In the Willow Cabin at Hedgebrook

The past few weeks have been by turns exciting, sorrowful, grief-filled, stressful and exhilarating. From flying to Paris for a two-week holiday, only to find out my younger sister had died suddenly during our overnight flight, to coming home to a house still filled with unpacked boxes from Rob’s move to Santa Barbara over Christmas, to preparing for a week at Hedgebrook, it has been a tumultuous time.

Today is my fourth day among the quiet cedars and oaks of Hedgebrook, a retreat center for women writers on Whidbey Island in the Pacific Northwest. In January, I was accepted into a Master Class with poet Carolyn Forché, and so far it has gone beyond my every expectation. There are six women here, from all over the country: Chicago, California, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Washington, D.C. We each have our own cabin, with practically every convenience. There is a tiny half-bath, which means one has to go to the shared bathhouse for showers, which was my only small concern. But the bathhouse turns out to be a warm and inviting spa, with heated floors and lovely showers and a claw-footed tub for long, luxurious soaks, lit by candles, if one so desires.

We meet in the afternoons for lectures and to share work, and Carolyn has insisted that each of us write for three hours every morning—uninterrupted. This has been my greatest challenge, of course. It helps that there is no Internet in the cabins (unfortunately, my cell phone and iPad work great, which makes it very easy to cheat, and I have—just a tiny bit). I have tried to follow the directive, though, and after three days I’m pleased with the work that has resulted. Raw, unedited, emotion-laced, my writing these past days is nevertheless exciting if only for the fact that I have long stretches of time to decompress and go deeply into it. I’ve written about my sister, and added pieces to a novel I started years ago, and I’ve written new scenes for my memoir.

I have also managed to post something on my blog each day, and hope to continue. We’ll see what happens when I go back to real life next week.

I am in the cabin called Willow. It was randomly assigned to me, but the willow has special significance to me, and so the selection seems to have been divinely wrought. I grew up in Michigan, where weeping willows are both abundant and inspiring. I have always loved them, and over the years the willow has appeared in nearly all of my stories in some fashion or another. When one of my clients independently published his memoir last year (Dick Jorgensen’s lovely O Tomodachi), I created an imprint under which to publish it: Weeping Willow Books.

Carolyn has given me some very helpful suggestions on my memoir, Face, and so I have decided to stop excerpting pieces of it on the blog—for now anyway. I want to revisit it with her advice in mind, and then will decide what to do from there.

I also have two other book projects on the front burners, including an anthology for women writers. More about those in coming weeks and months.

Meanwhile, I will keep writing about our travels, and my life, and books. I hope you’ll continue to join me here. If you’d like to receive my posts in your email inbox, you can sign up at this link. I’ll also see you on Facebook and Twitter. As always, keep writing!

2016—A Year for Writing

It is not the New Year; it is barely Christmas, but I am in a mood to celebrate the turning year.

What a momentous year of change this has been. (See my post on Dec. 18.) I have a sense we are not done. I have been blessed to have worked with nearly 100 authors over the past seven years, coaching and helping them craft their memoirs, novels, self-help and poetry books. What an immense privilege this has been. And most especially seeing the result in tangible fashion—12 books successfully published both independently and traditionally. (See the list here.)

In 2016, I am shifting my focus a tiny bit to put my own writing first. You’ll see more regular blog posts and excerpts from my memoir, which I am revising after an unsuccessful tilt at traditional publishers with two agents. I don’t know what the end result will be, perhaps independent publication—we’ll see. For now it feels good and right to be revising. I have other writing projects in the wings, too—a novel and an anthology of essays by women in collaboration with my friend Kathleen Barry, who writes the blog Whispers of Wisdom.

I hope to go on retreat several times in 2016. I’ll write more about that in coming weeks.

I am excited about the coming year and all the possibilities it holds: travel, writing, working with my incredible client/writers, and love!

Who could ask for more?

What are you doing to feed your writing muse next year?

New Books from Willow Rock Authors

Two of Willow Rock’s authors have new books coming out, and a third is writing a sequel to his successful nonfiction book on investing.

Just out from Moodbooks Publishing is Michael Scott Hanrahan’s environmental thriller The Last Extinction. Biologist Christina Larson finds herself pulled into a mythic and epic journey to save the last of six sacred animal species denoted in an ancient relic unearthed in the Amazonian jungle. If she doesn't, it will mean the end of humanity as we know it. The Last Extinction is available as both an e-book and as Moodbooks’ brand-new enhanced e-book, which features beautifully animated illustrations and sound. You’ve never seen another book like it!

Michele Wolfe has been offered a contract to publish her novel, The Three Graces. College juniors Jessie, Isabel and Sara become linked in friendship by visits to hidden places only they can see. Together on a trip to Hearst Castle in California, an earth-shaking encounter with a stunning statue in the gardens binds them to the spirits of the Three Graces, Brilliance, Joy and Bloom. Under the weight of school and family problems, the girls grow to be fast friends as they struggle with who they are and what direction they should go in life. Through the gift of pendants, The Graces seem to be guiding them. But will they be able to help the girls overcome all the roadblocks along the way? You can read more about The Three Graces and Michele here. And watch for more news about the book in coming months.

Meanwhile, Kevin Bourke is working on a sequel to his 2012 book, Make Your Money Last a Lifetime, which is available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon. Using stories from his own experiences as a financial planner, Kevin provides excellent advice on everything from asset allocation to how to deal with the fluctuations in the stock market to handling your grown children’s requests for money. Kirkus Reviews called it “An eminently readable, authoritative little book that offers sensible advice about major financial decisions.” See what others say about this great how-to book on making your resources last as long as you do.  Kevin’s sequel will be titled Make Your Money Last a Lifetime – for Divorcees.

I am proud to have worked with all three of these exceptional authors. Check out their books today.

Review - The Book of Someday by Dianne Dixon

The Book of Someday is Dianne Dixon's second novel, and like her first (The Language of Secrets, 2010-11), it's a great read.

Her latest interweaves the stories of three women who share a disturbing history but don't know each other.  

The book opens with Livvi Gray, a shy and insecure writer with a dark past who is haunted by a recurring dream about a woman in a silver dress and pearl-button shoes. Livvi is experiencing some success with her writing and meets a new man who is everything she wants, except she has a feeling he's withholding something from her.

Meanwhile, we meet Micah, a hard-driving and wildly successful photographer who's kept people at bay all of her life. She has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and suddenly she feels it important to visit several people she has slighted in the past. She begins a cross-country journey to make amends. At least that's her intention.

Then Dixon takes us back in time twenty-six years to tell the story of Anna Lee, a new mother whose husband can't seem to hold a job or make her happy. Despite her misgivings, she agrees to take in her husband's troubled teenage niece for the summer. Fireworks ensue.

A former screenwriter, Dixon is a skilled storyteller. Her characters come alive on the page and we begin to care about all three women. But it's not until the final pages of the book that we discover how these three women are connected. For me, that was frustrating, even though the resolution was more than satisfying.

If you like stories with mystery and a twist at the end, you'll enjoy The Book of Someday. 

Review - City of Mirrors by Melodie Johnson Howe

Melodie Johnson Howe’s latest novel, the detective thriller City of Mirrors, is a fun romp through Los Angeles with an unlikely heroine, the aging starlet Diana Poole.

When the novel opens, Poole is mourning the loss of her screenwriter husband and the even more recent death of her movie star mother. Poole is forced to go back to work and lands a part in a movie. But things begin to go seriously awry when Poole agrees to visit the young star of the film and discovers her body in a dumpster behind her apartment. Poole turns detective, and the more she uncovers, the more things don’t add up, but bodies do.

This is Johnson Howe’s second Diana Poole mystery (the first was Shooting Hollywood, 2012), and its considerable twists and turns will both amaze and delight readers.

Poole is a wonderfully complex character, and Johnson Howe has masterfully captured the angst of an aging actress who’s suddenly alone. She worries about how she’ll support herself without her husband, and frets that the one job she’s been able to land will somehow disappear (it does). Coming to terms with her contentious and tenuous relationship with her narcissistic late mother is an underlying theme that will resonate with anyone who has struggled with an overbearing parent.

Despite her very real fears, Poole is a fearless and smart detective, and Johnson Howe’s brilliant plot keeps Poole – and readers – guessing until the final page. If you love mysteries, this one belongs on your books-to-read list.

At Avila once again. And thoughts on writing.

It's hard to believe, but my writing buddies and I have been coming to Avila Beach to write every six months for nearly seven years. We are back this week, and it is a time I relish for the quiet, the serenity, the opportunity to get away from my office and client work for a few days and focus on my own writing projects.

It's beautiful up here, as usual. We always come up in April and October. Sometimes it's chilly and foggy; often it's sunny and warm. Today it has been both: chill fog this morning dissipating to warmth and sun this afternoon.

The hotel we stay in is on the ocean, so anytime a walk on the beach beckons, you can have your toes in the sand within minutes.

This is a time to breathe deeply, to ponder, to journal, to figure out a writing problem. I'm working on two book proposals, and also planning to write two book reviews and several blog posts. 

I've been reading Jon Katz's Bedlam Farm Journal recently. He posts several times a day, and even after only a few weeks I feel I know him and his artist wife, Maria. And I feel I am on a first-name basis with his dogs, Frieda, Red and Lenore, the three donkeys, the sheep, and the barn cats Flo and Minnie.

These past few weeks, Jon has shared the drama of Minnie's run-in with a wild animal of some kind.  Her leg was severely injured, broken and mutilated, and Jon and Maria had to decide whether to have Minnie euthanized or have her leg amputated. I've followed the story each day, from their decision to amputate the leg through the surgery and, now, Minnie's recovery back at home.

For the first time in her life, Minnie's in the house, and getting used to the luxuries there. They plan to return her to her life as a barn cat, once she's healed, but I'm wondering if Minnie will choose otherwise. 

Meanwhile, Jon writes about the dogs and the sheep, the donkeys and the vagaries of small-farm life, all the while documenting his posts with his photographs. 

Over the weekend he blogged about his visit to the University of Tulsa, where he taught a workshop on memoir. (He's the author of 12 books, most of them memoirs and most involving dogs.) 

The literary crowd didn't take much to his assertion that he is writing memoir now essentially through his blog. Agents and traditional publishing are things of the past, he told them. 

I can't say I disagree with him. I enjoy writing in my journal every day. From now on, I will share more of my thoughts in this space as well. If you're a writer, you have to write, even if the old formats fall away and a new world of online publishing takes its place. 

The old system of unfettered gatekeepers has crumbled in all genres, which may turn out to be a very good thing. I know it is for readers, who now have unlimited access to writing that previously might not have made the cut. Some of it may be awful, yes, but there will always also be those singular treasures that no one in traditional publishing was willing to take a risk on. I trust this will be as good for writers as it is for readers. I believe it will be. Time will be the judge. Meanwhile, I'm willing to take a chance on the new world order.