​In case you haven’t noticed, I have a book coming out next week. But how could you not notice? I’ve been hyping it on social media, in a monthly newsletter, and every other way I can think of.
​
And let me tell you, it feels strange to be doing that. Of course I’m thrilled that my memoir, Mango Rash: Coming of Age in the Land of Frangipani and Fanta, (see what I just did there?) is being published, and of course I want to tell the world about it. But the transition from writer to author to book promoter is not a natural one.

​We writers tend to be introverts—recluses, even—content to hole up in our writing studios for hours on end, encountering no one except the characters we put on the page. When we venture out into the world, it’s often as observers, absorbing details and mentally recording conversations. If someone asks what we’re working on, we answer in the haziest terms: “Oh, ummmm, a (mumble-mumble) coming-of-age memoir set on a (stutter-stutter) tropical island.”

​But that all changes once we become authors, or even aspiring authors. Then we have to hone a new set of skills, promoting our books with spiels of various lengths: the logline, the elevator pitch, the face-to-face pitch, the book talk, and so on, not to mention creating web sites, blogs, newsletters, and press kits.

​I got a preview of this process when I shifted from being a journalist to working for a university news service some twenty years ago. A big part of my new job was writing about interesting research, just as I’d done as a science journalist. But another big part was promoting that research, in hopes of getting news coverage. In short, I became what we journalists disparagingly called a flack. 

​And that, at first, felt icky. Just now I looked up synonyms for “flack” and among the results was “pain in the neck.” That’s exactly what I felt like when I had to cold-call journalists—former colleagues among them—and try to convince them to write about the researchers whose work I sought to publicize.
 
Over time, I grew more comfortable in that role, mainly because the research I promoted was so worthwhile, and the scientists whose work it was were so grateful for my efforts, and because even the most jaded journalists appreciated receiving lucid explanations of arcane scientific points.

​​But now I’m not championing life-changing technological advances or life-saving medical findings or paradigm-shifting discoveries. I’m promoting my own book, a book that’s all about me. 

​​So everything I’m doing—and will be doing for the next several months or longer—feels like nothing short of shameless self-promotion. Never mind that every book and article I’ve read about book publishing and marketing says this is exactly what authors need to do. And never mind that, given my university PR experience, I don’t totally suck at it. In fact I kind of enjoy doing the work—until I remember that it’s ME I’m boosting. Then it feels . . . icky.

​To counteract the ick, I’ve come up with a few practices that at least make me feel a little less self-absorbed:

• Shift the focus. Share a fellow-writer’s successes on social media; talk up someone else’s book or art exhibit or performance.
• Change the subject. Write about something other than my own book. I’ve been writing this blog for over three years, and if I’m not mistaken, this is the first post I’ve devoted entirely to my book. Changing the subject is as refreshing to me as I hope it is to readers.
• Step away from the computer. With book promotion, there's always one more thing you could be doing or one more block of time you could spend thinking up more things you need to be doing. Sometimes you just have to give it--and yourself--a rest. In the past month, in addition to preparing for the book launch, I’ve painted the foundation of our house, taken a week-long vacation, done a lot of yoga, planted flowers, spent time with friends, watched Netflix movies, and attended a photography exhibit, a small-town parade, and a healthcare forum. All good for getting out of my own book-obsessed head.
• Remember that this, too, shall pass. Soon enough, I’ll be able to turn my attention away from myself and my book and back to more substantive matters. (Like maybe another book?)

​

​Last Saturday I celebrated an occasion I’ve never celebrated before: Independent Bookstore Day. It was so much fun I plan to put it on my calendar every year.

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​All around the country indie bookstores hosted special events, like the Michigan Author Jamboree my friend Janet and I attended at the Book Nook & Java Shop in Montague. A chilly wind just about blew us into the store, but inside by the fireplace, with warm drinks in hand, all was cozy.

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​The event opened with a workshop on how to present your book to prospective readers. Led by author Ingar Rudholm, the workshop offered easy-to-apply tips on quickly engaging readers and keeping their attention. 

​We all had a chance to practice our book pitches during the workshop. And it was a good thing we did, because after the workshop, any authors who wished to do so were given ten minutes to get up on stage and talk about their books to an audience of readers.

​

​Following those presentations, authors signed and sold books at tables near the front of the store. Even though I won’t have books to sell until October, I took the opportunity to spread the word about Mango Rash, hand out information cards, and sign up subscribers to my newsletter, Mango Meanderings.

​Beyond promoting my own book, though, I was excited to connect with other Michigan authors. It’s always interesting to hear how authors began writing and what led them to write the kinds of books they write. I also learned about Written in the Mitten, an online community of published and aspiring authors that shares information on local author events.

​​Most of all, I was happy to show my support for independent bookstores. These welcoming spaces are more than stores, often serving as community hubs and performance venues. They enrich their neighborhoods and boost local economies. As publishing professional Valerie Peterson noted in a 2017 article, even some well-known authors got their start at local independent booksellers. “For example,” she wrote, “Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi hosted an unknown John Grisham's first book signing event.”

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​So mark your calendar for the last Saturday in April 2020 and plan to celebrate next year’s Independent Bookstore Day. But don’t wait until then to celebrate independent bookstores. Visit often, and buy books!

​As for me, I’m heading off tonight to Flying Bear Books for poetry night.

Today’s visitor, Kelly J. Beard, is an author whose writing I have admired since we met in a master class at the Tucson Festival of Books two years ago. Along with the other members of the class, I was a finalist in the festival’s literary contest, and Kelly won second place for an essay later published as "Os Sacrum" in Santa Ana Review.
 
When I learned that her memoir, An Imperfect Rapture, was headed for publication after winning the Zone 3 Press Creative Nonfiction Book Award, I could hardly wait to read it. The book, which debuted last November, is a remarkable story of finding her way in the world after growing up in poverty, within the strictures of fundamentalist religion. The story is compelling, and the writing masterful.
 
I’m delighted that Kelly has agreed to answer questions today about the writing and publication of An Imperfect Rapture.

 It’s funny, but my latent love for writing probably served my legal work as much as (or more than) my legal work served my writing. A huge part of my litigation practice was writing motions and briefs, basically marshalling the facts and law into a persuasive story. Thinking about this has just reminded me of a legal writing technique I used while writing my memoir, An Imperfect Rapture. As you know, the writer’s ability to infuse her story with insightful reflection is the very essence of memoir. As opposed to the kind of writing approaches one might take in writing biography (“Just the facts, Ma’am”) or fiction (“Show don’t tell”), memoir’s marrow requires a measure of telling beyond the facts.

As I struggled to find ways to add reflective texture to my story I sometimes used a loose version of a writing technique taught in law school called the “IRAC” method. In short, the IRAC method requires the writer to identify the issue (describe the facts) and then to analyze those facts in light of the law. The analysis part of the IRAC is really quite similar to the memoirist’s reflection.
 
But to get back to your question, the real skill I developed as a lawyer that served me as a writer was self-discipline; the day-to-day commitment to sit at the computer (or wherever) and work on something you know won’t be finished that day (or year, or maybe even decade) because you believe in what you’re doing. That’s the real work of both practices. ​

​I started writing An Imperfect Rapture in my early-to-mid 50s, so the events I was writing about were anywhere from 30 to 50 years old. Like a lot of people—particularly, I suspect, people who had difficult early experiences—I submerged so much of those early years under layers of busy-ness, mostly trying to be a decent mom and lawyer. I hadn’t really thought about writing memoir. I used to write poetry and short fiction, and had started a couple of novels before practicing law. So my thought was that I’d write a novel when I finished practicing law.
 
All my life I’ve struggled with depression, but for most of my “mom” and “lawyer” years it was easy to stay distracted. I think I was also invested in trying to give my daughter a different experience than I had, so I never talked to her about the events in my memoir. She hadn’t lived in the shame of poverty or experienced the confusion of wildly erratic and unstable parenting, or the violence of their religious faith. When she left home, I fell into one of the worst depressions I’d ever had. And that’s saying something.
 
I finally found a brilliant therapist who is probably responsible both for saving my life right then and for getting me to write the memoir. I remember sitting in his office one day weeping over the distance between my daughter and me. My expectations of her and our relationship was unhealthy, I realize now, but at the time I felt utterly abandoned by her and betrayed by life. I told the therapist that I was thinking about writing to her—telling her how much I loved her, how irrelevant I felt in her life, how sad I was. I expected him to say, “Good idea, even if you don’t send the letter.” Instead, he looked at me and asked, “What doesn’t she know about any of that? What could you tell her that she doesn’t already know?”
 
And that’s the book, really.

​The scariest part was knowing I’d have to reveal this whole other life, this person and past no one—not my friends or colleagues or even my own daughter—knew about. I also have a pretty fractured birth-family. Only one of my siblings still talks to me; two haven’t spoken to me for decades. Although my father died in 1996, my mom is still alive, and I didn’t want to hurt her. It felt a little like deciding to pour gas on the charred remains of our family. 

​For one thing, I pretended I was writing for the very limited audience of my daughter and perhaps any child she might have, and that they would only read it after I was gone. I focused on telling the truth with as much beauty (skill) as I could muster. And I figured I could keep it from my mom. She’s 90 and doesn’t use the internet. Also, the more I wrote, the more committed I became to that Aristotelean ideal of truth and beauty. That ideal was hugely important in helping me work past any lingering sense of grievance and find a way to be honest with the reader about these deeply complicated people and experiences. 
​

​As I mentioned, the initial idea occurred to me shortly after my daughter started college in 2010. I was still practicing law, but I had my own practice and was able to scale back. I read somewhere that Virginia Woolf wrote two hours a day, always in the morning. She claimed not to have enough creative steam to carry her past the two-hour mark. I took her cue and wrote for two hours each morning (except Sundays—some things never leave us) and always before work or even reading email. The few times I tried to change this schedule either by working first or peeking at email before writing, I lost my creative energy for the day.
 
After a few years of working on it, I thought I had a pretty solid manuscript. In the summer of 2013, I attended a Master Class with Emily Rapp Black in Taos. The manuscript was 450 pages long. Emily critiqued the entire manuscript (as did the other workshop participants). Emily’s critique was brilliant, and I spent the following year working on the areas she suggested.

​That winter, I entered the Vermont College of Fine Arts low-residency MFA program. It was a pretty mixed bag, and while I had two fantastic advisors during my tenure there, I also had a couple that weren’t worth the tuition. But I went to tons of craft talks, studied work I might not have found otherwise, and worked diligently at learning the craft and revising An Imperfect Rapture. I ended up submitting the manuscript—essentially re-written and 100 pages “lighter” than what I’d submitted to Emily three years earlier—for my creative thesis in 2016.
 
At that point I thought, OK, this guy is ready to go. I started querying agents and submitting to a few contests. I don’t know how many agents I queried, maybe 30 or 40, but no one was interested. I think to a certain extent the gatekeepers—the literary intelligentsia, if you will—have a bit of a herd mentality. And, of course, it’s all about making money in that world, so increasingly agents make “safe” choices, a fact evident by walking into any bookstore and seeing how the genre has been cannibalized by celebrity memoirs.

So I started sending queries to independent and university publishers and also entering a few contests that were being judged by people whose work I loved. I don’t know how many contests I entered (not that many because it costs money to enter and it too often felt like a boondoggle), but An Imperfect Rapture was a finalist in two other contests before I submitted it to Zone 3 Press. Janisse Ray was the judge that year (2017). I’d read several of Ray’s books, and she was one of my idols. Her work is not only breathtaking, but important. By Important I mean necessary. So, when I saw the ad for the Zone 3 Press Creative Nonfiction Book Award, and saw Ray was judging, I knew I wanted to enter.
 
Actually, I almost didn’t. By the time I saw the ad, the deadline was only a week or so away, and there was a page limit of 300 pages. I’d spent two years largely re-writing the manuscript, but also cutting, culling, and winnowing it down from 450 to about 385 pages. The thought of getting it from 385 to 300 pages seemed impossible. Let alone doing so in such a short period of time. But I did. I killed way more darlings than I would have dreamed possible.
 
So there it is. Ray did love it! The darlings weren’t missed. Zone 3 Press is the press of my dreams. But that’s the contest I almost skipped. ​

 The hardest part to write, by far, was the end. Mostly because I didn’t know what I was writing about, and I kept trying out possible ends. As you know, the story in An Imperfect Rapture ends when I’m in my mid-twenties. I tried ending at later dates and with later events closing the final scene. I remember that in the third semester of my MFA I was trying to work out the ending, and not to sound all woo-woo or anything, but in addition to writing, I was spending a lot of time practicing yoga, meditating and praying. And at one point while trying to write the ending, I went into a kind of fugue state and wrote the end scenes. (It was the one and only time this has ever happened to me while writing, so I’m not sure I’d want to rely on it as a strategy for finding my way to an ending, but who knows?) I subsequently edited the heck of the rest of the manuscript, but the ending is the only part of the manuscript I could never really edit. It put itself on the page, and I had to leave it alone. 

​Oh, I absolutely agree with that description. I couldn’t pin down what the difference is with any precision, but “coming if age” conjures the idea of mastery: “I came, I saw, I conquered,” as opposed to the idea of “I came, I saw, I understood.” I understood. But I’m not sure I conquered.

​The shame of being poor. And the rage. I read somewhere that the average age of death for men who work as coal miners in Appalachia is 46. There’s a reason for that. Poor people are dispensable in this system, and they know it.
​ 

​That’s the mystery, isn’t it? When I was writing An Imperfect Rapture, I spent a lot of time wondering what my life would have been like if just one or two more kind, empathic people had shown up to mirror someone to me I could love and root for, or if one or two more tough-love kind of people had shown up to mirror someone to me I could admire. So, I’m not dead. I had the life I had, good and bad, so at the end of it all, I feel like it was exactly what it was meant to be. One more kind person (“angel”) or one more challenger (“worthy adversary”) and I might be—who knows, on the Supreme Court? The author of ten or fifteen important books? But one fewer kind person or challenger and I wouldn’t be here, I suspect. 
​

Right now I’m trying to give An Imperfect Rapture a chance to breathe. Maybe all authors feel like this, but I can’t imagine writing anything I love as much as this book. So, I’m trying not to pressure myself about that. Some readers have asked if I’ll be writing a sequel (a lot of years between 24 and 60), but right now, I really don’t know. I’ve written a few essays I like, but the essay form feels a little constraining to me. I’m moving toward another memoir, I’m pretty sure, but I just don’t know what slice of life is calling me to investigate it yet. 

 Around this time last year, inspired by year-end "Best of . . . " lists, I compiled my own list of standout books I'd read during the past twelve months. I didn't rank my books—on that point I have to agree with author Neil Gaiman, who has compared picking five favorite books to "picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose."

​​Instead, I listed ten books I found memorable for any number of reasons: the writing was exceptional, the story was engrossing, the tale was told in an unusual way, or the book just stayed with me for reasons I couldn't explain. That's what I'm doing again this year. A couple of the books on this year's list were written by friends, but that's not why I'm including them. They're on this list of books I want to tell you about because that's where they deserve to be.

​Last year I limited my top-whatever list to ten books. This year I'm being more generous and giving you a baker's dozen. About half were published in the past year; the rest have publication dates ranging from 1960 to 2017. I didn't set out to include particular themes, but as I look at the choices on my list, I see that several deal with pivotal periods in history, people making a life in unusual situations, and the challenges of overcoming adversity and finding a place in the world.

​Just as I wrote last year, I'm not really sure what to call this list. My Most Want-to-Tell-You-About-Them Books of 2018? Or simply A Bunch of Books I Read This Year and Actually Remember Something About?

​Whatever you want to call it, here it is:

​Now it's your turn. Tell me about the books you read this year.

 Other books I read this year (all good, even if I didn't list them above):

• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler
• Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
• Coming to My Senses by Alice Waters
• What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
• The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler
• Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
• Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman
• A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
• Crossing Over by Ruth Irene Garrett
• Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
• Love & Vodka by R.J. Fox
• Awaiting Identification by R.J. Fox
• A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures by Ben Bradlee
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  
• This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
• Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

​Feeling a little (or a lot) weighed down lately? I know I have been. With dreadful things happening around the world, and many friends and family members facing difficult challenges, it's sometimes hard to find reasons to smile.

​Yet even in rough times, a little levity can help us cope. In that spirit, I'm taking a look back at some of the funny and light-hearted things we've come across in our recent travels.

​One way I amuse myself on long road trips is by collecting funny names of roads, businesses, and other points of interest. I don't do this in any organized way—I just scribble them down in whatever notebook I have at hand. It's a treat to come across those notations later, when I'm thumbing through the pages, looking for the name of a book someone mentioned or the phone number of a tradesman I saw on a street-corner sign, or whatever else I've stowed in the same notebook.

​On our latest trip out west, we chuckled at a highway exit sign for Bad Route Road, and then laughed harder when we saw the next sign advising trucks to exit there. On the same stretch of Montana highway, we encountered Whoop-Up Creek Road. I guess if you make it through the Bad Route, you've got something to whoop about.

​​Some place names just make you wonder how they came by those monikers. Take Tongue River, for instance. Or Fourth of July Creek. I Googled that one while working on this piece and didn't find out the origins of the name, but I did discover author Smith Henderson's 2014 novel by the same name. Looks like another book worth jotting down in that little notebook and adding to my to-read list.

​In Seattle, our friends Laurel and Darwin took us on a day trip to Kitsap Peninsula, which included a visit to a finger of land known as Point No Point. According to a source cited in Wikipedia, explorer Charles Wilkes gave the place its name because "it appears much less of a promontory at close range than it does from a distance." I don’t know about that, as I didn't view it from a distance (I didn't see the point--ha, ha), but I will say that there is a point to visiting Point No Point: seeing the oldest lighthouse on Puget Sound and enjoying the driftwood sculptures and furnishings that decorate the grounds.

​On our drive back to Michigan, we saw other sights that made us smile.

​In Kellogg, Idaho, there's a circular building topped with an oversized miner's helmet and lantern. Built in 1939, it was originally a roadside diner where workers from nearby lead and silver mines stopped for Coneys and beers. After a stint as a 1950s drive-in restaurant, it closed in 1963, but reopened in 1991 as a realty office, which is what it remains.

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​Even highway rest stops can serve up some smiles. Weary of construction delays toward the end of our travels last spring, we came across this jaunty fellow in one rest area. 

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​And on our most recent trip, we encountered this frighteningly funny chap at a pit stop. Two truck drivers were preparing to station the skeleton at the controls of a piece of equipment they were transporting. They told me they planned to put a sign on Mr. Bones's back reading "I WAS TEXTING."

​More merriment came from the names of businesses we passed along the way: Garden of Read'n bookstore in Missoula and Animal House Veterinary Hospital in Forsyth, Montana. Then there was the billboard that warranted a double take, with its ad for the Rock Creek Testicle Festival.

​You know I had to look that one up! Turns out it's an annual event famous for dishing up the local delicacy known as Rocky Mountain oysters—breaded and deep-fried cattle testicles—and sponsoring such contests as the Undie 500 tricycle race. I should say it was an annual event, as the Testy Fest (motto: "Have a ball") was discontinued this year, following a series of incidents, including fatal crashes caused by festival-goers, in previous years. 

​The owner of the lodge that hosted the rowdy event for 35 years said attendance—which once numbered more than 10,000 people—also had been dropping, due at least in part to social media. Apparently not all attendees cared to have footage of their festival antics posted on Facebook.

​Though I'm a big fan of festivals (read more about that here), I think this is one I'm not sorry to have missed. At this stage in life, I'm content to get my amusement from road signs and sights. And newspaper headlines, which are sometimes downright funny, but more often ironic in their placement. 

​One day, for instance, the front pages of Montana Standard  and Great Falls Tribune were crowded with news of corruption and strife—a sheriff charged with felonies, nastiness between two state senate candidates—but anchored with a story bearing this headline: "Labyrinths across state bring peace, meditation."

​Let's hope so.

What has tickled your funny bone lately? 
​

​Bea Cordle is a woman with a mission. Every morning, she wakes up inspired and ready to get going. Right after breakfast, she begins her work, continuing until evening. 

​Bea is, by the way, ninety-three, an age when she could be excused for doing nothing more than sitting on the porch swing, listening to the birds. Instead, she's brightening the days of children who may need a little lift.

​The project that absorbs Bea every day is drawing whimsical characters on brown paper bags for the Kids' Food Basket program, which supplies "sack suppers" to children living at or near the poverty level. These free, balanced evening meals are distributed at the end of each school day and during summer programs at schools where 70% or more of the student population receives free or low-cost lunches. 

​​Volunteers decorate the bags, and that's where Bea applies her talents. Curled up in a comfy armchair in the living room of the home she shares with daughter Sandra Bernard and granddaughter Marquita Bernard, with a rainbow of markers at hand and a pile of coloring books for inspiration, Bea draws her cheerful creations and finishes off each drawing with big "I LOVE YOU" at the bottom. 

​"I'm so blessed, because this gives me something to look forward to," says Bea. "I think about it before I get out of bed in the morning, and I think about it after I go to bed at night."

​​For Bea, the project has revived talents that took a backseat while she was raising her five children. In her youth, she enjoyed painting landscapes and cottage scenes. Then, for many years, she turned her creative energy to sewing clothes for her children (including wedding dresses, bridesmaids' dresses, and flower girls' dresses for all the family weddings) and crocheting outfits for the grandchildren that came along later. When she lost sight in one eye six years ago, she could no longer crochet. 

​"About a year ago, my other daughter brought me a package of the colors and some coloring books and some of the bags and said, 'I want you to try to work on this,' " Bea recalls. "And I said, 'Oh, I can't do that! I wouldn't be able to do that.' "

​​But she could. And once she got going, she was unstoppable. She estimates she has decorated more than 1,600 bags to date.

​A social worker who visited one of the kids who receives sack suppers told Sandra the youngster's room was decorated with Bea's bags. Another little girl who cherishes the bags thanked Bea in person at a Kids Food Basket Halloween party. Sandra and Bea both get misty-eyed recounting the stories.

​​The bag project isn’t the only creative work underway in the big gray house in the heart of Newaygo. Bea, Sandra and Marquita recently published a children's book, I Am Never Too Me!, and Sandra and Marquita have two more books in the works: Things That Matter and Elton's Tall Tale. 

​"It's an exciting thing for the three of us," says Sandra, who also writes poetry and prose, in addition to singing and playing guitar professionally. 

​It was Bea's drawings that inspired Sandra and Marquita to collaborate on the first book and to recruit Bea to do most of the illustrations. ​Sandra, who used to make up stories about her son's imaginary friend when her children were small, quickly came up with an idea for the book. ​

​"I got up in the middle of the night and wrote the story," she says. "I don't know what it is about writing, but the middle of the night, I wake up and ideas come to me, and I just get overwhelmed. I can't go back to sleep until I write the gist of it down." 

​​The family invested in a computer, and Marquita, who has a background in design and illustration, created the front and back covers, added a few illustrations, and designed the layout.

​Colorful and upbeat, the book celebrates diversity and encourages self-acceptance.

​"I didn't just want to write a book with a lot of splashy colors. It's got to mean something," says Sandra. "But that's kind of the way I am with everything. If it doesn't have meat and guts to it, I just don't want to be bothered." 

​For Bea, Sandra and Marquita, working together on creative projects is part of a "spiritual movement" that began when they first started talking about living together. 

​"We decided, the three of us together, we're going to move in together and be a three-woman powerhouse. We're going to help each other, be there for each other," says Sandra. "And it's worked out really good."

I Am Never Too Me! can be found at Hit The Road Joe Coffee Café in Croton, River Stop Café in Newaygo and Studio 37 Arts & Culture Center in Newaygo and will soon be available on Amazon.

For more about Sandra Bernard's creative spirit and talented family, plus a sample of her poetry, see her April 20, 2016 guest post, Creative Thinkers.

It's National Poetry Month! You didn't think I'd let that slip by unnoticed, did you? What better way to pass the time while waiting for spring's late arrival than to read—or write—a bit of poetry? Short on inspiration? Look no further than the things you encounter every day.

​That's the advice of this week's guest, Cristina Trapani-Scott. I first met Cristina fourteen years ago at Bear River Writers' Conference. After the conference, we formed a writers' group with another writer we'd met there. The result was the Sister Scribes, an Ann Arbor-based group that eventually added three more members and became a source of support and motivation for all of us.

​​An author, educator, and former journalist, Cristina now lives and writes in Northern Colorado. Her debut chapbook collection of poems, The Persistence of a Bathing Suit, published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press, explores the moments that fill the space between surviving a breast cancer diagnosis and accepting the inevitability of change and uncertainty. Cristina's work has appeared in the Patterson Literary Review, Hip Mama Magazine, the Driftwood, Bigger Than They Appear: An Anthology of Very Short Poems, and Sweet Lemons 2: International Writings with a Sicilian Accent. She holds an MFA in poetry and fiction from Spalding University and currently teaches creative writing and composition online.

​April is National Poetry Month and each year it marks a whole month of celebrating this little thing that I found myself drawn to quite by accident more than 20 years ago. 

​I am not one of those poets that knew from a young age that I would be writing poetry. I don’t recall ever being thoroughly introduced to poetry as a kid beyond the handful of jingles I read in Shel Silverstein’s books and perhaps a Shakespeare sonnet. I don’t recall writing a poem until well after I completed my first round of undergrad studies. Still, even before I put marks on paper with the intention of calling them poems, I believe on some level I was aware of the poetry in ordinary things. 

​My mother, of course, made me hyper-aware of the ordinary world around me. She is an artist, and she always finds beauty in the most ordinary things. Her collection of garlic skins scattered on the top ledge of her china cabinet is a testament to this. I don’t have a physical collection of ordinary things like she does. I work in words. She works in paint. I do, in large part because of her, see the poetry in ordinary things.

​ I am aware of the poetry in a baby bird that had fallen from its nest in our backyard when I was a child. I am aware of the poetry in how my mom, my siblings, and I nurtured it by feeding it through a dropper with a solution a nearby vet had suggested. I am aware of the poetry in how the bird grew feathers and flew and perched on a curtain rod in our living room while our Brittany Spaniel, resorting to his instinct, stood on point.

​I am aware of the poetry in the way my Nonno so attentively showed my brother and me how to play ground darts in the backyard on Father’s Day not long before Nonno died from a heart attack. I am aware of poetry in the way my brother and I used to turn bricks over in our walkway to collect roly poly bugs and watch them curl into tiny balls as we touched them. 

​I teach creative writing at a college where students primarily are headed into business, technology, or health fields. They take my class as an elective. Many of my students have very little, if any, background in creative writing, let alone poetry (much like me when I first became curious about this thing called poetry). The first half of the class is focused on fiction, which inevitably more of the students are comfortable with. Halfway through the eight-week course, though, we shift to poetry. Many of the students admit early that they just never understood poetry, that they just never thought about writing poetry. My goal as their instructor isn’t to get them to know everything there is to know about poetry in four weeks. My goal in that four weeks is to get them to see, like my mother helped me see, that poetry has been with them their whole lives, that poetry is in the everyday things they do and see.  

​Poet Stephen Dunn said in an NPR interview, “We live with the little things much more than the large things.” I believe that to the core. I believe that has always been where I have found poetry. Even with the poetry I read, I am drawn most to the way a poet works the small things like a sculptor works clay, pushes at them until they breathe those large things on the page.

​Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that those small things are the most important things. In their book The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux write, “And what are the ‘great’ poems about? The big subjects: death, desire, the nature of existence. They ask the big questions: Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going? We find it difficult to believe those subjects, those questions, can be explored and contained in a poem about working at a fast food restaurant, a poem about our best friend, a poem about washing the dishes, tarring the roof, or taking a bus across town.” This is precisely where those questions are answered. This is precisely where I tell my students to search for the big things. We talk about poems that do this. 

One that has stuck with me for a long time is Sandra M. Gilbert’s poem “Remnant” from her collection Belongings, a title that in and of itself suggests small, ordinary things. In the poem Gilbert writes of a carpet remnant in her office.

Remember the leftover
square of carpet you
unfolded in my office thirteen
years ago, two years before
the deadly surgery? Remember
​

​The “you” the speaker refers to is a spouse who died unexpectedly in surgery. The carpet represents not just a physical remnant here. It points to the memory as a remnant. It points to how the spouse, too, is but a series of remnants anymore. This small, ordinary thing, the remnant, leaps into the big thing, loss.

​ U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins does a similar thing in a much lighter tongue and cheek moment with his poem “The Lanyard.” I use this example in my classes because I find humor to be a great way to break down preconceived notions my students inevitably come to class with about what they believe poetry has to be, and I know that many of my students have memories of twisting and tying little ribbons of plastic as gifts for parents. Of course, the poem isn’t simply about the ordinary act of tying a lanyard at camp. It’s about the big idea of how we love our mothers. 

​ So, during this National Poetry Month (and after) celebrate the poetry in the small, ordinary things, in the colors that swirl in the soap bubbles on the dishes stacked in the kitchen sink, in the child that lies on the couch with one leg dangling off the edge, in the ordinary banter between partners on a weekday evening. There is poetic treasure in the ordinary, and it’s waiting to be mined. 

​Find the poems that do this in books at your local bookstore, your local library, or at websites like www.poetryfoundation.org. Explore how they connect the ordinary to the extraordinary. Finally, make your own connections and see that poetry is most definitely not about the extraordinary but about the ordinary made extraordinary.

Where do you find art in the ordinary?

For a daily dose of inspiration, subscribe to the Academy of American Poets' Poem A Day email at https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem-day​.

​We’re back from our travels with loads of impressions and images to share in coming weeks.

​

​Today's topic: the Tucson Festival of Books, our first stop on the trip. I wrote at length about last year's festival, and I won't repeat all the details here. (But if you're curious, you're welcome to look back at that post.)

​​This was my third visit to the festival, but Ray's first. In previous years, I scurried from one end of the University of Arizona Mall to the other, trying to catch as many talks on writing and publishing as I could. It was almost like being back in college (without the exams, thank goodness). This time, I took a different tack, hoping to make the weekend fun for both of us rather than dragging Ray along to talks on topics that would make his eyes glaze over. (Besides, how many more Moleskin notebooks do I really need to fill with conference scribblings?)

​I scrolled through the long list of presentations and found several by mystery authors Ray enjoys, and because I'm always interested in other writers' insights, I knew I'd find their talks informative. 

​The festival's presentations are all free, but some require advance reservations—and those go quickly. We were lucky to snag tickets to "Setting the Bar in Mystery" by New York Times bestselling authors Greg Iles and Scott Turow. It was just plain fun to witness the interaction between the two authors, good friends who traded jibes as well as compliments. I was fascinated, too, to hear them describe their writing processes. Turow is methodical, treating writing like a day job. Iles, on the other hand, goes long stretches without writing—occupying himself with music and other interests—and then writes his books in marathon sessions, fueled by granola bars and Tab. (I hope he makes up for that with healthier habits during his non-writing periods!)

​We also made sure not to miss Michael Perry, described on his website as "New York Times Bestselling Author, Humorist, Singer/Songwriter, Intermittent Pig Farmer." I first discovered Michael's writing at the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books. I had only enough room in my luggage to bring back one book, and I also wanted find a gift for Ray. When I saw Michael's memoir, Truck: A Love Story, I knew I needed to look no further. After all, memoir is my favorite genre, and Ray's all in for anything automotive. 

​Perry's humorous—and heartfelt—accounts of rural Wisconsin life enchanted me, and when I heard him speak at last year's festival and then read another of his books, Roughneck Grace: Farmer Yoga, Creeping Codgerism, Apple Golf, and Other Brief Essays from On and Off the Back Forty, I became an even more faithful fan.

​​This year, he read from his latest book, Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy. As the blurb describes it, the book is a down-to-earth look at the ideas of a philosopher "ensconced in a castle tower overlooking his vineyard," channeled by a Midwestern American writing "in a room above the garage overlooking a disused pig pen." I can't wait to read it.

​​


​As in previous years, it was heartening to be in the company of more than 130,000 book lovers, to overhear conversations about books and authors and see people browsing through and actually reading books. 

But still weary and bleary from the nearly 2,000-mile drive, we could expect only so much of our brains. The festival's entertainment schedule of sixty-some performances offered restorative time-outs from nonstop literary engagement. ​

​We applauded pint-sized musicians, whooped it up with local clog dancers, the Saguaro Stompers, and ooh-ed and aah-ed at acrobatic feats.

​By the end of the weekend, we were inspired, entertained, enlightened, and ready to take on more of Tucson.

​​​Happy Valentine's Day! I don't know if it's the memory of grade-school valentine exchanges or the connection with chocolate, but this has always been one of my favorite holidays.

​This year I'm celebrating by kicking off a new, occasional (meaning whenever I feel like it) feature on creative couples. For the first installment, I'm profiling two all-around wonderful folks, George and Mallory Waldman. I first met the couple when George and I worked together at the Detroit Free Press—he as a photographer and I as a reporter. I always admired his honest, direct, and often surprising images.

​Back then, Mallory was tirelessly working for a nonprofit organization that provided services for the elderly and people with HIV/AIDS, which didn't leave her much time or energy for other creative work. Now that she and George have retired and moved to Maine, she has flourished as a fiber artist.

​Here's how Mallory describes her creations: "I play with color in fabrics which I've cut into one-inch-wide strips and woven together. It's almost like painting in a way, because the colors change when woven next to one another. It's fascinating, huge fun, and quite exciting."

​George claims he doesn't do much photography any more. Mallory begs to differ. While he may not be practicing photojournalism, "I see such creativity in his photographs of the area around us," she says. "He can suddenly make you see what you really didn't do more than glance at before. He sharpens your sight."

​In addition, George is carving wood and learning to draw and play piano, "working in different dimensions, rather than the two," he says. "It's all a challenge. Piano is really the tough one." 

​It surprised me when George added, "I'm beginning to think of myself as a creative person." Funny, I always thought he was.

​He went on to explain that while he hasn't considered himself creative in an artistic sense, he's a creative problem solver. "I am, in my work, trying to find the essence of a situation and a person untainted by my own subjective impulses, and following that through to a final, beautiful and honest image that is useful and used and helpful in people understanding and appreciating each other."

​I wondered if the couple's creative natures played any part in their attraction to each other when they met on a blind date 52 years ago. 

​"We were so young and didn't know each other well (and I didn't know myself), so the creative part of George was not what drew me to him," says Mallory. "I did think he was one of the nicest and most interesting guys I'd ever met." (She still thinks so, by the way.)

​George agrees that he was "young and unformed" back then, and says this about Mallory: "At 22, she didn't seem to play games, which might suggest she wasn't very creative, but it made her very attractive to me. She was sincere, the kind of person who would do what she promised to do."

​​Perhaps it was that sincerity and mutual respect that helped them develop a partnership in which they could hone their own talents while encouraging each other's. That's a key to creative coupledom, say Katie and Gay Hendricks, husband-and-wife coauthors of Conscious Loving Ever After. "When people get in deeper communication with their own individual creative essence, their relationships blossom as a direct result," they write.

​Or as George puts it, "Be true to oneself, or why would anyone else be interested in you?"

​​For George and Mallory, support goes beyond encouragement; they also help each other find space and time for creative pursuits. George might move a new loom into Mallory's studio, then do the laundry and fix dinner while she sets it up. Mallory will handle other logistics to give George a chance to "dream or wander or putz around with something."

​They share their skills, too. George set up a Facebook page for technophobe Mallory, where she can display photos of her creations (photos taken by George, naturally).   

​​"I see the play of light in her work, the texture, shapes and colors more deeply than others might," says George. "Photographic elements." 

​Once, another artist whose work George had photographed observed that the result was "about the photographs more than the art." With his photos of Mallory's weavings, he aims for images that capture both: the artful weaving itself, but also photographic elements such as the play of light on the warp of the loom.

That mix of literal representation and artistic expression "can be a good thing," George maintains. "A kind of collaboration. Right?"

​Helpful as it as to have a supportive partner when things are going smoothly, it's even more appreciated during creative slumps and rough patches, the Waldmans have found. 

​"During a labor dispute with the Detroit newspapers, I had to struggle to make a living in depressing and often unfulfilling, problem-solving creative ways," George recalls. "Mallory was rock solid in support and understanding, never wavering a moment while she had her own problems to solve in funding and administering a program meeting the needs of HIV positive/AIDS people. Just earning a living is a creative challenge for most of us."

​​Giving George extra encouragement at that stressful time seemed like a no-brainer to Mallory. "One wants one's lover to be happy, fulfilled and eager to go on," she says. 

​Conscious Loving authors the Hendrickses see that sort of succor as essential in a creative partnership. In addition to asking oneself "What is my unique genius?", you can ask the same of your mate, Katie noted in an interview in the August 2017 issue of Mindful magazine. " 'What do you want to do in the world, and how can I support you and how can you support me?' That support is an expression of the genius of your relationship."

​Recently, Mallory posed that very question to her spouse. "I asked George what would he really want to do if there were no constraints at all. Just dream and then tell me, and let's make it happen." 

​Though they don't collaborate on artistic work, George and Mallory did co-produce two exceptional creations: son Aaron and daughter Terrill. Not surprisingly, the parents applied their usual imagination and energy to nurturing their children's curiosity and creativity.

​"We always had an art drawer for the kids, and George took them on an assignment once in a while so they could see him work," Mallory says. "We also supported their artistic impulses with classes and our general attitude that art was great."

​Books were plentiful in the Waldman household, and George and Mallory encouraged creative thinking with daily questions: "What do you think of this? Do you like mustard on your eggs? What's the worst thing that could happen here?" (Mixed in with the occasional "Could you mow the damn lawn?")

​Aaron and Terrill grew up to lead their own creative lives. Terrill and husband Charlie Jenkins, also a glassblower, create colorful and imaginative pieces in their studio, Tandem Glass. Aaron is "a very creative accountant in a good way and intent on the craft of it," says George.

​Now grandparents, George and Mallory spend two days a week with their grandchildren and enjoy seeing their talents bloom. 

​"We're hoping to foster in them a freedom of thinking, problem-solving ability, and acceptance and understanding of life and its challenges," says George.

​Come to think of it, those are exactly the qualities George and Mallory continue to cultivate in themselves in this phase of their creative couplehood.

​"Life has several beginnings," says Mallory. "At 74, we feel this stage is another new beginning."

Get your feet off the coffee table, and put on your best manners—we have company today. It's local author Janet Glaser, who writes as J.Q. Rose. She's swinging by on a blog tour to spread the word about her newly-released mystery, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard.
 
I met Janet/J.Q. through the writers' group at Fremont Area District Library, and I've enjoyed reading her imaginative stories (and indulging our mutual weakness for ice cream). Terror on Sunshine Boulevard is one of my favorites.
 
Here's a quick word from J.Q., followed by a Q&A. More details about her and her books can be found at the end of the post.

​Thank you, Nan, for hosting me during the Terror on Sunshine Boulevard Winter Warm-Up 2018 Blog Tour. I look forward to visiting with you and your readers and to answering any questions asked of me in the comments. I hope you have a cup of cocoa ready to warm me up today.
 
Readers: Please leave a comment below because a lucky commenter will win a PDF copy of Terror on Sunshine Boulevard. Winner will be drawn on Friday, January 19 at 9 p.m. EST.

The usual image of a Florida retirement community is one of golf courses, swimming pools and craft classes, not the scene of heinous crimes. What made you decide to set your new mystery, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard, in such a place?

I chose this setting because the scene one pictures of a retirement community is exactly what you describe--a place where people who have worked all their lives have a chance to enjoy the good things in life. I love the juxtaposition of the bright fun-in- the-sun feeling with the darkness of murder and mystery.  Even the title includes the contrasting views—terror and sunshine.

​

What goes into creating a believable character in a work of fiction?

I base my characters on real people in my life. We meet many interesting folks in our travels. And I might add, there are some real characters in Michigan too! I take bits and pieces from personalities, gestures, accents, speech and put them together in one character. I also create the background story of the character to understand his relationships with other characters and his motivation for doing something like stealing, cheating, even murder. All of that information, such as his favorite color, is not spilled out on the page for the reader. The more I know about the character, the more believable he’ll be.

How big a part does setting play in your stories? Does the setting ever become a character? 

​In all of my stories the setting is very important. I have mysteries set in the retirement community, a church, and a funeral home. Each location is a message to the reader to understand the reason for the drama within the pages of the book and to set the mood for the scenes. Often the twist comes when a character doesn’t fit into the setting. I think the setting is an element in the story, but I’ve never thought of it as a character. I guess we need to discuss the definition of the character.

Without giving away too much of the story, I think it's safe to say that Terror on Sunshine Boulevard deals with the intersection of nature and civilization, and the conflicts that arise as a result. Is this an issue that concerns you in the real world?

​Yes. I’m concerned watching “civilization” encroaching on the natural habitat by paving over acres of ground that is home to many animals and native plants. Developers tear out huge areas of property to build malls and subdivisions.  Roads and highways cut through ancient areas, disturbing the trails and habits of generations of animals. No wonder wildlife raid garbage cans in subdivisions. Their food supply is no longer available because the homes are built in their habitat. The natural environmental balance is disturbed and the animals’ survival is at risk. We must be better stewards of our resources.

Another theme in Terror on Sunshine Boulevard is the contributions seniors can make to society. Do you think seniors' gifts are underappreciated? 

I think many folks believe retirees are no longer useful to society. Don’t believe that! They have not been put out to pasture. A vibrant new chapter opens for them. Seniors have skills and talents polished by their life experiences. They are assets to their communities in many ways and guides to warn the young’uns about their mistakes and to show them how they have triumphed. They are storytellers when they share family stories around the dinner table as the kids sit enthralled learning about the funny, crazy uncle or the accomplished pianist in the family. Seniors are eyewitnesses to the world and our country’s history and will not allow anyone to slant the truth for their own purposes.

You've been a teacher and a business owner. What led you into writing, and into writing mysteries in particular?

To tell the truth, I was a writer way before being a teacher or entrepreneur. I actually started writing stories in second grade and I never stopped. I’ve had mentors and supporters along the way encouraging me to keep writing. First was my Grandmother Maw and teachers. Judy Corey and Mary Zuwerink started the North Country Writers many years ago. Esther Jiran (who writes as Joselyn Vaughn) was the force behind starting a writers group at the Fremont Library. I met many folks excited about writing there including you, Nan. Also a critique group of talented authors not only helped me brainstorm story ideas, but also encouraged me to submit my first story to publishers which resulted in signing a contract with a small publisher. Esther, Wendy Sinicki (pen name W.S. Gager), Theresa Grant (Tess Grant), and Nan continue to be important advocates in my writing life.

After we sold our flower business in 1995, I had time to sit down and write. So I did. I asked Rich Wheater, editor of our regional newspaper, if he could use a few stories for the paper. He said, “Go ahead.” I learned a LOT from him and branched out into writing freelance articles for magazines, newspapers, and online magazines. After reading Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries and Janet Evanovich’s funny mysteries, I decided to tackle fiction. And I’m glad I did!

What have been the biggest challenges in becoming a published author?

I’ve discovered writing the book is the easy part. After publishing comes the difficult job of promoting the book. I spend many hours a week, every week, on Facebook, my blog, and guesting on blogs to get the word out about the books and urging folks to review my books. Reviews get the attention of Amazon so they promote it; the review helps readers decide if it’s a story they would enjoy.

You divide your time between Florida and Michigan. Do your writing habits and routines change with a change of location? 

Yes. Daily routines change, but I learned I had to schedule an appointment with J.Q. Rose to sit down every day and write for half an hour or more. No marketing, no emailing. After lunch, I put on my author cap and write no matter if I’m up north or down south.

In what ways besides writing do you exercise your creative muscles and find contentment?  

I take photos—of everything! I love capturing people, places, things, a tricky bee landing on a flower. I also enjoy “creating” quote graphics at canva.com using my photos. 

.Anything else you'd like to add? 

​Yes. My mission is to encourage everyone to take time to write or record their life stories. So what if you didn’t discover a medicine to cure disease or help build a ship to fly to the moon? Your life is worthy because it can inspire others by sharing your experiences of overcoming obstacles, making mistakes or celebrating success. Your stories will allow generations of your family to get to know you and be empowered by your life story. I’m writing a memoir now about the first year we moved to Fremont and started our business. What an adventure. 

Do you have a story inside you to share? Go ahead and do it.

Thank you for visiting today.

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard
Back of the Book:  Rescuing a naked woman lying in a geranium bed or investigating mysterious murders are not the usual calls for first responder Jim Hart. He expects slip and fall accidents or low blood pressure emergencies in his retirement community of Citrus Ridge Senior Community and Golf Resort. The ghastly crime scenes turn the winter time fun into a terrifying season of death and mystery when the authorities cannot track down the predator responsible.
 
Jim and his wife Gloria could escape the horror and grief by returning to their northern home, but concern for their friends and residents keep them in Florida. With the entire community in a dither over the deaths, the Harts participate in the normal winter activities of golfing, dancing, and pool parties with their friends to distract them from the sadness and loss.
 
Can Jim and Gloria work with the authorities to discover who or what is killing the seniors on Sunshine Boulevard and stop the increasing body count?

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard is available for purchase at these digital booksellers.

​About J.Q.
After writing feature articles in magazines, newspapers, and online magazines for over fifteen years, J.Q. Rose entered the world of fiction. Her published mysteries are Deadly Undertaking, Dangerous Sanctuary, and Terror on Sunshine Boulevard, released by Books We Love Publishing. Blogging, photography, Pegs and Jokers board games, and travel are the things that keep her out of trouble. She spends winters in Florida and summers up north camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her four grandsons and granddaughter.

Connect with J.Q. Rose online at
J.Q. Rose blog
Facebook
Books We Love Author Page
Goodreads