I have to share the successes of two local writers. My pal and fellow memoirist Jolene Hanson will be reading from her memoir tonight at our beloved local book store, Village Books, as part of the class she took at Western Washington University called Memories to Memoirs, taught by the celebrated Laura Kalpakian. Readings begin at 6 so please come sit by me. Way to go Jolene!
Also, the multi-talented Mike McQuaide, author of 75 Classic Rides: Washington, The Best Road Biking Routes and several other titles will be interviewed on our own local radio show and podcast the Chuckanut Radio Hour this coming Thursday, May 24, at 7 PM at the Leopold. Mike and I collaborated a couple of years ago on an article in Entertainment News NW on Youth Improv courses at my favorite Upfront Theatre (I wrote an article and Mike took the photos). Please come by to congratulate Mike after watching his live interview and/or listen to show.
Earlier this month I blogged here about Christina Katz’ Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway. It’s still going strong. You can check out Christina’s site to see all the fabulous books she’s given away thus far.
This coming Saturday, May 26, Christina and I will be giving away a free copy of the anthology Easy to Love But Hard to Raise. Check her web site for the rules, but your odds are great. All you have to do to win is go to her site on May 26 and answer the question of the day in 50-200 words by posting a comment. She will choose one winner for each anthology randomly. Get in to the habit by heading over there every day for the rest of May. She has some amazing titles still to come including:
May 22nd: Natalie Serber, Shout Her Lovely Name (fiction, short stories) More info
May 23rd: Christina Katz, Build Your Author Platform e-workbook (nonfiction, how-to) More info
May 24th: Kristina Riggle, Keepsake (fiction, novel) More info
May 25th: Abigail Green, Mama Insider: Laughing (And Sometimes Crying) All The Way Through Pregnancy, Birth and the First Three Months (e-book, humorous nonfiction) More info
May 27th: Miriam Kobras, award-winning The Distant Shore: Book One of the Stone Trilogy (fiction, romance) More info
May 28th: Allison Winn Scotch, The Song Remains The Same (fiction, novel) More info
May 29th: Lisa Schroeder, It’s Raining CupcakesMore info and Sprinkles and SecretsMore info (middle grade fiction novels)
May 30th: Christina Katz, one set of her three books by Writer’s Digest: Writer Mama More info, Get Known Before the Book Deal More info, and The Writer’s WorkoutMore info (all nonfiction, how-to)
May 31st: Karen Karbo, a set of her three kick-as women books: How To Hepburn More info, The Gospel According to Coco Chanel More info, and How Georgia Became O’KeeffeMore info(nonfiction)
Today I blogged over at Easy to Love… about all that my county Parent to Parent group has done to support my family in our unusual journey through parenthood. Check it out!
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was broadly introduced to the world in 1939 when the Iron Horse of Baseball Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with this progressive neurodegenerative disease. Motor neurons that reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body are affected, impairing the ability to use the hands and feet, speak, swallow, and breathe. The ALS Association website has more information.
I’ve been learning about this disease because two of my friends have been diagnosed with it recently. It feels extra shocking to me because the incidence in the general population is supposedly only 2 in 100,000, yet my town is smaller than that and there are many more in my area living with the disease.
I read the highly recommended memoir, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Alborn, the true story of Morrie Schwartz and the weekly conversations they had together while Morrie managed his ALS diagnosis. Tuesdays is excellent because Alborn was able to capture Morrie’s hard-earned wisdom about life, death, and humanity and share it with the world.
As Alborn learned from his weekly chats, spending time with people who know they are dying brings great gifts. I am reminded to live each day more fully, to appreciate the people in my life, to be thankful for my health and circumstances, to cherish each moment in its own right, and to let go of the little things that don’t really matter. I also regret not spending more time with these friends before their diagnosis. I always thought there would be more time. All of these get thrown by the wayside while I’m rushing to and from the kid’s school and the grocery store, feeling exhausted and behind in every task.
Spending time with my friends who have ALS releases my petty disappointments and frustration with the day-to-day. The concerns melt away like sand through my fingers after only a few minutes with my friends. For their time and candor, and the clarity it brings me, I truly thank them.
What I’ve learned about ALS so far:
The disease is poorly understood and there is still no known cure.
ALS is not wholly inherited genetically. It may be affected by environmental factors and can strike anyone.
Most people diagnosed with ALS live from 2-10 years after diagnosis, with some exceptions.
A couple of drugs are in clinical trials that could slow the progression of the disease.
Donations can be made to support the search for a cure at The ALS Association.
If you know someone with ALS, spend time with them. Listen and learn. Cherish every person in your life and every moment. Then make a donation so that someday, ALS will just be an entry in the history books.
How it works: visit her blog each day to see the featured book and post a comment answering the question of the daily blog. One winner will be chosen from those that comment. If you win a book, Christina will be in touch and mail you your book within a couple of weeks. Simple as that.
I’ve taken Christina’s classesWriting and Publishing the Short Stuff and Dream Team. Her classes and books have served my writing career very well, so please head over to Christina Katz blog and comment away to win!
It’s no secret that improvisational acting (improv) classes at The Upfront Theatre have improved my self-confidence significantly over the past three years, but I still have a way to go to keep insecurity from rearing its ugly head.
To become a successful author, we must be able to talk to anyone about our book, and not only talk, but sell it. Pacific Northwest author and friend Kim Kircher has blogged about her struggles with self-promotion during her recent book tour for her memoir, The Next 15 Minutes.
Experts propose a variety of suggestions on how we may overcome our fears, but most of them boil down to plugging our nose and jumping in with both feet. The simple act of surviving leads to a sense of accomplishment, which incrementally builds self-esteem and confidence. Getting on stage every week and writing this blog is me jumping in with both feet.
To further that effort, I opened my mind to other new experiences as well. Believe it or not, I recently worked as an extra in a rap music video. While that may not sound like a natural fit for a suburban mom and environmental scientist, the fact that it was outside my comfort zone was exactly what I needed.
Below is the video itself, Take My Pain Away by Conceit, directed by Darkheart Visions Production’s talented Domenic Barbero. Although not appropriate for children, the song is stuck in my head.
For most of the video shoot, I just focused on not screwing up, but I also drank in the new experience. What if I want to write fiction someday about a musician, or a video extra, or a film maker? This experience, one that none of my fellow 2nd grade moms would consider in a million years, was not only potential research for some future opus, but also a way for me to chase down my own insecurities with a baseball bat.
Articles I’ve read say that extra work is so small that it shouldn’t even appear on an acting resume. But I feel like shouting about this from the roof tops. “Hey everybody, I was scared to death to appear in a music video and I did it anyway!” The experience also brought other unexpected benefits. I met some very interesting, smart, confident, and (of course) beautiful people and learned a ton of tiny details about video production, acting, and especially fake blood (Thanks Langley West!).
This past weekend I also auditioned for the Upfront Theatre’s mainstage ensemble. Although I didn’t get a call back this time, I was proud of myself for having the courage to try. I stayed calm and positive during the audition process, and I wasn’t too hard on myself afterward. Shutting down my inner critic was a huge step for me. I came away from my audition with a clear list of what I need to do next time to really shine, and also gained a completely unique experience that most of my friends would never dream of attempting. Who knows, maybe this experience will appear in my next article, short story, play, or manuscript.
In this article (Thanks Sandi Pants!), The Office’s Jenna Fischer suggests working as an extra, or background artist, as one of the best ways to get started in the entertainment industry. Her random early experiences connected her to the people who years later cast her on The Office.
We can’t know with certainty what our future will hold, but the range of possibility is much smaller without the inspiration of fresh experience. So the next time the insecurity monster shows up at your house, consider grabbing him by the arm and dragging him into your new experience with you, head first.
The movie rights to Portland author Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, were purchased this week by Academy Award winning actress Reece Witherspoon’s new Production Company, Pacific Standard.
According to this article at OregonLive.com, Strayed’s memoir about hiking a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail alone following a divorce and the death of her mother, is due out March 20.
It’s so exciting to see the success of other memoirists, other Pacific Northwest writers, other authors in general in this drastically changing publication climate.
Witherspoon will play Strayed in the film adaptation. Someday, when I’m so fortunate to sell the movie rights to my memoir, I’d love to be played by my Doppelganger, Toni Collette. Strayed’s success makes me think my dream isn’t quite so far away.
I’ll post my Wilde review of the memoir Wild here. In the meantime, congrats to Strayed and Witherspoon and thanks for letting us live vicariously!
Writing my most recent blog post over at Easy to Love…this morning, Diagnosis: Bain or Blessing? reminded me that tired parents of special needs children are everywhere. Our stories are ultimately as unique as each of our beloved children, and yet so much the same in our hopes, our survival, and our celebration of the complexities that life has brought.
Bicycling has changed my life. When I was a kid, my bike rides were my solace, taking me “far” from home, connecting me with friends over the summer, building my confidence as a solo explorer of my own township. In college my bicycle was transportation and saved me hundreds of dollars per year on parking passes. In my 30′s, my bicycle was gave me the motivation to start a non-profit car share, to enable others to give up a car and take the bus and bike instead. When my twins were born, riding my bicycle with them in the trailer or on tag-alongs made me feel like a warrior, capable and strong. Now, my bicycle is rehab from knee surgery and part of the exercise I can just squeeze into my busy writer-mom life. I’m still dreaming of overnight bike camping trips with my family, and perhaps someday even more ambitious trips like those taken by my gal pal Laural Ringler and her family, from Bellingham to Mexico and in European cities, as she shares on her Family Adventuring blog and in regular features in Adventures NW.
Bicycles have influenced my life more than any car ever could and I’ve loved each of them like a friend. If bicycles haven’t yet changed your life for the better, consider giving them a test ride. They’re so much more than transportation and exercise.
I have to share the successes of two local writers. My pal and fellow memoirist Jolene Hanson will be reading from her memoir tonight at our beloved local book store, Village Books, as part of the class she took at Western Washington University called Memories to Memoirs, taught by the celebrated Laura Kalpakian. Readings begin at 6 so please come sit by me. Way to go Jolene!
Also, the multi-talented Mike McQuaide, author of 75 Classic Rides: Washington, The Best Road Biking Routes and several other titles will be interviewed on our own local radio show and podcast the Chuckanut Radio Hour this coming Thursday, May 24, at 7 PM at the Leopold. Mike and I collaborated a couple of years ago on an article in Entertainment News NW on Youth Improv courses at my favorite Upfront Theatre (I wrote an article and Mike took the photos). Please come by to congratulate Mike after watching his live interview and/or listen to show.
