they think isn’t working – the beginning is slow, your narrator is coming off like a shrew, you have too many scenes of people sitting in restaurants talking – they often have suggestions for how you might correct this problem as well. I appreciate this sort of feedback, but some writers find it oppressive. They prefer getting raw reactions from people who represent their future readers, i.e., people who love books but aren’t writers, and who thus aren’t apt to offer so damn many suggestions.

But there’s one group you definitely don’t want as first readers: talented, even brilliant writers who can’t seem to get working on anything of their own. They’re blocked…they’re torn between two projects….they’re still recovering from the savage rejection they suffered in 1994….they’re waiting until they get their office feng shuied or their eldest son gets out of juvie…..The list of reasons that writers don’t write is endless, but the point is you can’t afford to deal with these people right now. Yeah, I know they’re smart and I know they have all kinds of time on their hands. They may even volunteer to read it. If they do, just mumble something vague about not being quite ready to show your work yet.

Because blocked writers tend to be bad readers. They may be unconsciously jealous that you’re actually doing what they’re just talking about doing and be overly critical of your work. They, again unconsciously, may try to talk you into writing the book they can’t write and will thus come back with extraordinarily unhelpful advice such as “This story would work much better if it was set in Paris on the brink of World War I.” Or they may be blocked because they’re perfectionists and carry that same perfectionism to their read of your work, giving you a line edit when what you really need is a big-picture analysis of the book.

How many first readers do you need? I’d say the perfect amount is between three and five. For starters, different people are going to catch different things, so you want some variety in your first reader circle. If you only have one or two people read it, any comments they make will have too much impact on your thinking. Let’s say you have a rather graphic sex scene. If you only had one first reader and she objected to the scene, there’s a chance that she’s coming out of a personal place. Maybe she simply doesn’t like direct sexuality in books or something about the scene was triggering for her, so cutting that scene based on a single person’s read could well be a mistake.

But if four people read it and they all thought the scene was too much, you need to consider cutting it. Note that I said “consider.” You don’t have to cut it. First readers are just that, readers, not ultimate judges of your work. But if you show a manuscript to a variety of people and they all stumble over the same scene or dislike the same character, you owe it to yourself to take their comments seriously. Nothing is more annoying than the writer who solicits feedback and then ignores it. Most often these people were pretending to want critiques when they really just wanted praise, and serious readers soon tire of working with divas, no matter how talented they might be.

At the other end of the spectrum, you don’t want to have too many readers. If you show work to ten people you’re likely to end up with such a mishmash of opinions that you’ll be confused. Ellie loved the ending. Josh felt it faded out. Caroline felt the dialogue just needed some tweaking, and Mark insists that the real ending of the story is twenty pages earlier and the last chapter is superfluous. Too much feedback can be paralyzing, worse than none at all. If you try to incorporate everyone’s suggestions, your book may ended up with that “edited by committee” feeling sometimes seen in books that were spawned in MFA programs and have been subsequently workshopped to death. These books don’t have any mistakes but they also don’t have any life. The author listened to everyone, taking out any possibly offensive and therefore any unique parts of the manuscript, and the result was a story with all energy and individuality of a dial tone.

Mailbox Monday!

2010-12-13T05:36:00.000-08:00

With Love, From Siesta Key, Florida

The Finding of a Story by Cheryl Greenfield

2010-12-04T07:31:00.000-08:00

Walking up the steps to the back door of the Lyon's mansion on a bright sunny autumn day, I thought of the person, “Miss Pat”, whom I would be interviewing for a writing invitation on The Bird Sisters blog -- thinking too of Rebecca Rasmussen who gave me this fantastic opportunity to write in a space designated for writers, novelists, and known authors who have published; moreover, a space for even someone like myself who is unpublished and as yet 'unknown'. So, what will I write about, I thought? It has to be about finding character and story in the impressions and surroundings and in the person I am now approaching. Thus, I spent two delightful and charming hours with an enigma.

She greets me cordially with a smile and her still noticeable southern accent. “Miss Pat” as she calls herself from her southern heritage from Mississippi is everything gracious. Charming and well coiffed and dressed, she smiles and invites me inside. She is wearing a long black dress that looks to be silk and a pink leather jacket along with black, silver, and pink jewelry well arranged. Her black sandals show well-pedicured pink polished toenails.

At this point, I am well aware of wearing denim capris and a purple sweater jacket over a purple tank. However, I do carry a great pewter colored leather bag and at this particular junction I have to say I fit the part of the observer, which a writer has to be. A writer is always on observation assessing, looking for nuance, and in this particular time and moment, I smell a marvelous aroma of some soup on the stove. It smells textural and is some bean soup I later find out in conversation. The parlor is high ceilings and dark forest green with embellishment of a bygone era, that long ago Victorian period when this home was actually built. Graciously she guides me into the parlor with dark woods, autumn decor is around in many ways displayed on round tables and in vases of textured flower arrangements that feel natural and inviting appreciation for in a quiet subdued way that I am aware of. The artist in me comes alive in this respect that I always notice decor and interior design and textural aspects along with the elements of design. Miss Pat has set the stage for a delightful experience.

Thus, I begin asking questions about how she became an innkeeper. Actually, it happened happenstance. She simply fell into this bed and breakfasting occupation while helping another friend who owned such an establishment and who asked for Miss Pat's help for staging mystery parties. That was twenty years ago. The home I found out was also bought happenstance! Now this is beginning not to be surprising from someone who has just told me she walks within 'a bubble' or 'with fairy dust on her shoulder' who just falls into all good things. How interesting this is! Few of us have this easy charming situational thing, and it is exciting to discover more facets of her background and character. As I sit and listen on a red couch in a well-appointed parlor, I think of the romantic dinners she describes she has for a couple. Discreet and romantic meals and times to talk, cherish, or explain between two people. The man rings a bell after the first course is served. What stories linger in my imagination afterward and later while musing on the conversation!

For a fact, I'm learning historical notes and a charming story of a woman who desired to join her husband going home back to Kansas after traveling in the air force and constant change always in this process making a home in moments spent in various homes along the way. However, this home is to be well cherished as the former owners had also done. This is Pat's philosophy: cherish the moments as a caretaker.

So heritage is important as well as making moments for family and friends and eventually for those guests who will reside in her quite elegant charming home that has a sense of quietude and congeniality extended in gracious manners and features that blend old with new. New features are a spa, plasma televisions throughout and computer access for the fast paced world and business guests who happen to find their way into her home and now in the adjoining mansion and restaurant her son is efficiently running. Wonderful menus are described on the up-to-date face book site that extol the homemade foods and entertainments that come into this small community. Surprisingly there are many such events and entertainments.

So a writer's delight is experiencing the feeling of all this activity within the area of these two mansions connected in family. So a writer/observer sees the opportunity for people watching, historical enactments, weddings, engagements, romantic meals, as well as restorative in the aspect of those coming home to have a place to stay or come to during a funeral or sudden illness of a family member, and, lastly, simply 'a place to come to heal after a tragedy or divorce.'

Much more could be said of this conversation and interview with a charming and beautiful southern woman who happenstance came to be an innkeeper and gracious woman found discipline at a door waiting to give house tours come rain or shine dressed in the 1890's fashion costume of a long red dress and draping pearls who has a ready smile waiting! Indeed, the discipline and management skill shines through in the conversation. It has been a stimulating scintillating conversation full of richness and detail.

It provides mental food for much thinking of possible novels and characters. Who lived here? Well, that answer was delightful as well. During one of the usual tours, a man appeared two years ago suddenly and Miss Pat asked him to join the scheduled tour. It so happens he was a descendent of the first owners of the two homes, bankers from Boston, and this is so much more to this story but time and space cannot tell it, here.

Suffice it to say there is much an author can find in such a setting with such an atmosphere and richness. I take my leave from this kind and gracious woman’s environment of subtle hues, subtle textures, rich stories, love of home and hearth, people of all sorts coming and going surround me and my imagination-- a wellspring for writing! For one who loves to write and experience on levels of creativity this is the place to come and be richly embraced within!

Thank you, Miss Pat, for the uniqueness and certain beauty of home and hearth outwardly extended! It was a pleasure to sit with you for a spell smelling wonderful aromas, listening to a vital southern voice telling me a wonderful up to date story with such local history and such vivacious vitality! For a certainty the writer that resides within me wants more! Yes, this is the process and it is the finding of a story in a rich heart, a warming hearth and, lastly, in the inside a lovely woman's heart who is a cherisher of all the elements of heart and who exudes joy in the sharing her own personal story.

Link to The Lyons Twin Mansions:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Fort-Scott-KS/Lyons-Twin-Mansions/80059866067

Cheryl Greenfield is an aspiring writer who has a rich education in the humanities/arts. Currently, Cheryl is working to do professional storytelling events for children using her own stories and that of favored authors to create moments of inspiration for children and adults alike. She is also working on some oil paintings depicting Kansas prairie grass as well as pastoral scenes and working on a grant proposal in conjunction with two storytelling/art projects in KS and MO.

Guest Post: No Lifeguard On Duty by Novelist Chandra Hoffman

2010-11-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY

by Chandra Hoffman

Author of the novel Chosen

I am coming to the end of my two week tour of the West Coast, primarily consisting of book clubs where I have enjoyed being the guest author, an appearance at Powells and more notably now, thirteen straight days of single parenting and taking our homeschooling show on the road.

Today we got to the beach in Oxnard as the marine layer burned off over the Channel Islands. A pod of porpoises came in to the final breakpoint and cut through huge breaking waves right in front of us and a sea lion cruised by, his eyes on ours, not ten feet away. Amazing. I was content to stand and take in the vastness of the ocean, the clear canvas of cool grays and blues, sea and sky with my pantlegs rolled up so the saltwater and sand could exfoliate three days of flipflops at Disneyland grime off my feet. But serenity was short-lived as I quickly found myself locked in a struggle to inspire healthy respect for the ocean in my fearless just-turned-nine-year-old who is starting to think he might know better than me in most areas, including water safety.

The surf was breaking loud and variable, huge cross currents converging in front of us and surfers, grown-ups in wetsuits, were being ripped off their boards which came at us, unleashed, in the shallow whitewater like broad javelins. I watched as one stand-up paddler had a wave double his full height swell and break over him and I got nervous. I looked around the beach for other swimmers, families, kids, and found nobody but the most die-hard surfers and a few dog walkers and fishermen. This was not Cayman with its mellow aqua water or the Jersey Shore with its ubiquitous lifeguards and their whistles.

But Hayden, who couldn't get enough of the Disney rollercoasters and thrill rides from his newly acquired height of 48 inches screamed an enthusiastic "YEAH!" and ripped his shirt off, throwing it back towards the beach in preparation.

I wished for J to be there, more experienced with the ocean when it was dark and ominous, a veteran surfer, windsurfer and kiteboarder, someone who had stared down waves bigger than these in Baja and out at the main channel. I wanted another grown up, my coparent, to assess the situation, to help me guide our son. I even thought briefly of taking a video clip and emailing it to him, then calling him for a bi-coastal parental consultation, because this is what being the giddy owner of a fancy new iPhone does to you...

"Just up to your knees, Haybes," I said lamely, feeling every bit like the nervous nelly dad Marlin in Finding Nemo with his suggestions that his son play on the spongebeds with the toddler fish.

And still Hayden jerked his bare shoulder out from under my restricting hand and plowed out into the foaming water.

"Haybes, wait," I faltered.

I looked to the only other adult nearby, a surfer about my age who was surveying the waves. I was preparing to ask if he knew the currents here well, and would he let his kid in the water, but he was already jogging ahead toward Hayden, yelling over the roar of the water for him to stop, and for this guy, Haybes did. He listened as this stranger told him that this area was too dangerous for swimming, that there were still decent waves but less current a few hundred yards off, down by the jetty.

Blushing from being spoken to by a stranger, Hayden sulked back to me and his younger siblings, their arms snaked around my thighs, giving me a grouchy thump with his shoulder as he passed, kicking up sand. I stood there equally chagrinned--how come I hadn't stood my ground earlier when everything in me was saying this was more surf than he could handle? The thing is, I want my kids to have fun--my backpack is crammed with a testimony of receipts to waterparks, themeparks, carnivals, zoos, helitours and science centers all to this end. And here we are at the largest ocean in the world! What could be more fun than the ocean?! Except, of course, when it looks and sounds like a hungry, roaring predator, anxious to swallow up my kids forever like Pinnochio's Monstro. (Sorry for the second Disney reference in one post--I was just 'experiencing the magic' for the last three days. Might need a brain scrub.)

So I thanked the surfer and shepherded my kids down the beach to the suggested place where the waves looked more like Cayman when a Northwester blows in, decent surf, but predictable, waves that come in straight, break and go out. I let the boys wade in and get tumbled in the chilly water. Max took a few spins in the break, got some sandburn on his shoulders and abandoned body surfing for beachcombing but Hayden stayed in until he was blue-lipped, shrieking with joy and taunting, waggling his surf-shorted bum at the waves that rolled in and summarily took him down.

I stayed crouched at the edge of the water, half my attention on Piper as she doodled in the sand behind me, eyes darting to Max drifting down the water's edge at a comfortable distance from the reaching fingers of the waves, but ready to rush for Hayden should he not surface quickly enough. Letting him bodysurf in the Pacific, build memories and feel that exhilarating pull of the water's power, trying not to think about all of J's aunt's stories about people who have drowned here at this very beach, experienced swimmers, kayakers, surfers, adults, children... Keeping these stories to myself because I don't want him to grow up afraid, but I also can't let him set all the boundaries.

As my kids get older, I feel like I am struggling between hovering and hands off, between choosing for them, and letting go. Last week on our Santa Monica beach ride, Max insisted on leaving the hotel room wearing flip flops instead of the shoes I suggested for bike riding. Surprise; as we pedaled along the waterfront he had to stop, exasperated, several times to retrieve a lost flip. I managed to keep the 'I told you so' to a mere two times. (Okay, three.) But flip flops vs. sneakers was a choice I was okay with letting him make. In Disneyland, Hayden informed me that my insistence that WOMEN on the restroom door meant "Moms and Kids" didn't fly, and he would be using the MENS room from now on. Okay with that one too... Sort of. Yes. Okay. He's nine. I'm right outside. It's freaking Disneyland.

But today, the height of the surf, the force of the water, that audible clap as waves broke--today I made the unpopular choice, and we found something that reeked of compromise. I never fully relaxed on the beach and Hayden's eyes kept drifting longingly down to the surfers and their rides on waves triple the height of his, you know, over here on the spongebeds. With his mom watching him. If you know Hayden, then you understand that the idea that other people are having fun, more fun than him, it's torture.

Today I think I made the right choice. Anyway, we're here in our cute little Mexican-themed motel room, him snoring safely away, his resentment receding like the tides. But I also know we will meet this situation with increasing frequency. Just me and Hayden, facing off in front of the dangerous bass thump and thrilling allure of something so much bigger than us both, no lifeguard on duty.

Guest Post by Doreen Mcgettigan

2010-11-27T08:28:00.000-08:00

A Guest Post

By Doreen Mcgettigan

Something has been nagging at me for the last week or so and I strongly felt the urge to share.

First things first; thank you Rebecca for giving me this opportunity to guest post for you. You are one talented and amazing lady and I feel blessed to consider you a friend. The truly amazing part is we have yet to meet but it looks like that just might happen in the near future!

I am a writer/storyteller so if I drag on a bit I’ll try to shake myself. On Facebook last week there was a discussion started on the ‘old’ tuck, duck and cover exercises those of us who were born in the 50’s had the pleasure to endure.

Back then it was the Russians. They were out to get us. As a young child I had no clue what political propaganda was, I was just terrified. Okay I was also a really weird little kid. If I saw an airplane in the sky-especially the ones with the square back-the bombers, I was terrified. I ran for cover so fast into a neighbor’s shed, under a tree or under lawn furniture. Anyplace I could get too quickly and feel safe. I can still feel my fear now as I type this. The sweaty palms, my red, burning, face, my heart beating out of my chest.

As far as I know it was never talked about. I never brought it up, my fear that is, or the weird way I would just run and hide.

Back then communist and socialist dictators and Nazi’s made really bad leaders. Many, many people throughout history have been terrorized, tortured or murdered. That is a fact.

Fast forward to today. We as Americans have taken our eyes off of our flag, our constitution, and our long and hard-won fight for freedom. We have allowed our government to take over in areas that now threaten our very freedom.

Okay; she is getting political…uggghhh! Not really. I am just being honest. This is not a story about politics but a story about Americans. I have voted in every election since I was 18. I am very proud of that fact. Sometimes I have been a Democrat and sometimes a Republican.

I was actually physically sick when George Bush won his second term. I was scared to death of the puppet-masters pulling his strings. My young daughter, who had just voted for the first time said, “Don’t worry, Mom. We will have Hillary next time and NO one can beat her”.

Okay, we all know how that turned out.

Then the propaganda started. My 5-year-old grandson came home singing ‘yes we can’. Parents complained, but the campaigning continued and still does. Whether it was my candidate or yours really does not matter. In America we do not campaign in our public schools, period!

Behind the scenes and under the radar, yet right in front of our faces I have been hearing some very frightening words. Words that had terrified me when I was 5 and certainly scare me far more now that I am 52. I first saw glimpses of the words on the internet. Then I saw them on blogs. I saw them buried way in the back of several magazines and newspapers. The words popped up on news channels; cable, of course.

The words were ‘Communist’ and ‘Socialist.' Of course anyone that mentioned they were seeing or hearing these words were called fear mongers or racists. They were also called conspiracy theorists.

Whew; thank God it wasn’t for real. I tried to put the fear towards the back of my mind. Then I started seeing the red tee shirts everywhere. The tee shirts with the white letters spelling the word Communist on the front. The shirts were on children. Now that got my attention. Then Time Magazine and Newsweek had their ‘Socialism’ covers.

Yes my dear fellow Americans, in 2010 it has become very cool to be a Communist, Socialist or a radical. I am so angry I could just spit! I am angry with my fellow parents who have sent their children off to be educated and have had them returned indoctrinated. I am angry with my fellow Americans who do not care. I am afraid for the ones who say “It could never happen here”. Hello, it is happening.

We all need to start sharing some history with our young people. They say this is the most educated generation of Americans in our history. What a shame they are also the most illiterate when it comes to history of their own country and theology.

They believe they can stand for something they do not even understand. How dare they have the arrogance to hold all the answers before they have even paid taxes? I would challenge them to find a time in the history of this world when communism or socialism ever ended well. I would dare them to watch the movie “The boy in the striped pajamas”.

My 10-year-old granddaughter does not say the Pledge of Allegiance in her classroom. The teacher does not have enough time. She has no time to honor our flag but she has time to teach my granddaughter to bitch at me for occasionally using a plastic grocery bag. {Oh yeah; how about all those polar bear, breast cancer and rain forests eco-friendly bags I bought?} Now they tell us they were made in China and are full of lead that is just rubbing up against the veggies and fruit we feed our kids. Oh and the light bulbs; the twirly ones that cost a fortune. Read the warning on them. You need a hazmat team if you break one!

As we sit down and journal our reasons for Thanksgiving and gratitude this year, I challenge each and every one of you to have a conversation with a young person. Share with them the reason for the holiday. Explain to them that Americans are exceptional, and why. Yes, we can be arrogant but we are also the most charitable country in the world. Explain that socialism does not mean spreading the wealth around. That is a big lie. Socialism is stealing from the ‘haves’ and giving to those in power - not the ‘have-nots’.

We have always been a country full of people who could grow up and be anyone or anything we dreamed we could be. We need to make things. Invent things. Things that other countries want to buy from us. We have simply become consumers. When did we stop raising kind and empathetic children?

When did we start raising radicals and stop raising dreamers?

Below are just a few things I found on the website: www.cpusa.org/

This is only one example of many, many sites out there.

A better world is possible — a world where people come before profits. That’s socialism. That’s our vision. We are the Communist Party USA.

If, however, what is meant is that many more people are ready to give socialism a hearing, not reject it out of hand, then I would say, "Yes, this is a ‘socialist moment'." This is no small thing. It wasn't that long ago that socialism didn't have much currency among broad sections of the American people. It was considered a failed model, undemocratic and worse, a bankrupt idea - something best consigned to history.

What the Love Goddess' Cooking School is Really About by Melissa Senate

2010-11-22T06:43:00.000-08:00

WHAT THE LOVE GODDESS’ COOKING SCHOOL IS REALLY ABOUT

by Melissa Senate

The summer I was getting divorced, a close friend flew from New York City to Maine to stay with me for the weekend in my new apartment. She glanced around my quaint small town of 8,000 with its lovely young families and historic homes, then looked at me and my (then) four year old son, and said, “You have to move to Portland. You won’t be happy in this town. As a single mother and living in an apartment, you won’t see yourself reflected here. You won’t feel like you belong. In New York (from where I’d moved two years earlier), anything goes. Here, perfect—however surface level—goes.”

Sledgehammer. I hadn’t even thought of that one. You won’t feel like you belong. You won’t see yourself reflected here. Perfect goes. That was four years ago, and as it turned out, she was both right and wrong (there turned out to be quite a few single mothers). That first year, though, I did struggle to feel like I belonged. But there was no moving: my town has one of the best public school systems in the state, which was my main priority. And it’s one of the few towns with great schools that also has a walkable downtown, albeit a little one—a necessity for me (including a sweet little indie bookstore). I was staying, despite the blinking neon D on my forehead.

Because my dear friend was also very right, I stayed home a lot more than I usually would. And I started to cook for the first time. I had the legendary Julia Child and Marcella Hazan and Mark Bittman by my side. And my dear little son, Max, asking if he could work the stove (no, but you can beat the eggs. And you can dip the chicken cutlets in the egg and flour and breadcrumbs). As my son and I spent hours in the kitchen, making pancakes from scratch, baking cakes and cookies, layering lasagna, talking, laughing, being together, I slowly began to feel that I belonged in my own house, my own life . . . and when you feel that way, you leave your house with your head held high. The neon D faded for me until I completely stopped thinking of myself as divorced or a single mother or different at all. I started thinking of myself as just me. A new me, but me.

And with a little perspective, I started to write about a thirty-year-old woman named Holly Maguire who feels adrift in her own life and stuck in one she doesn’t feel is her own. She inherits her legendary grandmother’s cooking class and now has four students who also feel adrift, who need to feel that they belong. And as they cook together, they talk. They share, they hope, they dream, they wish (the recipes call for adding wishes or memories into every pot and pan) into the chicken alla Milanese and saffron risotto and three cheese gnocchi. And their hopes and dreams begin to come true, not from the wishing, but because of the wishing, the asking for what they wanted. The daring to deserve, perhaps.

In THE LOVE GODDESS’ COOKING SCHOOL, heartbroken Holly hopes to rediscover her love of cooking, taken from her by a long ago mistake. A twelve-year-old girl abandoned by her mother signs on as Holly’s apprentice so she can learn to cook her dad’s favorite Italian food and stop him from marrying his phony lasagna-queen girlfriend. Holly’s childhood friend twists her wedding band, barely bear to be in the kitchen as she hides a painful secret. A serial dater pressured to get married by her overbearing family can’t admit she longs for love. And a separated father hopes to cook his way back into his young daughter’s heart. In the end, they’ll all discover what belonging truly means.

All that cooking and home-bodying worked out quite well for me. It gave me a book. And today, I’m giving one away! Leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of THE LOVE GODDESS’ COOKING SCHOOL, published just a few weeks ago by Simon & Schuster. You can comment on my post, cooking, writing, the weather—anything will do! P.S. Many thanks to Rebecca for sharing her blog with me!

Follow Melissa on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MelissaSenate
Friend her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MelissaSenate
Visit her website: http://www.melissasenate.com/

Faith and Fiction Saturday c/o My Friend Amy

2010-11-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

Books Where the Main Character Rejects Faith

Faith and Fiction Saturday is a weekly discussion of the intersection of faith and fiction. Excerpted from the amazing blog My Friend Amy.

Amanda recently raised the question of why characters in today's general market books are without religion. She wanted to know why faith is either a huge deal to the storyline or completely absent. I thought this was interesting, and followed the discussion in comments. Jodie brought up that there's a lack of books where characters consider faith or religion but decide against it for one reason or another.

I have to admit that really got me thinking. Can you think of any books in the general market where characters consider religion but reject it? I searched my brain and only came up with one book and it's not exactly the same thing.

The Big Love by Sarah Dunn is about a girl who grew up as an evangelical Christian but left the faith. It's significant to the storyline because it still affects her in many ways. But the book isn't really about how she made that choice, only that she did.

Another book where a character had an evangelical stint was Mrs. Perfect by Jane Porter. It seems the character in the book no longer practices the faith but had a time in her life when she did and she remembers it fondly in the novel. I remember appreciating it for the positive portrayal even though the character was no longer really practicing or active in a faith community.

I can think of one book in the Christian market where a character considers conversion to evangelical Christianity from Mormonism, but in the end chooses not to. Books about conversion might also be in short supply. (in general market fiction they are probably in fine supply in Christian fiction!)

So that's today's question for you. If rejecting faith is a part of the faith experience just like embracing it is, do you know of any books where the characters have considered faith and rejected it? How about books where characters convert from one religion to another or even from one form of Christianity to another?

Mike & Ollie by Susan Bearman

2010-11-17T06:36:00.000-08:00

Mike & Ollie

by Susan Bearman

Some people suffer from writer’s block. Not me. My problem is too many writing projects. The siren song of the new idea is irresistible to me. Right now, for example, I’m working on an alphabet picture book based on my husband’s pet shop (http://theanimalstore.com) that I plan to self-publish. I’ve been searching for the right vehicle to experiment with print on demand, and I had this great idea. My sister-in-law Rebecca Hamlin (http://www.chichonia.com/about.html) , a magnificent artist, is working on the illustrations.

This idea came about because I am completely redoing the website for my husband’s store, which is from way back in Web 1.0 and in desperate need of an overhaul. It involves writing copy for dozens of new pages, all of which require research. So of course, that seemed like the perfect time to start the picture book, so we can have it ready to launch with the new site.

I also decided to try my hand at NaNoWriMo for the first time — National Novel Writing Month. My brother says I’m cheating because I’m working on a memoir, not a novel, but there are plenty of other NaNo rebels out there who support me. NaNoWriMo seemed like the perfect opportunity to draft my memoir that has been simmering for almost 19 years.

My twins were born at 24 weeks gestation, at just about a pound and half each. They spent nearly five months in the hospital, a year on oxygen, and many years in therapy catching up. It’s been an exciting roller coaster of a ride, and many people over the years have encouraged me to write about it. When my twins graduated from high school in June, it seemed like the right time to tell my part of their story. The rest of it, from here on out, is theirs to tell.

Plugging along at a pretty good pace, I’m well past the halfway point of the NaNo 50K word goal. As I was writing, I remembered some little journals that I kept while the babies were in the hospital. I hauled them out and began transcribing them (great for the word count), but realized that I would not be able to use them verbatim in my memoir. They are raw, unfiltered, present tense letters to my sick babies. There is plenty of information and emotion to mine from these journal entries, but they are not something I will use in their entirety.

It occurred to me, though, that since I was already transcribing them, I could use this material in a different way. I envy young mothers today for their access to the Internet and the support it can provide. I would have loved to have been able to reach out to another mother who understood what I was experiencing. There weren’t that many of us back then.

So I decided to post my journal entries on a new blog called Mike&Ollie (http://mikeandollie.wordpress.com/about/), the joint nickname used to refer to the twins in the hospital (think Brangelina). Today, November 17, is the official launch, as well as the twins’ birthday. I will post every day between now and March 26, which is the date we were finally all home from the hospital. My hope is that parents who read it will find hope and inspiration from two babies who have been through it all and who came out well on the other side. I know my children have always inspired me. Today, November 17, also happens to be National Prematurity Awareness Day (http://www.modimes.org/news/nov1_2010.htm ). This seems like a perfect way to celebrate.

Thank you so much to Rebecca, who has wholeheartedly supported this project since I first committed to it in an essay at the beginning of the year. Everyone should be so lucky as to have such an enthusiastic supporter.

Operatic Divas and Naked Irishmen by Nancy Hinchliff

2010-11-13T14:14:00.000-08:00

Nancy Hinchliff writes and blogs in Louisville, Kentucky as well as on line at Examiner.com, Eye on Life Magazine, Pink magazine and hubpages. She co-authored Room at the Table, a cookbook for The Bed and Breakfast Association of Kentucky for which she won their president's award in 2008. She is currently working on a memoir titled Operatic Divas and Naked Irishmen, a humorous and poignant account of how an admittedly asocial retired school teacher reinvents herself as an Innkeeper. In this intimate and engaging memoir, she candidly writes about her challenging sixteen year journey of self-discovery. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky where she still runs her bed and breakfast. You can find Nancy blogging at: www.businesswomensforum.blogspot.com

Excerpt from Operatic Divas and Naked Irishmen (a work in progress)

by Nancy Hinchliff

I heard it loud and clear. I was on the third floor at my computer with my shoes off, working on a new article. By the time I finished the last paragraph, it had turned into a steady pounding . I got up and walked to the stairway, shoes in hand. Sitting on the top stair, I put them on one at a time, as the pounding got louder and louder and took on a sense of urgency. I hurried down the forty stairs to the ground floor, thinking that this must be a worker from the street who had come to tell me they're turning my water off for a while.

I opened the front door and there he stood, completely rumpled; his weather-beaten canvas jacket open in the front revealing a denim workshirt, hair all askew, and backpack thrown over his left shoulder. He looked a little annoyed.

"Sorry," I said, "It's a big house....over four thousand square feet.........takes a while to get to the door....... Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I'm here to check in"

Check-in? Check-in? I thought, my mind racing. Did I have a check-in today? Oh my God, I think I did! But not this dirty construction worker, who was about to turn my water off.

I finally gathered my wits and said "And you are.....Mister....?"

".... Evans," he interrupted, "the business man from Virginia"

Business man...that's a laugh. This guy is no business man. If this is a business man, where is his brief case and his computer?.

"Mr Evans, of course" I smiled "Come on in"

"And you are?" he asked, reeking of tobacco.

"I'm Nancy, the owner and innkeeper."

Telling him to put his backpack down in the hall, I took him into the parlor to give him the grand tour. As we left the parlor and entered the dining room, I pointed out the snacks and drinks available to guests.

"Is it okay if I have some of that liquor over in the corner?" he asked, completely oblivious to the fresh baked chocolate chip cookies nearby.

Hesitating to think that one over for a bit, I answered

"Yes" I'm such a trusting soul. He told me he would be eating breakfast at nine and asked if his friend, the one who had made the reservation, Roger I think his name was, could stop by later for a visit.

Then he asked "Is there anyone else here but me?"

I thought seriously about lying, but answered "No"

He went on " Do you live here alone?"

A sharp jab in my stomach alerted me. Do I tell him the truth? Why is he asking that? "Yes", I said and sent him up to the third floor with a key, to find his room.

I hurried to my room on the second floor and double locked the door. Sitting on the bed, I tried to catch my breath, his words whirling around in my head. Later I heard him leave, then return. I quietly went down to the first floor to check out what was going on. I entered the parlor and there he was with an already half empty bottle of Vodka in his hand pouring himself a huge drink. The brown paper sack from the liquor store across the street was lying on the floor.

"Hi," he said, looking up at me from my favorite winged-back chair. He had a crooked but friendly smile on his face. He was now reeking of both tobacco and Vodka.

"Hi" I countered, scurrying past him and heading for the kitchen.

"Like a drink?"

"Oh no, thank you. I don't drink," I said, maybe a little too curtly.

I made it to the kitchen, without appearing too rude, happy that I wouldn't have to answer any more personal questions. I retreated up the back stairs to my room, which I immediately locked tight. An hour or so later, the doorbell rang and I could hear him open it and greet his friend. For a while, it was very quiet and then I heard the two of them leave.

I finished watching the evening news and went downstairs to make myself some dinner. I walked into the parlor and was a little taken a back by the empty Vodka bottle plopped down on my antique table next to the chair where he had been sitting. I threw out the empty Vodka bottle, had dinner and retired to my room for the rest of the evening. I talked myself into believing everything would be okay and I wasn't in any eminent danger. Then I double locked the door, grabbed the phone, and jumped into bed.

The next morning, I was up bright and early making fresh ground coffee, when I heard him coming down the stairs. As he walked into the dining room, I was surprised to see how good he looked in the morning light.

"Thought you'ld have a little trouble getting up for breakfast this morning," I said.

"Why's that?" he asked.

I didn't want to be rude, but decided to tell him what I thought. "Well, you had quite a bit to drink last night. You finished that whole bottle of Vodka."

"Oh that was nothing," he laughed, "I'm a pretty seasoned drinker."

Seasoned drinker, I thought....more like an alcoholic if you ask me. I sort of expected him to ask for a Bloody Mary for breakfast.

Back in the kitchen, I cooked up fabulous vegetable omelets, sour dough toast and bacon. He said he was hungry and had asked if I made omelets.

"I'm a vegetarian you know," he informed me nonchalantly as he asked me to join him for breakfast.

Sitting across the table from him, I wondered just who this man was, who had the gaul to ask if I lived here alone. We exchanged some pleasantries and then he asked another of his now famous personal questions.

"You know," he began, "the jails are jammed packed with prisoners"

"uh huh," I nodded, gobbling up my wonderful eggs.

"How do you feel about that?"

"About what?"

"About all those prisoners?"

Oh my God, I thought, he's trying to get me into a conversation where I expose my position and then he jumps on me and shoves his obsessive ideas down my throat. How do I get out of this?

"Well, well......I... I don't usually get into these kinds of conversations, I stammered, especially at breakfast."

I managed to change the subject. But he just kept on trying to hook me into similar conversations.....politics..... religion.....anything controversial he could think of. Finally he gave up and began talking about himself.

He told me he was an inventor, and through the conversation, I could tell that he was quite creative and intelligent. He also told me he had invented a very hard plastic which had made him the millionaire he was today. Then the conversation switched to Roger, his friend....the one who helped him finish off an entire bottle of Vodka before dinner last night. Roger was a good friend and also an inventor he said.

"Yes, Roger is the one who invented the GPS."

After nearly choking on my last bite of eggs, I repeated "the GPS" Was this guy for real?"The GPS that you put in your car to tell you how to get from one place to another?"

"That's the one" he said nonchalantly.

"How come I've never heard of him?" I asked, "What's his last name?" In my head, I was already on line googling GPS."

"His name is Roger Easton," he answered.

I was suddenly jerked back to reality by the sound of the front door bell. I quickly ran to the door and flung it open. And there he was...... Roger......creator of the GPS.......master inventor........ savior of the navigationally impaired.........in all his glory.

"Hi Roger. Come on in. Want a cup of coffee? How 'bout an omelet?

I never asked Roger directly about his invention, I didn't want to embarrass him, in case it wasn't true. And Mr Evans said no more.

But this is what I found on google: "The evidence shows that Roger Easton invented the GPS and is finally getting credit for it as shown by his receiving the National Medal of Technology (below). Brad Parkinson deserves much credit for his successful development of the system, but neither Brad Parkinson nor Ivan Getting (who also had been given credit) invented it. Further study about GPS has reinforced prior understanding that the Navy had the technology and the Air Force had the money to fund it."

I quickly scanned the picture to see if it was the Roger Easton I had had coffee with that morning at the breakfast table. But it was not; it was a different Roger Easton, the one who had invented the GPS. I don't know who Mr Evans introduced to me to that morning and I guess I never will.