Tag: that day and what came after

Spring is now officially sprung!

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April 2, 2025

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz.
I wonder where the birdies is.
Anonymous author


Though no one really knows for sure who or where this verse came from, many of us have heard it before, perhaps even know it by heart, though I’ve gotta say, my grass is definitely not looking like it’s gonna “riz” any time soon, though the birdies are definitely here. In fact many of them stick around for the winter, but the birds who went south are slowly coming back to the area, though my favorites, the hummingbirds, probably won’t be back until later this month or early in May. This year, we had a true winter with some serious snow for the first time in several years, and we are now heading into the roller coaster that is spring in New England. March, April, and even sometimes May, can be completely unreliable, weather wise, so there’s no telling what lies ahead of us. But the snow is gone (for now), and the sun seems to have returned every now and then, even if the wind can still be rather bitter.


I’m including a photo of the snow-covered back yard from this past February (it’s thankfully now clear of the white stuff), but I’m also including a hopeful picture of my flowering cherry tree from last April below this, which allows me to dream about how soon the blossoms and leaves might be returning to those currently nearly bare skeletons. There are buds a-plenty but nothing is unfurling just yet. Hopefully soon. Another poet once said “hope springs eternal” (Alexander Pope, 1734), and this rings true for me, especially in the spring months. Though current politics can often feel like hope has gone into hiding, there’s nothing like new leaves and flowers to raise my spirits.

When last I wrote, there were lots of things in process, so here’s the latest report on my author activities. Last week, I finally finished all the audio files for the re-recording of the Finding Sisters audiobook. It’s now being reviewed and (keeping fingers crossed for no unexpected technical glitches) will hopefully be released later this spring. I had several successful in person events about the newest book (That Day And What Came After): talking about my writing process and reading segments from the book at a local senior center, a library, and as a selected author for my regional group, Straw Dog Writers Guild. I also participated last weekend on an author’s panel about our experiences with publishing, also sponsored by Straw Dog.

In February, I was finally able to record the podcast for my latest book, which ironically went live on Valentine’s Day. I guess it was a good thing that I used the phrase “the love of my life” in the subtitle. Here is the link to the recording, for anyone who might be interested. It’s about half an hour long, and you don’t need to open an account to listen. And as long as I’m talking about the love of my life and the coming of spring, below is one of the illustrations of Skip from the book you can enjoy while you listen. He’s mixing fertilizer in our greenhouse for his copious spring veggie plantings.


The book was recently selected as one of the March 2025 winners of the International Impact Book Awards in the Grief category. There appear to have been six winners out of 60 entrants in this category, and monthly winners get to boast with a digital sticker and certificate and compete with other monthly winners for a year-end grand prize. It’s not an important award, but it’s nice to be recognized, even in small ways, now and then.

Recently, I hired a web designer to update my author website for easier navigation. I’m also in the process of having her add photo galleries for all three books and, most importantly, we’re starting to create a system of indexing my past blog entries, so my thoughts can be tracked by themes throughout the years. I hope to have the entire website re-vamp completed this spring.

In terms of theatrical adventures, Richard, my co-playwright, and I continue to pursue possible full productions for Weaving Penelope, one at a university in Georgia, where a group of faculty members is currently reviewing the script with their students in mind, and another, lower tech version in Oregon, with Richard at the helm as director. Continue to keep your fingers crossed for us.

Though there’s no definitive new book project on my publishing horizon, I continue to write, mostly short essays about my life experiences, a project I have referred to before as my Mosaic Memoir, though it will likely not be in book form. If I were a famous writer, publishers might be interested in a collated volume of my random life experiences, but I’m not. Mostly, I’m just having a great time focusing on these memories and trying to get them in shape as essays, which seems to be the non-fiction equivalent of the fiction writer’s short stories.


And, of course, I’m eagerly awaiting the return of my meadow. Who knows what this spring will bring to my little corner of western Massachusetts. Last year, foliage was between mid-shin and knee level by mid-May, with only a few flowers to speak of until later in the season. I expect it to be a bit slower this year because we had a much deeper winter than we’d been having for the few years before that. But who knows? That’s what makes meadow-watching so much fun!

The Turning of the Year; Welcoming 2025

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January 7, 2025


When last I wrote, my virtual tour was halfway complete and the holidays were looming. Now, the tour is over, the holiday season is in the rearview mirror, winter is headed our way in earnest, and spring will be arriving before you know it. When I was young, time seemed to pass ever so slowly. Now, it has a tendency to fly by!

Here’s the quick update on my “author business:”

  • The virtual tour finished in mid-October with 10 out of 10 excellent reviews for That Day And What Came After.
  • Unfortunately, the podcast recording of me talking with my publisher about the new book has been postponed yet again—this time until early February.
  • I have booked a couple of solo in-person reading events early this year in my local community (Greenfield Senior Center in January, Greenfield Public Library in March), and I’m one of twelve featured writers for the Straw Dog Writers Guild annual group presentation honoring Pioneer Valley authors whose books came out in 2024.
  • I finished the audio files for the Finding Sisters audiobook since last I wrote. However, once the files were complete, we discovered that my microphone had caused some random drop out in a number of the files, so everything will have to be re-recorded. That was a frustrating discovery, but it will give me something to work in the coming weeks, in addition to more essays for my mosaic memoir project, and will hopefully be done and released before I write again in the spring.

As far as theatre events are concerned, I served as dramaturg for my friend and fellow playwright’s new play, How to Fold a Fitted Sheet & Other Pandemic Pastimes. In December, we held three public readings and got lots of great positive feedback on the script plus some good ideas for the next revision, coming in the new year.

Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the hoped-for production of Weaving Penelope out in Oregon next year will not be happening after all, though we now have a solid chance for a university production in Atlanta, GA, in late 2025. Please continue to keep your fingers crossed for us. We are really proud of the script and hope to see a full production before too much longer.


On a personal note: the meadow continued to be beautiful this fall, even as it and the season waned. It was trimmed, mulched (the trimmings serve as a self-mulch for the winter months), and put to bed for the season by the end of October. For the first time in several years, we did have a white Christmas in western Massachusetts, but somehow, a couple of inches of snow isn’t quite the romantic thing one envisions in one’s dreams and wasn’t even photo-worthy, though I did have a lovely holiday celebration overall.

The election came and went, and lots will be changing on the national scene in the coming year. Though I don’t write much about politics, and I live in one of the bluest of the blue states, I will say this one thing: the arts are more important now than ever before. Keep creating, and keep the faith!

Best of luck to all in 2025 and beyond!

Audiobook Adventures, Virtual Book Tour, and Production Planning, Oh My!

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October 1, 2024

As I previewed for you in the early summer, I had my first in-person event as the featured Author of the Month at the Northampton Senior Center in August. The event was small and the audience engaged and supportive. In fact, three of the audience members were women from my women writers group, and the others were clearly widows (one fairly recently). After my talk and reading two short excerpts, we had a good conversation about grief journeys and strategies for dealing with the “new normal” that comes after the loss of a loved one. And I sold three books!

My virtual book tour is currently at the halfway mark, and all the reviews have been five stars! Here are a few highlights of the things the reviewers (most of them book bloggers) have had to say about That Day And What Came After:

“Something about Rebecca Daniels’ writing is so transporting, you can be halfway through the book before you even realize it. ‘That Day and What Came After,’ is not just a memoir, but a treatise about grief, love and finding contentment again after everything has been taken from you. “

“I recommend it for readers who have unfortunately found themselves in the widowed club. It is definitely worth reading and I believe they will feel like someone actually understands them.”

“Rebecca Daniels has created a memoir here that I think will be an invaluable resource for those that are suffering, or have suffered with grieving the loss of a loved one.”

“The fog of grief is so well represented in this book that I found myself grieving along with Daniels, despite having never known Skip.”

“A stunning memoir from the author of some of the best books I’ve read in the last decade, ‘That Day And What Came After,’ is an intimate look at grief, pain and moving on in the wake of a tragedy.”

“In ‘That Day And What Came After,’ Daniels paints an unflinching portrait of grief, loss and heartbreak in a way that few other authors are willing to do.”


See the entire tour schedule, with links to the full reviews, and an opportunity to sign up for a book giveaway here.


Most grief narratives have abstract covers, but I didn’t
want random shapes. I wanted there to be something real under the abstraction. So, I gave my cover designer three photos (below) that I had taken of Skip’s grave as well as the tree memorial I had created in my back yard. I thought they might be manipulated into a somewhat more abstract image for the cover. Obviously, the designer agreed.


I’ve started to book more readings and author talks locally for early 2025, and there’s still the second half of my virtual tour to come, but this is a small market (a picturesque valley full of many small rural towns), so online reviews are incredibly helpful to get the word out to a broader readership. I’ve said this before, but if you have read and enjoyed the book, I hope you will consider putting a review on Amazon or Sunbury Press (wherever you bought your copy), or perhaps on Goodreads, if you are active there or bought the print version from your local bookstore. In addition to the promotional work, I’m going to send the book in for consideration for a few book awards, both regional and national before the end of 2024. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Unfortunately, the Sunbury Press BlogTalk Radio program interview with the founder of the company, originally scheduled for August, had to be postponed again, twice, and probably won’t happen until November. This latest book is not exactly holiday gift material for a general audience, but if someone you know is struggling through their own grief journey, it does make a good gift, though it can be helpful if the giver has read it first.

The audiobook for That Day is now available through Audible on Amazon, with yours truly doing the narration. That was a tough challenge, but I’m glad I decided to do it. I’m also working on narrating Finding Sisters, which came out during the second year of the pandemic, so it has languished until now. But I hope to have that finished before we get too deep into the holiday season.

The other project that is taking my time this fall is the play I co-wrote with my good friend and collaborator of many years, Richard Carp. We are deep into production planning for a premiere full production of Weaving Penelope next fall at the Chehalem Cultural Center’s brand new LaJoie theatre in Newberg, Oregon, located in Yamhill County wine country just outside Portland. Richard will direct and I will assist electronically from a distance, flying out west for final auditions/casting and then again for the last rehearsals before opening night. We’re just getting started with assembling a production team, and it’s finally starting to feel real, very real! The images below are from the workshop staged reading in the fall of 2022 at Keizer Homegrown Theatre near Salem, OR. One is our wonderful dramaturg (Zachary Dorsey, who continues to advise us from afar) waiting for rehearsal to get started; the other is a scene from that same rehearsal.


It feels too early to be saying this out loud, but it seems the holidays are nearly upon us. In fact, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas (or whatever other winter holiday you celebrate), and New Year’s will have passed before I write again, since I only write once every quarter. So, Happy Holidays to you, however and whichever you choose to celebrate.

Promo Begins for the New Grief Memoir

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July 9, 2024


Though I normally write at the beginning of each quarter of the year, because I wrote last month about the release of my new book,
That Day and What Came After: Finding and Losing the Love of My Life in Six Short Years
, this will be a very short newsletter, mostly let you know that, now that the editing and design phase is complete and the book is finally out, the promotion and publicity phase of being an author is starting to pick up steam.


This month, I will get a review in the largest local paper (The Greenfield Recorder) at my end of the Pioneer Valley and will participate in a local/regional author book fair in one of our beautiful local parks [Peskeompskut Park in Turners Falls on Sunday, July 14
th—book fair starts at 1 p.m., with a concert by Do It Now in the band shell at 2 p.m.]. Keep your fingers crossed we don’t get rained out!


Then, in August I’ll be featured on the Sunbury Press BlogTalk Radio program in an interview with the founder of the company and will have my first in-person event as the author of the month for the Northampton Senior Center. I’m hoping for a local library talk or two and perhaps another senior center talk in the early fall as well. Unfortunately, most of the independent bookstores in my local area are too small for holding author events.


In the early fall, I’ll be taking another virtual book tour around the US and parts of Canada (hoping for about 20 “stops” with a curated group of book bloggers). My next newsletter will share some of the highlights from that tour with you.

This image is from our trip to Ireland a couple of years before Skip’s death.

If you have read That Day, online reviews are an important part of the marketing program, so I’d really appreciate it if you would consider putting a review on Amazon or Sunbury Press (wherever you bought your copy), or perhaps on Goodreads, if you bought the print version from your local bookstore. Thanks, Nyla, for the lovely 5-star review at Sunbury!

And if you haven’t bought your copy yet, Sunbury is running a summer special to celebrate 20 years in business. Just use the code 20/20 when checking out for 20% off all the books in your cart.

I’ll report back again in the fall, and I’ll also have an update on the audiobook version, which is still in process as I write this. In the meantime, stay cool as much as possible. As for me, I’m hiding out indoors near my new mini-split, which is making a lovely difference in this, our second heat wave of the summer so far.

My Grief Memoir Is Now Available for Purchase!

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June 4, 2024


What if you came home one day and found your husband dead in his favorite chair? This grief memoir explores the author’s experience of the unexpected death of her husband from sudden cardiac arrest a mere three months after his doctors had pronounced him hale and healthy. The author shares her experiences in the immediate aftermath of the abrupt shock of discovery, reminisces about the details of the couple’s late-in-life courtship and marriage, and imparts other experiences she has had along the grieving road in the years since becoming a widow.

This is the promotional introduction to my newest book, a grief memoir called That Day and What Came After: Finding and Losing the Love of My Life in Six Short Years. This book has been a long time coming. When Skip died, I could not write cogently about that event for a very long time. Then, once I did decide to write about it (more than personal journaling, that is), it took time for the story to find a shape, an overarching structure. Finally, thanks to the encouragement of friends and the wonderful and useful critiques from my amazing women writers group, I had a manuscript I was ready to submit to my publisher. Long time readers of this newsletter will remember that the book was originally scheduled to be released last year, but changes at my publisher (things specific to them combined with industry-wide trends) caused yet more delay.

As I wrote last time, the editing was complete by early March of this year. The cover design (featured below), based on a photo I had taken a few years ago, was finalized in early May, and the terrific book designer (I’ve worked with her on all three of my Sunbury books…she’s the best!) finished her work before the Memorial Day holiday weekend. So, now it’s finally ready to be out in the world! Today is the official release date. You can order your copy directly from the publisher here. The print and Kindle editions should be available on Amazon later this month (usually takes one or two weeks after the publisher’s release date).

One of the things many authors do prior to publication, yours truly included, is to submit what are called beta copies of the manuscript in process to advance readers in hopes of having those readers write “blurbs” (short promotional pieces often added to the book jacket or other publicity materials and, in this case, to be included in the opening pages of the book itself). I was privileged to have four wonderful folks—a fellow widow, now a certified grief counselor; an old friend who is also a pastor; a licensed mental health counselor; and a fellow Sunbury author—read the manuscript in draft and provide generous and thoughtful blurbs to be included in the opening pages of the book. A few selected excerpts from their generous praises and longer reviews are below for you to peruse, which will hopefully stimulate your interest in the book itself.

Back when my world collapsed and I felt completely alone and terrified, I needed the soothing and validating words that Daniels provides as she gently and lovingly walks us through what it’s like to be suddenly widowed. I needed to know, by reading this book, that I would get through this, and that I was normal in feeling changed forever by the experience.

—Kelley Lynn, author/speaker, widow, and certified grief counselor.

Rebecca Daniels invites us into her story of falling in love later in life, her husband’s sudden death, and ten years of evolving grief. Daniels’ memoir is a helpful companion for people who are grieving, especially for women who have lost their husbands suddenly. While each person’s love and loss is different, this memoir serves as a reminder that they are not alone.

–Theresa Mason, retired pastor/chaplain

This memoir, rich with details and imagery from her marriage with Skip, comes together to craft a work of genuine love that delights in their relationship and extends that joy to its readers. As a culture we tend to discuss death so infrequently that Rebecca Daniels’ unflinching and brave decision to wade headlong into that subject is like a balm for those of us looking for catharsis and to make sense of the unimaginable.

–Jay Sefton, licensed mental health counselor

In this memoir, Rebecca contemplates deeper questions and chronicles navigating the minutiae of day-to-day life after losing her beloved partner. Heartbreak and loneliness are tempered by found family and precious memories. By turns sorrowful, hopeful, and reflective.

–Natalie Pinter, author


Now that the editing and design process are complete for the print edition, I will begin a series of in-person author talks in my local and regional area this summer. And I’m beginning the process of working with a terrific organizer who will arrange a virtual book tour for me in the early fall. I will also be starting work on the audio book version next, so if you want me to read my latest book to you, you will have to wait for that second release, which should be coming soon, possibly in the fall or early winter.

This image, taken just months before it happened, is the one I posted on Facebook to announce Skip’s death. It also became the image on his funeral card. To finish today’s news update, I’m also including the book’s dedication.

To

SKIP STOUGHTON

(7 November 1947 – 9 October 2010),

my beloved and my friend,

whose unconditional love while we were together

gave me the courage and strength to write about

his loss when the unimaginable happened

and his big heart stopped unexpectedly.

His memory sustains me always.

Editing Finished. Now Waiting on the Designers

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April 8, 2024

I had a terrific time working with my Sunbury Press editor, Sarah, and she gave me some excellent feedback on my grief memoir, That Day, And What Came After: Finding and Losing the Love of My Life in Six Short Years. not least of which was giving me strokes for submitting the most polished manuscript she’d seen all year. Her other comments were also very encouraging: “I applaud the structure of the story. … It didn’t feel like I was reading a memoir; it felt like I was experiencing it. … You walk a reader through a journey that feels complete, both with at-the-moment description as well as personal reflection. This is a story that sticks with people, whether or not they’ve been in your position.”

That part of the process of getting the book ready for publication is complete, and now I’m waiting in another queue for the book designer to get to my name on her list. Crystal is incredibly creative and has designed the inner pages of both my other books with Sunbury, so she is definitely worth waiting for. Lawrence, the multi-talented company CEO, who was also my editor for Finding Sisters during the pandemic, will be designing the cover. Still no official release date, but I was just invited to sign up for an interview on Sunbury’s Book Show on their BookSpeak Network at the end of June, so it’s a good bet the book will be available this summer. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted once there is a pre-order link.

Most grief memoir covers are rather abstract, so I thought this photo might be something the designer could manipulate for a possible cover image.

As far as Weaving Penelope, the play Richard and I wrote together, two of the three possible situations I wrote about last time have turned out to be no-gos, but the third option is still alive for a possible Seattle area production in 2025 or 2026. And there’s an exciting new Oregon possibility that’s come our way recently, but there are not enough confirmed details to share. However, it’s looking probable that a production could happen there in spring or summer of 2025. So, Oregon friends, keep your fingers crossed that I’ll have a perfect opportunity for some visiting time out west early next year.

We just had a last gasp winter storm here in southern New England a few days ago that left us with 3-4 inches of snow and ice on the ground, but it’s already melted away. It won’t be long before my meadow will start showing signs of life again, and my flowering trees are all starting to develop this season’s buds. I’m in the process of writing a new essay about the process of becoming a meadow creator and caretaker.

This was last summer’s meadow. Who know what will happen this year?

The next time I write in the early summer, I hope to have a cover design to reveal and release date to share with you. And by then we might have more specific details we can share about Weaving Penelope in 2025.

Assigned an Editor…Finally!

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January 2, 2024

Happy New Year, everyone! I enjoyed a couple of lovely holiday celebrations with family and friends, but my biggest Christmas present in 2023 was finally being assigned an editor by Sunbury Press for my grief memoir, That Day, And What Came After: Finding and Losing the Love of My Life in Six Short Years. The frustrating part is that the work itself will not start in earnest until late January because Sarah first has to finish work on the other projects she’s got in process before we can get going. But the fact that I now have a real person to look forward to working with is a great way to begin the new year!

The process was delayed in 2023 for a variety of reasons. First, there was a downturn in book sales at the end of 2022 that caused Sunbury to back off their previously-announced and rather aggressive publishing schedule for 2023, a schedule that had originally put me on the editing list for the second quarter of the year. Then, following the schedule slowdown, there was a big change in personnel in the editing staff (the long-time chief editor was given an offer she couldn’t refuse from a larger company) that slowed things down further. Finally, there was a mistake in the administrative coding that was used for the revised editing schedule that put my title in the wrong queue for several months. All that got sorted out late last spring, things got back on track, albeit slowly, and I spent the last three months inching up the editing queue, finally getting to the top just before Christmas. I’m very much looking forward to getting started on the book and cover design work and the editing process, but because of the unexpected delays, I haven’t looked at the manuscript itself in nine months. So that’s the reading I’ll be doing in early January in preparation for working with my editor. Though it will be a bittersweet endeavor to read about and re-live the loss of my wonderful husband yet again, I can’t wait to get this story in front of the public!

This photo was taken just months before Skip’s sudden death and was used as the image on his funeral card.

In the meantime, the suspense continues for Weaving Penelope, the play Richard and I wrote together and workshopped in the fall of 2022. The script is under consideration in three different theatrical situations in Oregon and Washington for 2024 or 2025. Not enough confirmed detail to share just yet, but it’s all pretty exciting to think about, even if only one of the possibilities comes through. Hopefully, I’ll have more news to share on that front in my spring newsletter.

A scene from the modified stage reading of Weaving Penelope on the outdoor stage at Keizer Homegrown Theatre in OR in September 2022.

Winter in western Massachusetts this year feels more like the Pacific Northwest than New England: cool, overcast, and rainy. It was warm enough on New Year’s Eve for my neighbors to have a pleasant fire outside in their patio fire pit and for us to sit out there comfortably for a couple of hours. According to our local weather guy, we might see more seasonal weather and even our first snowstorm in the next couple of weeks, though I won’t believe it until I see it on the ground in my yard.

Feline follies continue to keep me entertained on a daily basis, as Smokey and Katniss continue to get to know each other and negotiate their places in the household. It often feels like one step forward, two steps back, but it’s never boring.

The cats are getting along, most of the time, especially when napping.
Smokey was quite intrigued by the holiday decorations, though he left them mostly alone once he figured out they weren’t more cat toys.

The next time I write in the early spring, I hope to have some cover art possibilities to share with you and to be well into, and perhaps even close to finished, with the editing process for the grief memoir, which I hope will be released in the summer or early fall. And we should have more information we can share about those various possibilities for Weaving Penelope. So, 2024 could bring lots of action and lots of excitement. Hope the new year is good to all of you as well.

Still Waiting…And Still Writing, Among Other Things

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October 4, 2023

When last I wrote in early summer, I had hoped to be deep in the editing process for the new book by this time, but things have moved more slowly than I might have liked. Unfortunately, that pace is entirely out of my control due to some staffing changes at the publisher. However, I am continuing to creep up the queue toward being assigned an editor (was #6 in early August and #3 by mid-September), so I hope to start the process by the end of this month or early in November. This means that the release of That Day, And What Came After will undoubtedly be in early spring of 2024 instead of fall/winter of 2023. Ironically, we are about to enter what I’ve called “my dark season,” which encompasses a series of sad anniversaries between Skip’s death next week…10/9/2010, hard to believe it’s been 13 years!…and the start of the winter holiday season. In addition to Skip’s death, these anniversaries include Mom’s death on 10/27/2006, and both their birthdays, 11/4 and 11/18—yes, they were both Scorpios. All this in the six weeks before Thanksgiving every year! Seems fitting that I will be revisiting this grief memoir during this period of both literal and metaphoric darkness this year. (The image below is of the crabapple tree I planted in Skip’s memory and the stone underneath it, I thought it might make a nice cover image for the book, but I’ll have to wait to see what the cover designer thinks about that idea.)

Just because I have a dark season each year doesn’t mean that life stops. In fact, as I write this Weaving Penelope, the play Richard and I worked on together for many years, and which I wrote about last year when we had a modified staged reading at Keizer Homegrown Theatre, is under active consideration for a full production at Linfield University in Oregon for their 2024-25 season. Send good vibes that our script will rise to the top as they work their way through multiple possibilities available for their active theatre program.

I didn’t do any author talks over the summer about Finding Sisters; the last events happened last spring, one in person and one on Zoom (there’s a link to that talk at the Events drop-down on this website for anyone who might be interested). I wonder if bookstore or library events are perhaps similar to theatres in the summer months, when business can be very slow at times, especially if the weather is beautiful and the event is indoors. But it might also be a reflection of my personal situation, living in a mostly rural area as I do. I suspect that if I lived in an urban area, there might be more opportunities to tell people about my books in person. One bright note on that horizon: there’s a new bookstore opening in my area soon, and I definitely intend to contact them about carrying all of my books and about me doing an event of some kind there in the near future, perhaps to do with the release of the new memoir. And I will definitely book another virtual author tour as soon as the new book is given a release date.

While only one of the women in the cover image below is my genetic sister, they are all female family members I found in my genetic genealogy search. Upper left is my birth mother’s high school photo (about a year before she had me), right is my paternal grandmother, and lower left is a deceased maternal half sister that I never got to meet.

As I wait for an editor to be assigned and creative work on the book design for That Day, And What Came After to begin, I continue to write regularly and share that writing with my wild women writers group, though I have no specific book project in mind at the moment. I’ve been playing around with a few “mosaic memoir” essays about experiences I had in the 1980s and early 1990s, which are challenging my memory for details, but I have no overarching theme or sense of structure to put these essays together in a coherent whole. Not yet. But they sure are fun to write.

So, what do I do when not writing? I read, I take zoom yoga classes and do online strength and mobility workouts with a terrific trainer, and I garden. My meadow had a very different look this year because the perennials started coming into their own, though the evening primrose did dominate quite a bit later in the season and had to be “weeded” out because it was so much taller that it masked everything else for a while. Yes, it’s possible to weed a meadow! (The image below is the meadow in early July dominated by lots and lots of black-eyed susans before the evening primrose–the taller, spikier plants at the left edge and back in this photo–took over.)

And this year, for the first time since 2019, I traveled purely for pleasure, visiting old friends who have moved to Traverse City, MI, for their retirement years. I even got a new cat, an adult male that was needing a new home, which has led to some fun photos and regular posts on Facebook. I call these updates the Feline Follies, and as the two cats get adjusted to each other, things are never boring and often quite funny. (The image below is of Katniss and Smokey, the fluffy new guy, who are enthralled by the bird action in the front yard on “Kitty TV.”)

Life is good!

No fireworks for me this 4th of July; just more waiting

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July 4, 2023

When I wrote last, I was eager to start the editing/book design process for my grief memoir that had been scheduled for the second quarter of 2023. I’m still waiting… Turns out that book sales slowed for Sunbury in the fourth quarter of 2022 enough that they decided to slow their new publications process for 2023 in response. This was disappointing, but after a long conference with the publisher (the Sunbury CEO) in May, I got what I felt was encouraging news. In addition to the general slowdown of the schedule, there had also been a clerical error where someone categorized my memoir as fiction, which moved it into a lower place than it belonged on the priority list (Sunbury publishes fewer fiction titles than non-fiction), so that had pushed me even farther back in the queue, but I’ve been assured the error has now been corrected. So, it seems likely that editing/book design might begin for me later this summer, which could still mean a 2023 release for That Day, And What Came After. (Image below is one of the memoir’s illustrations from a trip Skip and I took to Ireland to visit a friend who had rented a cottage near Dingle for a month.)

And speaking of being in the waiting mode, there’s been no action yet regarding our submission of Weaving Penelope to a university theatre department in Oregon for inclusion in their 2024-25 production season. However, that’s not a big surprise, since we submitted the script to a theatre professor (a friend of mine from graduate school) who was on sabbatical in the spring, and all the folks involved in the decision-making process are now on summer break. We expect some kind of movement in this situation in the fall semester. It helps that both Richard and I are former professors, so we understand the ups and downs of the academic calendar and know not to take the lack of feedback too seriously at this point. In other words, we’re still hopeful and not too worried. We hope to hear some good news in the fall.

I mentioned in my last newsletter that my 2019 book about my dad’s WWII experiences at AFHQ in Europe had been selected as a finalist for two of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2023 (Legacy Non-Fiction; daVinci Award for Cover Art). In May, I learned that Keeping the Lights on for Ike was the category winner for Legacy Non-Fiction! There’s no cash prize for category winners, but I did get a fancy certificate (below) that I could frame for my office wall…if I still had an office, that is. And for folks who are self-published, there are gold stickers that winners can put on their book covers. My publisher doesn’t do anything about book awards where the author has to pay an entry fee, so any publicity about the award is up to me. I sent out a press release to my local papers, but haven’t seen that any of them ever published info about the win. Still, I feel good about it.

The Hoffer Book Award judges’ had this to say about the Keeping the Lights on for Ike: “It is not your typical book about this era in history. The author gives us an intimate look into the interesting lives of two very private people. The historical documents and photos are a marvelous addition to this book.”

The letters and photos used in the creation of Keeping the Lights on for Ike are now housed in the Library of Congress as part of the Veterans’ History Project. Information can be accessed online here, or viewed in person in the American Folklife Center’s Reading Room located in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. 

This spring, I also gave two author talks about Finding Sisters, my recent book about finding my genetic family using DNA testing combined with traditional genealogy research. The first talk was an in-person event at one of the local libraries here in Montague, and it was a lovely evening: well attended and with a knowledgeable audience who asked a lots of great questions about my experiences. It was a delight to talk with people face to face for the first time in what feels like a very long time. I also gave a Zoom talk for the Tewksbury Library genealogy group. Tewksbury is a suburb of Boston, so I was glad they wanted an online presentation. If you are interested to hear that talk about the research process, with a short reading of a section from the book (about 40 minutes in length), you can do so here.

What else does an author do while she’s waiting for others to respond to her work? This author gardens!

This year was the second year for my side yard meadow project, so I was excited to see how things might be different this year than last. The first year of the planting had been dominated by annuals, added to the seed mix so there would be some visual interest while the perennials, always slower to flower from seed, got established. That first year was visually dominated by a mix of cornflower and poppies (image above), annuals that reappeared in a few places this year but not nearly in the same numbers as the first year. And there was a tough fight against mile-a-minute vine, but I think we (I had several helpers in the struggle) won that fight because there’s no evidence of the blasted plant this year.

This year, there were some other opportunistic weeds, so the challenge was to pull them out before they could get established, and for that I needed to be able to identify the plants when they were in their early stages before they flowered. Thankfully, there are phone apps I could use to help with that, so I did some spot weeding through the spring in hopes I could just let nature take its course once the desired plants matured. Recently, a couple of the perennials have really come into their own, especially this month as the cheery yellow of the lance-leaf coreopsis and black eyed Susans take over (image above), soon to be joined by another paler yellow beauty, evening primrose.

Next time I write, I really do hope to be in the end-stages of the editing/book design process and perhaps even to have a tentative release date for That Day, And What Came After. In the meantime, enjoy your summer!

Winter Revisions, Spring Transitions, and Some Exciting News

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(April 7, 2023)

Since I last wrote, Richard and I continued working on our revisions to the script for Weaving Penelope based on all the wonderful feedback we got last year from our actors and audiences involved with the workshop staged readings. We finished the revisions plus all the supplemental materials that would be included with the script (notes to directors, historical references, pronunciation guides, etc.) by the end of February.

We are really pleased with the script and the changes we’ve made, and in early March, we officially submitted it to one small liberal arts university with a terrific theatre program in hopes they will be interested in the possibility of including a full production in a future season in the next couple of years. We have also compiled a list of various other places to submit the script for possible production (other college programs, contests, theatre companies known for producing new work, etc.), so if we hear from the first university that they are unable to do the show, we will already have a backup plan in place. This means the project officially goes on the back burner for a while, and it becomes a waiting game until we hear back about that first proposal.

March was a transition month for me, and I spent it going back through the manuscript for my new memoir, That Day, And What Came After: Finding and Losing the Love of My Life in Six Short Years. I wanted to give it one last look to eliminate any awkward phrases or misspellings I might have missed, so it can be in the best possible shape when it goes to the Sunbury editorial staff. As I went through the manuscript again, I was looking for places to add photo illustrations.

I expect most peoplewouldn’t necessarily think of a grief story as the kind of thing that would have illustrations, but so much of our life together had been photographed that I decided to add some images. So, as I went back through the manuscript, I made notes about photos that could enhance each part of the story and make it more personal. I shared a few last time and wanted to do the same this month as I wait for formal editing to begin

The photos I shared before were mostly of Skip with our grandkids. This time, I’ll focus on some of our trips together. He was a wonderful travel companion, and I called him my “geezer model,” thanks to his willingness to be my photo subject whenever we were on the road.

Our first trip together was a long weekend to Quebec City in 2005. It was our first romantic getaway after becoming a couple. Fellow tourists did us the favor of taking our photo, and we took theirs, too. We were all enjoying the view of the old city with the St. Lawrence River in the distance, from an area around La Citadelle du Québec, which was just a short walk from our hotel.

A year later, while I was on an earned leave from teaching, we took a seven-week drive across Canada, down the west coast of the US (with a stop in Oregon to see friends and family), then into numerous native and national parks in the SW, and eventually headed home across the central US. Skip enjoyed getting to know my brother better when we made our stop in Oregon.

We also had one delightful European adventure in 2008 to visit friends and family abroad and do a bit of sightseeing while we were at it. We started in England where Skip had a cousin, then to France to visit two of my close childhood friends, then to Ireland to meet up with our neighbor and good friend who was renting a house in Dingle for a month. Of course, we couldn’t go to England and not stop to visit Stonehenge.

Whenever possible, Skip went along to my academic conferences and special speaking appearances. In the spring of 2009, he accompanied me to Arlington, VA, for a talk I was invited to give on women stage directors at the Shirlington Public Library. While in the area, we visited many of the monuments and memorials on the mall in Washington, DC. Skip had a high school friend who had been killed in Viet Nam, and he was able to find his name on the Veterans Memorial Wall.

Before I close this newsletter, here’s my exciting news! Last year, I decided to enter Keeping the Lights on for Ike in the “Legacy” category (published more than two years ago) for the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Last month, I got word that my 2019 book was a finalist for their special da Vinci prize for cover design. My parents deserve recognition as well because it was Dad’s photography and Mom’s scrapbook where she kept that last letter to him during WWII that inspired the cover designer to put them together. The prize itself will be awarded later this spring, but I can officially claim finalist status and use their special seal in my publicity materials for the book from this point forward.

Next time I write, I hope to have a release date for the new grief memoir and be close to the end of the editing and book design phase for That Day, And What Came After.