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Featured Member Interview – Eve Sprunt

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Eve Sprunt is the author of A Guide for Dual-Career Couples, Rewriting the Rules and co-author of A Guide to Career Resilience, For Women and Under-Represented Groups. Her latest book, Passionate Persistence: The Life of My Mother, Ruth Chew, explores her mother’s life as a popular children’s author and illustrator.

Let’s start by talking a bit about your writing process. What inspires you as a reader and as a writer?

(ES): Writing has played a huge role in my career. I realized very early that if I documented my technical work in writing, it was more difficult for men to steal the credit. I also learned that taking risks (and as I envisioned) walking a tightrope, I was more likely to succeed than if I were risk-averse.

Although all of my degrees are in geophysics (BS and MS from MIT and Ph.D. from Stanford where I was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Geophysics), early in my career, I realized that I had a better chance of staying employed if I impersonated an engineer. When I served as the senior technical editor of the Society of Petroleum Engineers in the 1990’s, I had a monthly column in the society’s publication. I leveraged that column to address the issues bedeviling the rank and file technical professionals.  

Later in my career when I was working in management roles, I was horrified that my employer was requiring female members of dual-career couples to declare whose career took precedence instead of offering opportunities and letting the couples decide what they were willing to sacrifice to advance. I collaborated with other women across the petroleum industry and leveraged several professional societies to gather information on issues facing dual-career couples. Immediately after I retired, I began writing A Guide for Dual-Career Couples, Rewriting the Rules, which was published by Praeger in 2016. 

When I read the letters my aunt wrote in the 1950’s while she was in Pakistan on sabbatical from her position as an English instructor at Mills College, I was enthralled. My aunt never shared the full story with her family! An American man she encountered while touring northern Pakistan by herself, came to see her in Oakland and repeatedly begged her to marry him. After twice rejecting his marriage proposals, she decided to sacrifice her career for love. When I read her love letters, I was mesmerized. I felt compelled to share her story and did so in Dearest Audrey, An Unlikely Love Story, which I self-published in 2019. 

In 2020, I co-authored Mentoring and Sponsoring, Keys to Success, which was published by Springer, with an Italian-Venezuelan friend, Maria-Angela Capello, while she was working in Kuwait. We have never lived in the same place at the same time and all of our collaboration has been done remotely. 

Then I persuaded Maria Angela Capello to co-author A Guide to Career Resilience, For Women and Under-Represented Groups,which was published by Springer in 2022. Our male editor at Springer insisted we tone down the book, but we still managed to hit most of the issues we felt were important.

What do you tend to read in your free time, and can you share a recent book or piece that impacted you?

(ES): I prefer to read non-fiction, because then I have to accept that the improbable events are real. I loved Sonia Purnell’s A Woman of Importance, The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II. Despite having a prosthetic leg and battling sexual discrimination within her own organization, the heroine accomplished seemingly impossible tasks. 

Could you tell me a little more about your latest book, Passionate Persistence: The Life of My Mother, Ruth Chew? What encouraged you to write a biography of your mother’s life as a children’s author and illustrator?

(ES): My mother, Ruth Chew, became a very successful children’s book author and illustrator after I left home. Her first book, The Wednesday Witch, sold over a million copies and she went on to author and illustrate 28 more children’s chapter books and was also asked to illustrate Shark Lady. My mother kept a daily journal, but made it clear we were never to read it. During the pandemic, many years after her death, I decided, “What’s the point in keeping her diaries if no one ever reads them. So, I did. It was like opening Pandora’s box. What I learned, I couldn’t forget. Passionate Persistence, The Life of My Mother, Ruth Chew (Author of The Wednesday Witch) is based on what I learned from her diaries. I thought I would be writing about how against tremendous odds, she became a great success, but was horrified to discover that after I left home, my younger siblings were left to fend for themselves. Her story was much more complex than I realized. Mother used to say, “I’m an eleven year-old trapped in an adult’s body.” Reading her diaries, I realized that she may have been so successful because her empathy level matched that of her elementary school readers.

You have an extensive professional background in engineering and the energy industry. When did you first realize that you’d like to pursue a technical degree? What advice do you have for young women interested in pursuing technical careers?

(ES): My mother wanted me to be an artist like her, but I like science and applied for admission to MIT, where for the first time in my life, I felt as if I belonged. Don’t let anyone tell you, “You can’t.” Get the best education you can and shoot for the stars. You can “have everything” – a career and a family. Keep an open mind. The people who you think would be less likely to support you may be your strongest advocates. Middle Eastern men (both Christian and Muslim) have been my strongest supporters, advocates and friends!

In a similar vein, do you have any tips for new writers?

(ES): Don’t listen to anyone who says, “You can’t.” If you care enough, you can figure out a way to do anything.

Are there any exciting projects that you’re currently working on, or would like to start one day soon?

(ES): I’m working on a memoir about my career and am revising the approximately 92,000 words of my draft.

Featured Member Interview – Reena Kapoor

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Tell us a little about yourself in regards to your background.

(RK): I was born and raised all over India because my father was a doctor in the Indian Army. I studied in eight schools all over India and I think that made me an observer of people and places and also a believer in the universality of human nature. We are more alike than we think or like to believe!

After high school, I went to engineering college at the Indian Institute of Technology which is one of the most competitive engineering schools in India. In the ’80s there were very few women in that field, and in my class of nearly 300 men, there were only two women! 

Following that, I came to the US for graduate school in the late ‘80s and got an MS in engineering at Northwestern University. After that followed work as an engineer for a while, and then I switched over to business and tech, which is where I’ve spent the last 25+ years. I’ve worked at many companies big and small and I’ve also mentored a lot of start-ups and their founders, especially several social impact driven companies. That’s something I continue to do as an executive mentor. 

Theatre, writing, reading, books and poetry have been my constant companions along the way. But then in the last couple of years I decided to get serious about writing, and have turned my attention to it more intentionally, and in some ways, more formally. So in some ways I’m on to writing as my third career! 

How did you get started in your writing journey? Why did you decide to change careers from an engineer to a writer?

(RK): I’ve always written here and there, articles and essays in school, college and at work, which was more business writing of course. I’ve always loved words and expressing myself through them. And I read a lot as a kid and never really stopped. Reading is my primary mode of learning. I read a wide variety—everything from novels to short stories to works of psychology, philosophy etc.

And I’d been working for over three decades in engineering, business and tech and somewhere along the way about twelve years ago, out of nowhere poetry came spilling out of me! I’d never written poems in any serious way before that. It was as if the poems were waiting for an escape, for a chance, for a crack in my “busyness” to force my hand and my mind into paying deeper attention. 

Being of a strong analytical mind, and having spent most of my career in analytically inclined careers, I found myself at a strange crossroads. When this inner push to write wouldn’t be tamed I had to face it. There was the default path ahead, which I could walk pretty easily and was the sensible thing to do, in terms of both financial benefit and external glory, and there was this thing which wouldn’t let go. For a while I thought I could do both. And I did. But I started to see that I’d lost the taste for a corporate career and its laurels were no longer making me happy. I didn’t feel burnt out, it wasn’t exhaustion, instead I felt a thirst for something else entirely. I would be in meetings daydreaming, wanting to pen down what couldn’t wait. Most of my poetry from 2010-2021 came out that way. After a decade of pretending I could “do it all” I woke up one morning and decided to stop. It took a bit more time to wrap up loose ends but I gave myself permission for this left turn. 

So here I am now. It took me a bit of time and getting used to, to claim that I’m a writer without any compunction or this feeling that I was asking for permission. I didn’t realize how much I love the act of writing itself and also the learning, this drinking from a firehose that I get to do daily. I feel like a student again, and it’s a wonderful feeling. I regularly publish my poetry and stories and essays on my blog https://arrivalsanddepartures.substack.com/.  That’s also the name of my first poetry book. I’ve also been published in various anthologies and literary magazines and journals, so I’ve had a teeny bit of exposure.

My main focus though for now is to learn how to be a better writer, and I’m continually pushing myself on that path, taking classes, learning from other writers in critique groups and writing clubs, and also just reading up to hone and refine my craft. It’s a wonderful journey and a privilege to allow for this passion.

How did you find the WNBA?

(RK): I initially discovered the WNBA while searching for organizations for writers on the internet. But then a writer friend who I met through an online literary event during Covid, Anniqua Rana, who’s on the board of the San Francisco chapter of the WNBA introduced me and brought me in. And I discovered a great avenue for meeting other writers, for learning the craft from experts in the industry and also to find out about local and virtual events for new and established writers.

How would you define your writing style when it comes to poetry?

(RK): My writing style, when it comes to poetry, is mostly free verse, sometimes with rhyme, quatrains, haikus, tankas, even a rap song for a theatrical piece and a few other forms, but most of my poetry tends to run free. 

And most of it writes itself, in that it shows up and demands to be written, and I feel like I simply serve as the scribe. That’s really the overwhelm I feel with my poetry. It demands to be heard, it must be seen, and I show up as the primary witness. A lot of my poetry has to do with me living in my head, thinking about life and philosophy and aging and mortality, nature, and the nature of relationships and of just being human; a lot of it is existential in its wanderings, and a lot of it philosophical as well. Of course, much of my poetry is inspired by special moments in life, everything from moments of love and friendship, motherhood, watching my daughter grow up to very specific moments such as seeing children fascinated by nature like I was as a kid, to observing tragedies in everyday life. So the trigger can really be any aspect of life, from the smallest to the largest questions that face us, and most of it comes out in a very literary and free verse form. 

I love words. I’ve always loved words, and so a lot of it plays with words, sometimes in rhyme, in alliteration and in the use of words to evoke a certain musicality and an element of surprise and introspection, both on my part and for the reader. My only book of poetry so far Arrivals and Departures:A Journey in Poems is on Amazon. And my blog of the same name, https://arrivalsanddepartures.substack.com/ is home to my more recent work.

I noticed you have a passion for photography, what is your inspiration for the photos you take?

(RK): Nature, color and light. I am very visual and very drawn to color. It’s how I’ve designed my home—bathing it in bright light, skylights, windows and bright color. Sometimes I wonder if I have some form of synesthesia, or perhaps a condition where I see colors in hues that are brighter than what most people see; because I’m instantly attracted to nature in its brightest, most vivid forms. Hence nature, flowers, change of seasons and the dance of light occupy most of my photographic interest.

(RK): What can you tell us about your poetry collection Arrivals & Departures: Journeys in Poems? Any personal stories behind the collection?

My poems are about finding and living a meaningful life. On love, on questions life asks of us and how we find answers in daily particulars and in words of prophets we admire, on being in love, on being a mother, and forging, even losing friendships, the wounds of history and pain. 

Many of my poems seek to examine my personal history of having grown up a musafir (traveler) in India, of being an immigrant to America, a daughter with loved ones too far away, of finding myself suspended in that liminal space between two homes and of being a woman of Indian origin with all that its gifts, assumptions and questions.

A lot of the poems are also from a unique personal history of my family’s origins which is tied to the history of India. India became independent from British colonial rule in 1947 and at the same time India was partitioned into two countries Pakistan, which became an Islamic Republic, and India, which continued on as a secular Republic. Unfortunately, this was not a peaceful split. A great upheaval, terrible violence and tragedy followed as both Hindus and Muslims who found themselves on the “wrong” side of the border (based on religion) were forced to flee their generational homes, their lives and the only homes they’d ever known. Both my parents were refugee children whose families had to leave everything in what now became Pakistan to move to the new India. Several of my poems are about this 1947 Partition of India, and the tragedy and traumatic aftermath of that event. In particular, my interest has been on the effect it had on women and injustice and tragedy that they suffered during Partition. Those poems are also part of my collection. I continue to write essays on that subject as well.

(RK): How have your experiences as a playwright shaped your identity? Also how was your full length play The Wife created?

In terms of being a playwright and my identity, I would say that it’s actually the reverse. It’s really my identity that shapes a lot of my playwriting. 

I’ve always been interested in theater. Since my father was a doctor in the Indian Army, I went from school to school, and I always acted in theater. I also directed plays during my high school years. And I continued as a theater actor in college. But I did not become a playwright until more recently even though I entertained stories in my head that I wanted to tell. 

Then in 2021 I was invited by EnActe Arts, a Bay Area theater company with international standing and reach to submit my work. They invited me to be their first WEFT—women enact for themselves—playwright-in-residence for that program. I wrote four theatrical pieces, all of which were produced and I’m very grateful for that opportunity. It was an incredible feeling to see my words come alive from the mouths of talented actors from all over the world. Then in 2023 I created my first full length play “The Wife” (still looking for a better title), which was selected for EnActe Arts 2023 “New Works Festival”.  

 All of my plays have been about Indian women, both in India as well as in the diaspora. My stories tend to be about their struggles against patriarchal social norms and expectations within Indian society. My focus however is not on depicting Indian women as hapless victims, but on how these women rediscover and reclaim their own agency. 

In that regard, “The Wife”  is interesting because there are a few different themes that come together in that one—of identity, culture, and self-discovery. It traces the internal journey of a housewife of a venture capitalist (both of Indian origin) in Silicon Valley. She has everything: a decent and ambitious husband, good kids, and an affluent life. Except that somewhere along the way she’s forgotten what fulfills her as an individual. When an attractive neighbor arrives next door and his friendship makes her feel truly seen, she’s awakened to her own needs. Her attraction to the neighbor is further complicated by their differing ethnic and racial backgrounds. As the story progresses she’s forced to confront her desires along with her own awakening. The play poses several questions to the audience: Does the smallest minority — the individual — within the “model minority” matter? What if the individual wants something quite different than what’s expected of her?

With all of my plays, my interest is in finding the voice and the agency of the Indian woman within the context of her life, mores and relationships. 

For more information about Reena’s plays click here!

Tell us about your hobbies?

(RK): I do suffer from way too many interests and hobbies. I’m a photographer, which was an accidental discovery. I publish my photographs on Instagram, you can find me at @1stardusty on Instagram. 

I’m also an avid gardener. And I love to cook, and you’ll find me spending a lot of time trying out new recipes and cooking for friends and family. It’s something that gives me a lot of meaning and satisfaction. All of these things keep me deeply happy and busy. 

(RK): Is there anything else you would like to add or things we can look forward to in the future?

In terms of what’s in the future, all I can say is that I’m super excited. I’ve written another play, and I continue to write stories. 

I think my focus right now and probably in the near future, is going to be on short stories, which is a form I love and admire deeply. It’s, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful and equally underrated forms of writing. But it’s a form that I’ve always loved, even in Hindi literature, which I read when I was much younger. I’m attracted to this form with its forced compaction and economy that demands an exacting discipline of attention both from the writer and the reader. I’m a great admirer of many short story writers, including Alice Munro, who we unfortunately lost this year. And what a body of work she left behind!  I’m still learning the craft, so I’m far from satisfied with any of the ones I’ve produced so far, but I keep writing and keep putting them out there and honing them as I go. 

I also look forward to helping the WNBA in whatever capacity I can, and in continuing to offer other writers and readers the support we can.

 

 

Featured Member Interview – Joanne Rodrigues

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Joanne Rodrigues is an experienced data scientist and enterprise manager with a master’s degree in Mathematics, Demography, and Political Science, and a bachelor’s degree in International Political Economy from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. While in Washington D.C., she was a research assistant at the Center for Population and Health and the White House Counsel of Economic Advisors. She pioneered new techniques at Sony PlayStation, led all of MeYou Health’s data science efforts, and founded a company ClinicPriceCheck.com, featured on TechCrunch Battlefield SF 2020. She has experience authoring technical books. Her latest book, Product Analytics: Applied Data Science Techniques for Actionable Consumer Insights, was part of Addison-Wesley’s Data and Analytics Series. She’s recently joined as the Membership & Tech Manager for the Women’s National Book Association-San Francisco Chapter.

Let’s start by talking a bit about your writing process. What inspires you as a reader and a writer?

(JR): What inspires me most is exploring the world through a new perspective (while also acknowledging it’s probably not fresh, given the approx.12 billion people who have lived throughout human history). 

Additionally, I enjoy uncovering connections that defy wisdom, challenging prevalent narratives and tropes that lack truth. As someone who identifies as neurodivergent and has a profound curiosity about people and society, particularly about social order and how society functions, writing and reading is a perfect medium to explore humanity.

What do you tend to read in your free time, and can you share a recent book or piece that impacted you?

(JR): I have a passion for thrillers and technical books. At the moment, I’m engrossed in “When Justice Sleeps” by Stacey Abrams. What captivates me most is Abrams’ skillful integration of real-world political elements concerning the Supreme Court and judiciary within the fictional narrative. 

Could you tell me a little more about your latest book, Product Analytics: Applied Data Science Techniques for Actionable Consumer Insights? What encouraged you to write it, and how do you think it could help readers hoping to understand and grow their customer base?

(JR): The reason that I wanted to write this book is simple: when I started working as a data scientist on a web product, there were very few books available on how to work with consumer data. My managers were demanding insights on how to improve the business, to increase revenue and lower costs, but my training in algorithms and machine learning really didn’t provide the tools needed to do the job. I met lots of people like me ranging from marketers to executives that really didn’t know what to do with all this newfound data. Many made million dollars plus mistakes because they misunderstood why customers were doing what they were doing. The goal of the book is to fill that gap — provide the appropriate steps and application examples of how to apply statistical inference in drawing insights from consumer behavior. While not focused solely on growing a user base, the book explores how to generate actionable business insights related to consumer behavior from applied statistics and machine learning techniques. 

You have an extensive academic and professional background in data science, mathematics, demography, and political science. When did you first realize that you’d like to work with data at a deeper level?

(JR): I’ve always been fascinated by society and human behavior. Data is a way to learn about human behavior in the aggregate. In the early 2010s, during the explosion of clickstream data representing vast amounts of aggregated human behavior, I found myself drawn into data science. This flood of information was exciting, offering opportunities to explore the nuances of social behavior through millions of online interactions and decisions.

Do you have any tips for new writers, non-fiction or otherwise?

(JR): Living with dyslexia and an auditory processing disorder has presented formidable challenges in reading and writing. Precise auditory processing plays a pivotal role in comprehending both written and spoken communication. However, due to my poor processing, I miss the subtle nuances in speech, such as transitions in conversations. For this reason, I struggled for years to add those transitions to my speech and writing.

As you can imagine, I had to develop coping mechanisms for my hearing, reading, and writing deficiencies. It taught me life is all about developing coping mechanisms for your weaknesses and forging forward on your strengths. To this day, I am a slow reader, but that has never stopped me from writing prolifically and learning how to mimic other writers’ use of transitions.

Books are a beautiful medium of human expression – and one that lasts the tests of time – unlike social media. Don’t give up on books. 

The universe is constantly changing and you have no idea where it will be next, so get a day job and then follow your dreams! 

Finally, I hear that you’re currently working on a few other writing projects, a thriller and a memoir. Is there anything that you can share about these upcoming books?

(JR): Nope, I want to keep those under wraps until I finish them. 

Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte

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Interview by B Lynn Goodwin

In honor of Black History Month, WNBA-SF proudly shares this author interview of Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, author of Betrayal on the Bayou.

WNBA-SF Chapter engages in a continuous commitment and intentional practice of assuring the presence and meaningful participation and celebration of Black, Indigenous, and people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, historically marginalized identities, and people with disabilities, in its programming, membership and leadership. 

This interview first appeared on the website WriterAdvice.com and is reprinted with permission.

Cover or a book with words and an image of trees and a swamp

Betrayal on the Bayou

Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte’s Betrayal on the Bayou is a fascinating novel that delves into some heartbreaking issues around race, justice, and the noir code in the fictitious Louisiana town of Tassin.

In the midst of the Louisiana Bayou in the 1800s, there was a three-tiered culture: slaves, free people of color, and whites. When a young, white widower from Paris arrives with his daughter he marries a Tassin woman, who has money and power,  and then takes a Creole lover. After a while he builds his lover, Margot, a house identical to his wife, Marie’s, and sets them side by side. He encourages feuds, discord, and his personal superiority. As the story unfolds we learn about the injustices a white man could perpetrate without consequences in the 1800s. Readers will be left wondering how much has changed today in this fast-paced debut novel.

Bize-Boutte is an award-winning writer, poet, and Pushcart Nominee. In this interview she talks about her experiences.

BLG: Tell us when you knew you were a writer. Who encouraged you to tell your stories? 

SJBB: I am from a family of storytellers and voracious readers, so writing was a natural addition to that portfolio.  I knew I was a writer at 12 years old when my parents bought me a Smith Corona typewriter and I wrote my first story. I had imagined stories before then and wrote a few things down in pencil, but my passion was not solidified and off to the races until I was gifted that typewriter.  Incidentally, my first story was about pencils.  

BLG:  Are there real experiences you’ve observed or heard about woven into your novel? Can you give us a couple of examples? 

SJBB: As you know, fiction is always informed by lived reality and for Betrayal on the Bayou that is an embedded fact.  I tell people my imagination has always been my best friend and so, the combination and sometimes hybrid presentation of fact and imagination are present in the novel.   

As an example, one of the lead characters, Margot, is a mixture of the personalities, essences, physical attributes, occupations, and unfathomable heartbreak of several of the most important women in my life, the women who shaped me. In Margot, people who know me will see my mother who never completely overcame her tragedies and yet was a woman of incomparable substance and will, my aunt who made clothing, from the hats to the shoes, for Hollywood’s famous, my great-aunt who flourished in the Jim Crow south despite the restrictions on her very being, and me, a Black woman in America, and all that means. Those who don’t will discover my truths in this work of fiction.

Another example is the phrase, “the rain she come, the bsic pass on you,” from a story my father told us as children.  I took that phrase and re-imagined it as connected to my novel and gave it a new and different life with a more expansive meaning within the Creole and code noir culture I was describing and a commentary on how a myriad of things may have been in the fictional Louisiana town I built. In other words, I did what I do when I write fiction. I took a speck of something, added a dose of imagination, and blew it up into a story all its own. 

BLG: I’ve been fascinated by Creoles since I found a reference to them in a poem in my 7th grade reader. What inspired you to write about Creoles and their struggles in Louisiana? 

SJBB: My father was a Creole from Louisiana. I did not want to write a biography; I have already done many published stories and articles on my parents.  Yet, I was compelled to write something about the Creoles and one day, after ten years of procrastination, all the stories I had been told over the years, all the summer visits, all the food and the joy, and the deceptions came together with imagination and boom, it was all just there, fully formed, the words hitting the pages like magic.   

But the book is not just about the Creoles. Far from it. There are many human and structural characters woven into the novel. In addition to the people in the story, I explore aspects of colorism, elitism, gender bias, inequality, sexism, and what I consider other “betrayals” in the world I created inspired by a culture with which I am familiar.  I put it all in.  I let it all out. 

BLG: Which characters and events were hardest to write about? Why? 

SJBB: The hardest was Margot’s heartbreak.  It is a horrifying cruelty born of racial hatred.  It was the scene that took me 10 years to be able to write.  It was extremely difficult and written through a torrent of tears. Once I knew I could write the passage, I knew the rest of the book would just fall out.  And it did. Another difficult character was Marie.  Her torment was inspired by the life of a close relative, who floated on the surface to avoid destruction.   

BLG: How did writing poetry influence your process? 

SJBB: My penchant for the poetic often results in uniquely formed prose in my story writing.  In poetry, I believe that every line is a poem, and my stories are heavily influenced by that. It also means that in my story writing, I do not always adhere to traditional grammatical and phraseology conventions, which can be misunderstood or unaccepted by some and cause “editors” to pull out the red pen and provide “corrections.”  But it is my voice, and I will always be true to it. Because the ultimate gift to me as a writer is reaching those who can “see” my writing.

BLG: I admire your confidence. Has teaching improved your writing? How? 

SJBB: I don’t think teaching has improved my writing, but I do feel strongly that sharing what I have learned with others is a part of the circle of writing.  By that I mean, I am comfortable with the way I express myself with words and I teach to help others feel the same and to share what I know, what I have learned and what I am still discovering. 

BLG: What do you hope readers will take from  Betrayal on the Bayou? 

SJBB: That there are many stories of people, particularly Black people, that some may not know.  That we are complex beings.  That colorism and racism are cruel and not always visible. That just because you don’t know about something, doesn’t mean it did not happen.  That things that went on, pairings that occurred, are not new things, but existed long ago in different and sometimes, the same, settings. That there are some very bad people in this world.  That there are angels. That we must save and nourish the angels among us.

BLG: Was it always your intention to publish the book independently or did you submit to agents first? What advice can you give readers about independent publishing?  

SJBB: When an unplanned opportunity arose to “pitch” the story to a traditional publisher, I took advantage of it, but I knew there was no interest when their eyes glazed over and they said, “Well it sounds like a story worth telling.” Since I had always wanted to publish on my own to protect my “voice,” I took that route, and I am happy that I did.  I feel I told the story I wanted to tell in the ways that I wanted to tell it, without interference or lack of understanding by an outside party. 

My advice for independent publishing is twofold: 

Make sure you carve out adequate time to market your work. People need to see you and your writing in as many venues as you can reach. 

Invest in a good editor. I thought I had, but unfortunately, I had not.  The bad thing is copies got out with mostly punctuation errors.  The good thing is, since my independently published book is print on demand, I was able to get the mistakes corrected and have the book re-posted.  But I also have to say that some of the strongest and best reviews I received were on the early uncorrected copies, proving that for some, even the worst editing job can’t get in the way of a solid story.  Even now, I suspect we did not catch all the errors, but neither did Ernest Hemingway, Walter Mosley, or Sue Grafton, and many other famous, best-selling authors.  I consider myself to be in good company and am happy about the response to my book. 

BLG: What are you working on now and where can people learn more about you?  

SJBB: In a bit of a departure from Betrayal on the Bayou, which is, at times, dystopian, I am in the process of writing a sci-fi novel. The first chapter won an award in the 2021 San Francisco Writers Conference Writing Contest and is published in their 2021 anthology.   

You can read more about me and what I am up to at: www.sheryljbize-boutte.com. Thank you again for this interview opportunity. 

BLG: Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. I agree that your voice comes through loudly and clearly. You’ve done a great job of sharing a part of the culture that many people would like to know more about.

Looking for a book that is both historical and timely? Looking for a fast-moving story that will grab and hold you? Get a copy of Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte’s Betrayal on the Bayou.

In Memory of Beatrice Bowles (1943-2021)

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Written by Gini Grossenbacher

With great sadness, we announce the passing of our luminous WNBA-San Francisco Chapter member, Beatrice Bowles, who died October 19, 2021. Though born of two influential San Francisco families, the Crowleys and the Bowles, she veered away from her high society roots in the 1970s to fulfill her literary dream. She characterized herself as “a storyteller, writer, and recording artist of wonder tales that connect children to nature’s deep joys and eternal wisdom.” 

Her love of the natural world encompassed the mythical and cultural underpinnings that connect all living things. Her readers and listeners encounter adventurous youngsters, bullies, and magical spiders in her Spider Grandmother’s Web of Wonders. The stories tantalize young listeners with questions about the origins of life on earth and our reasons for being. 

Her legacy continues in her book entitled Spider Secrets: Stories of Spiders that connect creatures and their cultures. Not only do her books and audios spark children’s imaginations, but they also connect listeners to the natural world we often neglect. Not satisfied to leave us only young children’s books, she was working on the YA novel, A Ring of Riddles, described as “vivid . . . pulsing with imagination . . . a mythical coming-of-age adventure.”  

On her website, she tells us of the earliest memories which sparked her sense of wonder. In addition to stories involving the natural world, she claimed to love stories featuring “goodness triumphing over evil and of kindness defeating greed,” which in her words, “gave me courage, hope, and faith in justice.”

Her children inspired her to practice the art of storytelling, and she cites the Spider Grandmother, the Hopi godmother of storytelling, as the inspiration behind her live performances, audio and print storybooks. She discovered a new kind of storytelling called the Adventures of The Garden Children involving the placement of toys and found objects in the garden, then weaving a story around each scene. 

She produced several audio storybooks that feature traditional cultural tales, including Heaven’s a Garden in the Heart and Cloudspinner and The Hungry Serpent for which Sara Buchanan MacLean wrote the original music. Beatrice’s three wishes for her listeners were fostering emotional connections, opening our hearts to nature, and making imaginative connections. She encouraged her audiences to activate their visual abilities, inhabit wonder tales, and find similarities among various cultures’ stories. She recorded five audio storybooks/CDs of world wonder tales with original musical settings and was a Voting Member of the Grammy’s Recording Academy.

Audiences appreciated Beatrice’s weaving of the garden theme throughout her work. She often referred to the family property on Russian Hill that she renamed “Harmony Hill.” She said, “I grew up in this magical garden, hated to leave at age nine, and missed the place ever after. What a joy to come home again, buy the house from my uncle for a song, and raise my two children here beneath a mighty cork oak that my grandmother had planted in her garden just uphill.

“After a party-loving bachelor-renter had let the garden go wild for thirty years, I faced three years of ripping out ivy! Then I began to learn from experts and to plant fragrant woodland perennials and ornamental trees. When the grand dame of English gardening, Rosemary Verey, came to visit, she asked me to write about growing up here. My essay, ‘A Child’s Inheritance,’ is the first chapter in her book, Secret Gardens (Ebury Press, London, 1992).

“When garden writer Joan Hockaday, my neighbor and friend, brought Frank Cabot, founder of The Garden Conservancy, to visit, his word for this garden was ‘luminous.’ On the spot, he enchanted me into joining the Garden Conservancy, and I now sit on its West Coast Council.

Joan featured my garden for March in her book, The Gardens of San Francisco. The garden inspires me every day.” 

Beatrice Bowles performed at Filoli, San Francisco Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Marin Art & Garden Center, and countless schools. She spoke at conferences on the arts from Washington, D.C., to Sintra, Portugal. 

Fellow storyteller and WNBA-SF friend, Kate Farrell, attended Beatrice Bowles’ Memorial, November 23, 2021, at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park with hundreds in attendance. Farrell reports, “The champagne and tea reception was lavish with all the trappings of a British high tea, a tiered service of tea cakes and savory sandwiches. One of the large serving tables featured Bea’s latest book, Spider Grandmother’s Web of Wonders, fancifully decorated by a family member with table centerpiece decor inspired by the book, a blend of floral photographs, myths, and folktales.” 

 

 

WNBA readers are encouraged to visit her vibrant website, which captures the spirit of Beatrice Bowles. We mourn her loss yet are grateful for her legacy.

https://www.beatricebowles.com/

 

Featured Member Interview—Concha Delgado Gaitan

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Scholarly Writing to General Nonfiction:
Author Drawn to Power of Community

Interview of Concha Delgado Gaitan, Ph. D. by Nita Sweeney

Nita Sweeney (NS): Before we dive into questions specific to writing, tell our members, with the world beginning to open but many still being cautious, how have you been taking care of yourself?

Concha Delgado Gaitan (CDG): From the beginning of the pandemic, I felt the need to stay as healthy as possible to work with my publisher and complete the last phase of publishing my 10th book. I couldn’t visit friends, museums, theaters, bookstores, or music venues. Protecting my physical as well as my mind and spirit became part of my daily routine.

Following a morning meditation, I did Yoga or QiGong. A healthy breakfast held me till early afternoon.  Walking the hills around our house gave me stamina.  I wore out two pairs of shoes during that period. Although we missed going out to eat at our favorite restaurants, cooking dinner every evening became a playful and creative discipline that both my husband and I looked forward to enjoying. When restaurants opened for take-out, we supported them frequently.

Additionally, the two most important ways that helped me keep my focus during this past year included daily talking or texting with a family member and friend.  And I also played more than ever before with my four cats. They create amusing distractions effortlessly. Their playfulness felt especially healing during part of my 2020 year as I recovered from (non-covid related) pneumonia.

NS: You’ve been a university professor in Anthropology & Education for much of your career. How does that interplay with your writing?

CDG: At Stanford University, I studied Anthropology and Education, emphasizing ethnographic research of culturally diverse communities in the US. My research expertise earned me invitations to research Latino, Hmong, Native Alaskan Athabaskan, Russian Refugee, and Laotian communities as a Professor at the University of California, Davis. Through face-to-face interaction, observations, and interviews, I understood the people’s lives and language and wrote books that represented their stories of empowerment in these underrepresented communities.

In an academic style, I began shaping my underlying premise, highlighting the importance of social justice in our educational system, our public policies, and the resources of the communities that I studied. I wrote over 70 scholarly essays. My first book, Literacy for Empowerment, described a community I researched. The book received great reviews and became very popular within the Anthropology and Education field. It was the first such story written about the importance and uses of literacy in a Latino community. 

My need for writing the book was to have a book for one of my research seminars. Although it was an academic book, it read like a story of a community finding its voice, which students and colleagues applauded. It seemed that I had found a voice. Other books followed as among some of the scholarly books I wrote during this period included, Protean Literacy, The Power of Community, and Crossing Cultural Borders. These books became the stories that led me to write stories applicable lessons for practicing educators.

After conducting ethnographic research in numerous communities, I felt it was essential to take the academic stories to a practical level. These different books reached a broader educational audience that works directly with students, families, and communities. Those titles include Involving Latino Parents in the Schools and Building Culturally Responsive Classrooms and Creating a College Culture for Latino Students. I felt that it was especially important to write the book about getting students to college when I learned that only 16% of Latino students who enter a 4-year college complete and graduate.

NS: What led you to the writing life?

CDG: I was a reader from the early years. Reading was something my mother always insisted on—that we have a book in hand. The only writing I did during those years was in English classes.

Teaching has been my mission throughout my life. After teaching elementary school, I became a school principal at the age of 26. I was the first woman principal in an Eastside San Jose school district. I was always interested in books throughout those years, and my writing effort consisted of daily journals and notebooks filled with my thoughts, disappointments, and successes. I wrote short magazine-length critiques and commentaries about children’s literature for culturally diverse students and the shortage of books that depicted these cultures in authentic ways.

My studies at Stanford pushed me into formal writing that professors evaluated. Reading opened many doors for me in my life. I’ve believed that writing about topics that inspired me would also reach those interested in the same issues. I treasure that connection with people—many of whom I know and even more that I meet through my writing.

NS: Tell us about your work in social justice and any role that played in your writing.

CDG: Social justice themes thread through many of my writings.  Discrimination has silenced the voices of many communities of color.  Through the people’s lives that I observed, I recognize my responsibility to make their stories known. 

When I wrote books about a community, I discussed it with them in a language they understood. It was part of my relationship with the communities I studied. They trusted me to write about them because they had a voice in the story about them.

In my books, I tell people’s stories of building community despite the discrimination and economic challenges.  Their stories depict the inequalities that people experience in culturally diverse communities.  I describe how people find justice by organizing themselves to change their living conditions and empower themselves. They break barriers and participate fully in the educational, social, and political institutions where they reside.  Parents work to ensure that their children obtain greater access to resources to improve their lives.

NS: You suffered a health crisis and subsequently wrote a memoir. Would you like to share something about that with us? What helped you with that writing process?

CDG: After years as a senior professor at the University of California Davis, my health took an unexpected downward turn. What I knew as my active life of being a professor and enjoying daily hour-long walks, belly dancing, salsa, and traveling around the country and overseas to lecture to work with my Anthropology and Education colleagues came to a screeching halt for a short time. One night I was awakened by severe full-body pain and high fever, the likes of which I’d never experienced. Initially, emergency rooms diagnosed me with flu-like symptoms and sent me home to rest. I spent weeks with my body weakening more each day. It would take weeks of additional visits to the specialist to diagnose me with Systemic Lupus.

Throughout the ten years that followed I continued my professorship while keeping copious notes that filled books of my health story as it unfolded. After I became stronger, I needed to change my profession and my life in general. In rethinking my career, I committed to putting my health first. I left the University and began my independent subcontract business doing community consulting, research, and writing, which I managed from my home office. Another commitment I made to myself was to end my relationship—not only with the man I was with but also with every other workaholic man that encouraged my workaholic pace.

As my new healthier life took shape, I wrote my memoir Prickly Cactus. The book took a few years to leave my desk because it was the first time writing such a personal account of my life. It was therapeutic since my life was unfolding as I wrote about the transformation that were occurring. Writing a memoir pushed me to write quite differently than my past professional books. One way I thought I could break some of my pattern of writing was to take fiction writing classes to stretch me out of my familiar writing format. In the process, I became good friends with my writing teacher. Since then, she has been a great coach; she influenced my style as I competed Prickly Cactus.  Writing my memoir taught me how to write to a general audience about a personal matter–my health.

By the time I completed Prickly Cactus, I had decided to try marriage for the second time. I married my dear partner, Dudley whom I met before I began writing Prickly Cactus. 

NS: You are a prolific writer. Can you share some tips with the WNBA-SF members as to how you produce such a large number and variety of works?

CDG: My enthusiasm for writing satisfies my appetite for learning about the topics that I write.  I also learn new techniques. My love for the people and their stories of resilience has been my joy and driving force in writing.

Where my work routine is concerned, I’m very disciplined.  However, in recent years, I find myself writing in spurts according to my inspiration rather than in defined blocks of time. It’s been productive and more satisfying at this point. I suppose it’s a form of discipline.

NS: Are you ever surprised in the writing process?  If so, how and when?

CDG: My surprises became major lessons. I’ll mention a couple of them. Moving from academic to professional books for practicing educators required me to write in a language that was accessible to educators without using the academic jargon commonly found in scholarly books.

Another new twist occurred when I wrote, Prickly Cactus called for still a different style of language used to tell a story. I wanted to describe my experience so that my younger family members would be able to read without oversimplifying the story. I fought the impulse to cite every date and new concept. And writing about my life included family members. I wanted to make sure that they felt comfortable with their names in the book. I maintained my writer’s integrity and ensured that I would not slight my story while remaining on speaking terms with family members.

NS: Is there something you wish you had been told or not told, earlier about writing?

CDG: Well into my doctoral studies, a professor at Stanford told me that I shouldn’t continue my doctoral studies because I didn’t know how to write and that I would never learn how to write academically well enough to earn a degree.  Her comments rattled me because I took it personally; I lost time and self-confidence, which took time to heal. I could have used that time more productively to work on my studies. After talking with a few professors whose teaching, I respected, I felt ready to continue my Stanford studies.

One-and-a-half years later, I graduated with a Ph.D., and I had published two scholarly articles. I am grateful that I did not devalue my work or stop writing because it was only the beginning of my rich and meaningful storytelling career in four different writing categories: academic for researchers, a memoir on health and healing, educational books for practicing educators, and aging for a general audience.

NS: In a conversation we had before this interview, we discussed aging. How has that impacted your writing?

CDG: Generally, I feel that age does not define who I am or what I do. I don’t typically relate to people according to age. I feel comfortable in intergenerational groups. This might be because we have a large family representing three age levels. We’re a close family and relate to each other comfortably across age groups. However, more recent years, I have become more aware of being a senior baby boomer as my closest friends and colleagues talk about being at this stage of our lives. The prominent issues on people’s minds include discussions on health, work, traveling, caring for parents, and losing spouses. Our conversations piqued my interest enough to research and write my recent book, Wings of a Firebird—The Power of Relationships in our Later Years. I feel strongly that aging in this society needs to be discussed and written from as many perspectives as can lead us to more humanistic policies for this age group.

NS: What is next for you, writing-wise?

CDG: My book Wings of a Firebird gives us a window into the diversity of experiences of aging in our country and the need for policies and resources to support the largest growing demographic. The storytellers in my book spoke of their meaningful relationships. However, there was one type of relationship that did not appear in this book, which I feel merits attention as it plays out in the lives of older adults. The Pandemic exposed more areas for us to explore about seniors in our society. I’m vague about the specifics of my next topic because I read a great deal and interview many people to shape and clarify my topic. I’ve begun doing that type of research to see what story unfolds. Stay tuned. 

Concha Delgado Gaitan has written extensively in the field of Anthropology and Education. Her works emphasize social justice issues of unrepresented communities. The National American Anthropological Association/Council of Anthropology named the presidential Fellowship in her honor. She also received the Anthropology and Education Award from that organization for her lifetime contribution to the field. In her capacity as a professor and researcher, she has worked with communities including Latino, Russian Refugees, Alaskans Native students, Hmong, and transnational populations in Mexico and Spain, where she has also lectured on her books.

Delgado Gaitan’s wealth of experience as an elementary teacher, school principal, and university professor enriches her family-community-school research.

Her book Involving Latino Families in the Schools was a best seller in Corwin Press, and Prickly Cactus was a best seller in the category of “Women’s Health” when it was released by Cypress House Press on Amazon.

Other titles of Delgado Gaitan’s books include Literacy for Empowerment; Crossing Cultural Borders; The Power of Community; Protean Literacy; Crossing Cultural Borders; and School and Society; Building A College Culture for Latino Students.

Her recent book is Wings of a Firebird; the Power of Relationships in our Later Years. It marks the beginning of a new direction in her writing, a focus on issues of older adults in our society.

For more information, visit her website. 

Interview by Nita Sweeney, author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink and co-creator of You Should Be Writing: A Journal of Inspiration & Instruction to Keep Your Pen Moving

Featured Member Interview – Gail Newman

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Poet’s latest book captures stories of the Holocaust, is a tribute to the living and the dead.

by Nita Sweeney, author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink and co-creator of You Should Be Writing: A Journal of Inspiration & Instruction to Keep Your Pen Moving

Nita Sweeney (NS): Before we dive into questions specific to writing, tell our members, with the world beginning to open ever-so-slightly, but still somewhat suspended, how are you taking care of yourself?

(GN): I divide my time between San Francisco and Sebastopol, and now that it’s spring I’m mostly in Sebastopol—gardening, cooking, reading, writing. The garden is blooming, the flowers raising their heads, opening buds, beaming with self-adoration. I’m with my husband, and our son is with us, so I am not alone. I don’t need a multitude, and solitude has always been my companion, but it feels wonderful to get together with friends again, unmasked, with some sense of renewed freedom.

NS: What led you to the writing life?

Gail Newman (GN): Before I was a writer, I was a reader. When I was a child, my mother often took me to the library. My ambition was to read through the shelves alphabetically. I found the world—adventure, friendship, travel, excitement—between the pages. I wanted to be a writer like Jo in Little Women, eating apples up in the attic with ink stained fingers. My grandfather was a journalist and although I never knew him, I like to think that writing is in my blood.

NS: Have you always preferred to write poetry? If so, what drew you to it and what keeps you there?

GN: I loved poetry, but I didn’t know I could write it until, in my mid 20’s, I joined a women’s workshop suggested by a friend. This was during the height of the women’s movement, a time when feminist presses began to emerge and publish women’s poetry in anthologies and collections. Once I began to write poetry, I felt a depth of perception and form of expression that absorbed me. Robert Frost said, “A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.” I think that is an apt description. 

NS: Your most recent poetry collection, Blood Memory, “traces the path of Holocaust survivors from Poland to America during and after World War II.” What brought you to write about the Holocaust at this time in your life and at this time in history?

GN: These poems have been in me all my life. I tried to write about the Holocaust and my family when I was younger, but I think I needed more experience as a writer and more distance as a child of survivors. 

When my father died, I started writing more poems about him and my mother. I decided then, in a conscious way, to write a book of poems about my parents’ lives. 

The book is a narrative that tells a story based on what my parents told me as well as my own experience and research. I think the book is a tribute to the living and the dead, and my own realization of the importance of memory and heritage. 

I didn’t know that the book would be released at this particular moment in history when antisemitism and racism-against blacks, Asian, Muslims, immigrants-has come again into our public consciousness. 

NS: If there is one key message that you want readers to get from your book, what would it be?

GN: I think of the poem, Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski. People can withstand the most horrific experiences and build meaningful and even joyful lives. We remember the Holocaust to honor the living and the dead. And we remember so that we will be vigilant and compassionate, so that we don’t stand idle when others, of any religion, culture or race, experience bigotry, hatred, or genocide. 

We remember the Holocaust in the hope that it will never happen again in any nation, to any people. We want to remember the past, those who died, our heritage and our people. We want to remember so we can live with compassion. We remember so we will not stand as silent witness to others’ suffering.

NS: You were born in Germany, raised in Los Angeles, and have lived many years in the Bay Area. What impact, if any, do these places have on your work?

GN: Though I don’t remember Germany, or the war, my parents’ lives is part of my inherited memory. The title of my book, Blood Memory, refers to what we carry with us from our parent’s past, from the places we came from and the events that brought us to the present. 

Los Angeles enters my poems in a kind of reverie of childhood and growing up. Moments flicker into my mind in the form of images, snapshots, and evoke feelings that inspire poems.

The Bay Area had a big impact on my work. It was there that I discovered poetry. I was drawn to City Lights [bookstore] in North Beach. I felt the history of the city, writers’ breath in the air and in the streets.

NS: Writers love to hear how other writers work. What is your process? Is it the same from book to book? 

GN: I would say, looking back on my life, that my writing is erratic. I don’t have a set routine. I don’t get up and go to my desk at a specific time. I love to sit by a window, gazing out, drinking coffee, daydreaming. Some nights, when I wake with the lines of a poem in my head, I get up and go to the computer. I don’t have to turn the light on, but type by the Apple’s glow. 

When I write I enter a kind of meditative state, but I think it’s just natural to my writing process and doesn’t come from training or conscious effort. I might go back later to make the details more precise. That is the editor stepping in to perfect the craft. I see images in my mind. Some are memories, some imagination. I remember once bemoaning to another writer about my poor memory and she said, “You’re a poet. Make it up.” That gave me a lot of freedom.

NS: Are you ever surprised in the writing process? If so, how and when?

GN: Writing poetry is a process of discovery, so I’m always surprised. I love poems with a turn, when a thought or images pivots into unknown territory or makes a surprising connection. It’s like walking around a corner in an unfamiliar neighborhood. 

NS: Tell us about the publishing journey of Blood Memory. 

GN: I entered a number of contests, about twenty, sponsored by small press poetry book publishers. Then I began to wait. I expected to wait a long time. I expected rejections. I thought I would continue to submit the following year. One morning I received an email from Marsh Hawk Press asking for a hard copy of my manuscript. Because I was among the finalists, my book would be read by the judge, Marge Piercy. This alone was an honor. I was surprised and thrilled to receive an email a few weeks later saying that I was the first-place winner and that Marge Piercy had chosen my book.

NS: Please share a favorite writing or publishing tip with our WNBA-SF members? Is there one thing you return to again and again, or something you wish you had known or realized much earlier?

GN: Aim high. Try and try again. If your work is rejected, don’t feel rejected. When you submit to publications — journals, magazines, contests — acceptance may be dependent on many factors. Have faith in yourself.

NS: What’s next for you writing-wise?

GN: When I finished Blood Memory, I thought, what will I write about now, without a specific idea? The answer is: everything. Small moments, the most ordinary objects can become the subject of a poem. I’m writing about time, the way it changes, slows down, speeds up, the past coming closer, the present fading away. I may remember a feeling, a sensation, and the memory grows into a poem.

I’m still writing about my parents. So maybe it’s a story that has no end. Some teachers have asked about using the book to teach Holocaust Studies, and since I’m an educator, I could help or become involved in that. I would love to share my book with readers in other countries, especially Eastern Europe, and to use it as a message of hope, resilience, and resistance.

Gail Newman was born after WW II in a displaced persons camp in Lansberg, Germany. The daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, she was raised in a community of Jewish immigrants in Los Angeles where her mother, who recently celebrated her 100th birthday, still lives. 

Gail has worked as an educator at the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum, and as a poet-teacher for California Poets in the Schools. Co-founder and editor of Room, a Women’s Literary Journal, Gail also edited Inside Out, a book of poetry lessons for teachers, and two collections of children’s poems, C is for California and Dear Earth. 

Her poems have appeared in journals including Canary, Prairie Schooner, Calyx, Nimrod International, The Bellingham Review, and in anthologies including Ghosts of the Holocaust, The Doll Collection, and Fog and Light. A book of poetry, One World, was published by Moon Tide Press. 

Blood Memory, chosen by Marge Piercy for the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize was published in 2020. Piercy writes: 

Writing about the Holocaust can be difficult now, not that it was ever easy….those who know, who went through it, are dying off. Those who deny what happened multiply. To make fresh powerful poems rooted in Shoah is amazing.

www.gailnewmanpoet.com

 For signed copies of Blood Memory, please contact Gail through her website.

Facebook: Gail Newman

 

Featured Member Interview – Carole Bumpus

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Curiosity and love of people, travel, and food spurs retired family therapist to pen books about European food and culture.

by Nita Sweeney, author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink and co-creator of You Should Be Writing: A Journal of Inspiration & Instruction to Keep Your Pen Moving

Nita Sweeney (NS): Let’s start with a question tangential to writing. How are you taking care of yourself during these “interesting” times?

Carole Bumpus (CB): When the pandemic arrived on our doorsteps, I was completing Book Two of my Savoring the Olde Ways series for publication (August 2020). The book was called Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table. On the 13th of March 2020—exactly when the shutdown came upon all of us—I was about to panic. I desperately needed to test the French recipes (can be found at the back of the book) and was now housebound without all the necessary ingredients. I decided to enlist help from readers of my monthly newsletter. Everyone, like me, was home and looking for something productive to do. The response was celebratory! Yes, they said. We’ll help! Some had access to more ingredients than others; some had plenty of ingredients on hand. And then the merriment began. It was such a fun endeavor as I received help from all over the U.S. plus England and France. All of the fellow ‘testers,’ eighty-three in all, submitted their comments about the recipes, along with photos, and those who completed the project were listed in the Acknowledgement section of my book. It became a gratitude gathering time for me, as we were all in this pandemic together, but we were feeling so creative. 

Even before that book came out, the third book in my series, A September to Remember: Searching for Culinary Pleasures at the Italian Table was pushing into my purview. Fortunately, I was able to enlist many of the same recipe testers to ‘belly up to the stove’ once more but this time for Italian recipes. It turned out to once again be great fun—a lot of extra work—but it was a delightful way to stay connected with all these friends and to make some critical changes to the recipes I am putting forth. This book is due out April 27, 2021.

NS: After you retired, you traveled to Italy and France. Many people travel to Italy and France. They tour, eat, and go home. What made you want to write about it as well?

CB: After years of working as a family therapist, I retired but still carried with me my love and curiosity about families. What is the glue that keeps them together? Once I realized that European families gather most often around the dinner table, I began to ask questions about their favorite foods. “What favorite foods bring your people to the table?” I asked. “What were your favorite foods as a child? Your best-loved traditions? Your most-beloved family stories?” My interest exploded with the generous and thoughtful responses. Of course, everyone has a favorite recipe they want to share, so off we would head to the kitchen to check it out. So, what was not to love? It became a love affair of the heart—and stomach. A glass of homemade wine, a plate of pasta or steamed clams and mussels, and I was in heaven. But that was when the tales began to flow—along with more wine, of course—and plenty of laughter. Narratives of times past, wars fought and lost, hardship but love and tenacity that saw them through—all were woven into the stories surrounding the struggle to protect the familial bond. 

This actually led me to write an historical novel based on the life of an elderly French woman, Marcelle Zabé, who was born on the last day of WWI and died shortly after our devastating 9-11. But her life as a single young mother of eighteen living in Paris during WWII was a story I heard and was compelled to tell. In order to research her background, I began to travel with her daughter, Josiane, throughout France (and twice along with her as translator to travel with WWII Army Veterans to gather history). This additional travel led to the Savoring the Olde Ways series in Books One and Two, Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table. 

The third book in the series, A September to Remember: Searching for Culinary Pleasures at the Italian Table, which came out April 27, 2021, came about because of my initial trip to Italy with my husband and actually took place a year before the French trips but was my initial incentive to peek inside the geopolitical aspects of ‘family’.  

 


NS: You began by writing a novel. How did the idea for the companion cookbooks arise?

As I mentioned above, when I did my research for the novel, I was investigating several things as I traveled throughout the regions of France. We were secretly investigating the mysterious life of Marcelle as well as capturing the stories of friends and family members of Marcelle along with their favorite recipes and traditions. With open arms they swept me into their lives and opened their homes and kitchens to all my questions. Traveling from one region to another also gave me the richness and variety of cultures and history found throughout France which led me to begin to dig deeper into the more traditional foods or ‘peasant foods’ which were more prevalent. Cuisine pauvre in French or cucina povera in Italian speaks deeply to the culture found in the hearts and souls of both countries.

NS: About you, one reviewer stated, “For Bumpus, appreciating food requires a strong sense of people and place; in fact, she regards food and culture as inseparable.” Please tell us more.

To understand who the French or the Italians are as a people is not to glibly prance through the country, eat at the Michelin-starred restaurants or laze along the touristed beaches. It is to communicate with the locals in the best way that you can. (It helps to travel with a companion translator.) You will find that each region—no, each village or town—has a specific way of preparing food and going through life; it becomes part of who they are. Their identity. This is not a small thing; it speaks to their culture, their history, their geography, their land (or sea) for gathering food. It is who they are. As was described to me in Italy by my dear friend, Lisa, in my upcoming book:

“This concept doesn’t come from what we consider as being poor or frugal, uncomfortable, undesirable, or from an inconvenient situation that people have fallen into, due to their ineptness. No, this is the idea of living in a world where gods are everywhere—where your interdependence is on the wellbeing of all of these forces, because for some reason the Mediterranean has this sense of interconnectedness.”  

Now, doesn’t that very explanation make you want to know more? Me too! It drove me to write five books so far. And, it has been lovely.

NS: What’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten?

This is a difficult question as I am definitely an aficionado of all types of foods, but what first leaps to mind is a most exquisite lemon pasta my husband and I were served in Umbria. Gubbio, I think. Having spent the morning in search of middle-Renaissance artists in an ancient cathedral, we stumbled off the street into a little trattoria well after 1 p.m. hoping for a bit of lunch. Italians don’t just ‘do’ lunch; they grace your existence with the most flavorful extensions of their simplest ingredients. In this case, the grandfather of the family stood up from his own table and went into the kitchen. Twenty minutes later he came out with a small portion of freshly made, lemon-infused pasta, piping hot and gracing a bowl. We had hoped for two portions, but he had made only one, so he immediately returned to the kitchen to prepare more. I swoon at the memory of those light, yet delectable piquant flavors which caressed each strand of linguine before us. Oh, I have attempted to create this dish many times since, but I never meet muster to that memory. In fact, I don’t even recall what our next course even was. We were in ecstasy! 

Another decadent lunch my husband and I enjoyed was when we were staying a week in Ménerbes, in Provençe, the south of France. After walking up the steep, winding road—too narrow for most cars—to the top of this medieval village, we found in an ancient castle the Maison de la Truffe et du Vin du Luberon which translates to the House of Truffles and Wine. Now, how can you possibly go wrong with delicate pillows of ricotta and spinach-filled tortellini topped with the musky flavors of summer truffles? And served with a cooling glass of Provençal rosé on a hot summer’s day, why it couldn’t get any better. Mais, oui!

 NS: Does your former career as a family therapist inform your writing in any way?

I believe it was my interest and love of people, along with a fervent curiosity to know more about their stories, that led me to interview them in a way which was not all so dissimilar from my approach with clients in my family practice.

NS: We love learning about each writer’s process. Aside from the obvious (recipes) how did writing a novel differ from the cookbook writing?

The novel, A Cup of Redemption, came out of my curiosity and interest surrounding the war-torn life of Marcelle Zabé. She and her daughter originally came into my home to teach me how to cook in a ‘French’ fashion. I was interviewing both of them about their favorite French foods, as we were sitting at my kitchen table here in California drinking coffee and eating a lemon tart I had prepared. (I was trying to impress them.) 

The stories began to flow about Marcelle’s childhood favorite foods, about the difficulty of having enough food during the war years and following, and of the traditional specialties of each region. We decided to take a trip together, all three of us, to discover more of these specialties throughout France when Marcelle suddenly died at eighty-three. So, in the novel, when I wrote about Marcelle’s life, I included all the places she lived or had visited across France. As I was writing about each place, I mentioned what we were eating. And the timeframe of that period. War time = war time rations. Lean times = stretching a few slices of bread spread with bacon grease and a slice of onion. Crêpes? A staple due to its economical ingredients – eggs, flour, and milk.

Six weeks after my novel came out, a friend of mine asked, “So, where are the recipes?” Within nine months, in the time it takes to birth a baby, my companion cookbook rolled out. It was called, Recipes for Redemption: A Companion Cookbook to A Cup of Redemption. It had never dawned on me before writing the novel that I would be writing recipes, but as I had been traveling around the country collecting these stories and recipes, it seemed an easy and happy coincidence. But little did I realize how difficult it would be to not only translate the recipes but change them from metric to our standard measurements and oven temperatures. Oh, my!

Also, I needed to come up with substitutions for ingredients that we, in the U.S. do not readily have available. But then I realized the beauty of the cuisine pauvre, the ‘poor kitchen.’ Traditional recipes come from the people and the land: they are simple, available according to the season and location, economical, and if you don’t have something on hand, make it up or change the recipe! 

NS: Has anything about the writing process surprised you? If so, what, and how?  

I started out by writing the novel, even though I had already completed over seventy-five interviews in both France and Italy. I had grown to love dear Marcelle and wanted her story and her memory to reach into the world. It took me twelve years of research. When I pulled all my notes together, I thought it would be one long book. I took my notes, interviews, and recipes and began to write. A writing teacher told me to write until I was finished. I wrote 950 pages. When I went to an editor or two with my tome, they each looked at me and said, ‘This is not one book, but maybe three or four.’ They were correct. So, I began again by using the principle of ‘How to carve an elephant.’  You simply remove what is not the elephant. In this case I removed all the stories that were not strictly about Marcelle and set them aside. After my novel was published, those ‘set-asides’ became the fodder for my next three French books. The Italian book, which should have been the first one of my Savoring the Olde Series, became my fifth book to write. Marcelle was the surprise who kicked off my writing career.


NS: What writing or publishing tips do you have for our WNBA-SF members? Is there one thing you wish someone had told you before you began?

I’m afraid if anyone had told me how difficult it could be to write a book and get published, I might have given up before starting. But ignorance is bliss, and it sent me off in so many lovely directions—researching, traveling more, taking writing classes of all kinds, learning the art and importance of a good editor, and being aware that writing and completing a book is only the beginning. 

The process of marketing and publicity which follows is essential and expensive, but if your goal is to get your best work out in the world, it takes time, money, and perseverance. Am I writing books to make money? It would be a bonus, but that’s no longer my goal. And, who knew I would be giving readings in a cooking school or have my recipes offered in a French bistro? Who knew I would be asked to give talks on World War II about France and speak to U.S. veterans groups, as well as women’s groups on writing and the art of the novel? Who knew I would be asked to be on a panel of travel writers at SFWC 2020? Who knew I would be asked to read an excerpt from my book at the WNBA-SF in cooperation with LitQuake at Book Passage in San Francisco in 2019 before the pandemic? It could happen and it did.

NS: What’s next for you? A new writing project? More travel?

I was considering taking a little time off, since I launched three books in eighteen months. But I just received a review from someone indicating he couldn’t wait until my next book. What? Already? Be still my heart. I still have many more stories to share.


NS: Is there anything else you would like to add or wish I had asked?

Thank you for the opportunity to share my writing path, and for these questions. This was quite fun, and I enjoyed walking back in time and considering the paths I’ve chosen. Thanks again.

A retired family therapist, Carole Bumpus commenced writing about food and travel after she first began traveling through Italy and France. Having been introduced to the pleasures of the palate by spending time with local families in their homes, she also was introduced to their familial stories of love and war. She completed more than seventy-five interviews of families to date for her food and travel blogs. She published an historical novel, A Cup of Redemption, in 2014, followed by her unique companion cookbook, Recipes for Redemption: A Companion Cookbook to A Cup of Redemption, in August 2015. Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table, Books One and Two in her multi-award-winning Savoring the Olde Ways series covered the first half of Carole’s culinary adventure in France. The third book in the series is A September to Remember: Searching for Culinary Pleasures at the Italian Table, due out in April 2021. The publisher for all five volumes is She Writes Press.

Selected praise for the Savoring the Olde Ways series includes a rave from Kirkus, which said, “delights at every turn…”; Foreword Reviews, which added, “[Her] exploration as an American abroad will draw in those who hunger for travel as much as they hunger for flavor. For Bumpus, appreciating food requires a strong sense of people and place; in fact, she regards food and culture as inseparable”; and French Book Worm, on Good Life France.com, which chimed in with “Mouth-wateringly delicious, evocative, and utterly charming.”

Featured Member Interview – Lisa Braver Moss

By

Author with Strong “Malarkey Detector” Drawn to Difficult Subjects

by Nita Sweeney, author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink and co-creator of You Should Be Writing: A Journal of Inspiration & Instruction to Keep Your Pen Moving

Nita Sweeney (NS): Before we talk more specifically about writing, how have you been taking care of yourself during this wild and unpredictable time?

Lisa Braver Moss (LBM): Like many writers, I’m an introvert, so alone time doesn’t usually get to me. Also, my husband and I are quite companionable, and we walk for an hour every morning with our little poodle, Gooby. Starting out the day that way really helps. I feel very fortunate to have a nice home and plenty of yummy food and comfy clothes to wear—plus our (grown) kids live close by. More than that, I have fascinating creative projects to dig into, so I’m not in the painful position of pondering how to give my life meaning. All in all, I have little to complain about!NS: What brought you to writing?

LBM: It began as a practical matter. I was in my thirties, and I had something I very much wanted to express. I’d been an English major, and then a technical writer in the computer field, but I had to teach myself how to “listen” to my essay writing for tone, and how to communicate the material, which was controversial, in an effective way. It was a lot of trial and error. At first, I didn’t identify as a writer; I thought of myself as an activist trying to use language as well as possible to get my point across.

NS: Your many books (fiction and nonfiction) cover a wide range of topics. Is there a common theme or thread?

LBM: My first two books were both assignments from the publisher, so I didn’t have as much leeway for my own creativity as I’ve had with my more recent books. My very first book, Celebrating Family: Our Lifelong Bonds with Parents and Siblings, emphasized the deep positive connections that many of us feel for family throughout our lives. In contrast, Shrug, my 2019 autobiographical novel, centers on the dysfunctional aspects of family life: domestic violence and psychological warfare. I think the two contrasting themes, happy bonds and unhappy ones, can coexist. Actually, Celebrating Family touches on family dysfunction in places, while Shrug does celebrate the family bond in spite of its painful content.

NS: You’ve also written extensively about the Jewish circumcision tradition.

LBM: Yes—in particular, why I find it problematic. It may seem like a strange subject, but to me, the issue remains a fascinating convergence of history, ethics, medicine, and sexuality. I wrote my first novel, The Measure of His Grief, about Jewish circumcision (to my knowledge, the first novel ever written about that topic). I also co-authored a book of ceremonies for non-circumcising families, Celebrating Brit Shalom, and have written many articles questioning this ancient tradition.

NS: Why take on such a tough topic?

LBM: I guess I like working on subjects that are difficult to write about and that I don’t see covered in the way I think they should be. Also, I have a very strong—let me put this politely—malarkey detector, and I don’t like being expected to feel a certain way. One is supposed to feel spiritually moved by the circumcision tradition. I didn’t, and I wanted to express that—but in a way that showed my deep love for Judaism.

NS: You also took on a tough topic in your coming-of-age novel Shrug. 

LBM: Yes, there’s a similarity with Shrug in that again, domestic violence is a difficult topic to write about and doesn’t usually get discussed from the point of view of a child immersed in it. Having myself grown up with it, again, I don’t like being expected to have a certain set of feelings. I wanted to tell the story in a way that was emotionally authentic.

NS: What challenges did you face writing such a personal story?

LBM: Lots! The manuscript sat in a drawer, off and on, for over twenty years. I kept taking stabs at it, but somehow, I couldn’t get it right. I would pull it out, instantly see what was wrong with it, fix it, send it out to beta readers, spend weeks or months incorporating their feedback, send it out to agents, get rejected, and put it back in the drawer. This happened so many times that I wrote all my other books in between! So even though Shrug is my fifth book, in a way, it’s also my first book.

Probably the biggest challenge for me with Shrug, and this occurred to me rather embarrassingly late in the process, was to develop compassion for the main character, Martha. Duh! you might say. But it’s difficult to have self-compassion when you grow up as I did, and this definitely hampered me in developing Martha’s character. I was just too close to her. I had to detach in order to make her more lovable and thereby have the reader root for her. In this process, I was also healing myself.

NS: It sounds very liberating.

LBM: Definitely! But what really thrills me is that, based on the feedback I’ve gotten, the book “works” independent of my personal healing. For this reason, the awards that Shrug has won feel especially gratifying.

NS: Yes, please tell the WNBA-SF members about contests or other ways of winning awards. How did you find these opportunities and how have these awards helped your writing career?

LBM: I don’t know yet whether the awards for Shrug have helped my career, but they certainly can’t hurt, even if just mentioned in a cover letter. One literary agent saw on Facebook that I’d won the gold in the IPPYs for YA fiction, and commented “Send me your next book!”

I found out about various contests from my publisher, Brooke Warner of She Writes Press. Shrug wound up winning gold or silver, or being a finalist in, nine contests. I competed in general fiction, Young Adult fiction, regional fiction (west), and historical fiction. Shrug fits all of these, so I cast my net wide.

NS: You were born in Berkeley and now live nearby. Is there anything about the Bay Area or Berkeley in particular that informs your work?

LBM: I think so. Berkeleyans have the reputation of being iconoclasts, free thinkers, with good malarkey detectors. I feel grateful to have grown up with this as the backdrop, and I think my childhood place and time informs everything I write. Maybe it does with all writers.

NS: How do you approach writing? Is there a difference in how you work when writing a novel versus nonfiction or essays? We love to hear about a writer’s process.

LBM: I always start where it’s easy, knowing I can cut and paste later. It might be a snippet of dialogue or a particular image that needs description. In terms of subject matter, there’s what I call the blood pressure test. That is, I generally gravitate toward topics that get me stirred up or angry in some way. I might be reading something and find myself exclaiming in exasperation, “Why doesn’t anyone ever mention x?”—before realizing that the proverbial bell tolls for me. This is true for me with both personal essays and my fiction.

NS: Do you have any writing or publishing tips for our WNBA-SF members? Any “must do” things you recommend?

Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I often challenge myself to go deeper. I find it’s the best way to enlighten (myself and others). Can I get more precise in what I’m saying? More honest? Can I find a word here that doesn’t have other associations? Also, I’m pretty relentless with myself with my own malarkey detector. I sniff out sentences that feel not quite authentic, and get in there and fix them.

NS: Do you have anything else on the horizon? What’s next for you?

LBM: I think I have another novel or two in me, but I’m absorbed in another time-consuming project now, so it will wait. My current project is forming a Jewish organization to ensure that non-circumcising families and other circumcision objectors are included and feel welcome in Jewish life. It will take time to build up our team, create our website, and so on, so I’m not pressuring myself about writing at the moment, other than producing a few essays here and there. Just percolating!

Lisa Braver Moss is the author of the novels The Measure of His Grief  (Notim Press, 2010) and Shrug (She Writes Press, 2019), which has won multiple awards in Young Adult fiction, historical fiction, regional fiction, and general fiction. Lisa’s essays have appeared in Parents, American Health, the Huffington Post, Yahoo Business News, Lilith, and many other publications. She recently placed in Story Circle Network’s Susan Wittig Albert LifeWriting Competition for her piece “How I Became a Radical, an Engaged Jew, and a Writer.”
Lisa’s nonfiction book credits include Celebrating Family: Our Lifelong Bonds with Parents and Siblings (Wildcat Canyon Press, 1999) and, as co-author, The Mother’s Companion: A Comforting Guide to the Early Years of Motherhood (Council Oak Books, 2001). She is also the co-author of Celebrating Brit Shalom (Notim Press, 2015), the first-ever book of ceremonies and music for Jewish families seeking alternatives to circumcision.
Born in Berkeley, California, Lisa still lives in the area with her husband, with whom she has two grown sons.

Featured Member Interview – Melissa Kirk

By

Editor “Grows” Food and Authors

by Nita Sweeney, author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink. 

Mental health is close to my heart…

Nita Sweeney (NS):  I must dive right in and ask what drew you to work with psychology and wellness professionals and what keeps you leaning toward people in that field?

Melissa Kirk (MK): It was kind of fate, actually. I had always been interested in mental health. I’d struggled with depression as a kid (still sometimes do) and had always felt drawn to understanding psychology and writing about wellness. I used to write zines and blog posts about my personal experiences with mental health issues.

After college I got a job as an editorial assistant at Jossey-Bass (now Wiley, in San Francisco), but after I made Assistant Editor, there was nowhere for me to go, so I started looking for a new job. I saw an editor position listed at New Harbinger Publications, a self-help and psychology publisher in Oakland, and applied. I was shocked when they asked me for an interview! It was just a lark to even apply.

But I (obviously) got it and it was the perfect job for me for at least a decade: I spent most of my 13 years there reading and researching psychology topics and working with psychology professionals. I learned a lot; I sometimes joke that, considering all the self-help books I’ve read, I should be much saner than I am!

So, when I started my own business, it made sense to make that my niche.

I see so much emotional struggle in the world, and not a lot of effective support for those of us who need to work with our brains every day to stay on an even keel. People who can be honest about themselves, who are self-aware, and who want to keep growing emotionally are my people. I feel safest with them because I know they’re less likely to judge or criticize me for my mistakes (and vice-versa, I hope!) I enjoy working with people in this field; psychology professionals, by and large, really care for others and want to help people create better lives for themselves.

NS: You bring a long history of writing world experience and strong interest in the wellness and psychology field to your clients. What other je ne sais quoi, secret sauce, or distinction have your clients come to love about you?

MK:  My clients seem to really appreciate that I offer constructive criticism with honesty but also kindness, and that I make concrete suggestions for next steps. Because I’ve been in this business for a while, I can usually help a client find a way to pivot if necessary, in order to meet their goals for their project. And because I know how things really work (the good and the bad), I can lead my clients on the path to meeting their goals, but I can also tell them if a goal is unrealistic and what a more realistic path might be. I really strive for honesty, even when it’s challenging to tell someone I’m not sure their book idea is going to work out as they’ve conceptualized it. I’d want someone to be that honest with me. 

NS: Let’s hop back a decade. In 2010, you co-authored a book titled Depression 101: A Practical Guide to Treatments, Self-Help Strategies, and Preventing Relapse. How did that come about and what role has it played, if any, in your professional journey?

MK:  I was working at New Harbinger as an acquisitions and developmental editor, and we had come up with an idea for a series of small introductory books on common mental health diagnoses.  John Preston was one of our most valued authors–he has since passed–and we had the idea of having his name on the book. At the time, or maybe we found out after we pitched the book idea to him, he was struggling with some major health issues, so when the team talked about possibly finding someone to co-write the book (and having John vet it), I signed up. I loved working with John, and I had personal experience with depression, so it was an easy project. The book sold “just OK” (I think I make about $23/year), but it’s definitely helped my credibility. It’s a good book on understanding depression, if I do say so myself!

NS: Switching gears again, tell us about your vegetables. Growing food has found a resurgence. What’s your favorite crop and when did you realize it was something you loved?

MK: I’ve been growing vegetables since I was a kid. My mom always had veggies growing in the yard and at a young age I took to the natural world like a duck to water. I was very shy and didn’t have a ton of friends, so I spent a lot of my childhood alone, and played in our garden a LOT…. building fairy villages in among the plants, paying attention to the plants as they grew, plucking tomatoes and beans from the vine for my lunch. Nurturing plants is just like breathing to me. It’s in my DNA, literally.

I take comfort in the resurgence of kitchen gardens. We should develop the ability to support ourselves, at least somewhat. I think nurturing plants helps us develop empathy for all of life and facing gardening frustrations helps us with problem-solving. I hope this “trend” becomes more than just a trend; gardening is one of my major passions. I would love to work in some kind of plant or gardening aspect, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with writing or editing!

I really love growing tomatoes. I adore them–I love the taste, the smell of the plants, and how they grow. This summer was the worst tomato year I’ve had in a decade. It’s been depressing on top of everything else 2020 has wrought! I’m trying to take it as a message that I need to pay more attention to nurturing my plants.

NS: I’ll hazard a guess that there are parallels between gardening and “cultivating” authors and other business pros. Any you care to share?

MK: Oh, yes, definitely! Also, with friendships. I think once I realized that parallel, I got better at cultivating my relationships, both professionally and personally.

Basically, successful gardening is about paying attention to a lot of factors: soil, water, climate, protecting plants from pests, encouraging beneficial animals and insects, reading the plant in order to understand what it needs. Working with clients, in any capacity, demands the same: you pay attention to multiple factors, and each client has different needs. Clients will only thrive in their work with me if they’re getting what they need. I try to help with that as much as possible. Same with our relationships: we need to pay attention to them and give them what they need in order to thrive.

NS: Has California always been home? Is there anywhere else you would rather live?

MK: I moved to Berkeley when I was 4 and have never lived in any other state for more than a month. My family and friends are here; I have no real desire to leave the state. I do want to leave the Bay Area, though: I’m actively looking for more rural land where I can have more room to grow plants, have more animals, and have the physical space I crave.

In the current climate, I have considered leaving the country, but I honestly can’t think of a place that has more to offer than California. I mean, we can drive 2 hours in any direction and be in a new ecosystem and terrain! I just wish the state didn’t burn down every late summer. I live in a city, so I haven’t been personally threatened by fires, but many friends have.

NS: What about writing or publishing tips to share with our WNBA-SF members? Any “must do” things you recommend?

MK: Generally speaking, for writing:

  • Write to your intended audience, not to yourself, your peers, or colleagues. 
  • For most genres of books: avoid passive voice. This probably in the list of the top 3 things I spend a lot of time fixing in manuscripts.
  • Even in nonfiction, information needs to flow in a way that feels intuitive for the reader and is easy to integrate into their brains. I suspect fiction writers tend to think more about this than nonfiction writers. But it’s always important. 

For publishing, so much depends on how you’re publishing–self-publishing, traditional publishing, or publishing with a hybrid publisher. But in general:

  • Do your research and deeply understand your target audience, the comparative books, how successful authors in comparable genres are marketing themselves, and how your book fits into the niche. 
  • If you want to be successful in any sense, you’ll need to do much of your own marketing. Nobody can talk about and write about their book like the author. If you’re writing a book, take the time to learn basic marketing strategies FAR before the book is due to be published. If you wait until the book is published, it may be too late for many marketing strategies to work. 
  • And remember that marketing is really all about community-building. 
  • If you end up hiring any professional to do work on your book (such as developmental editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, cover designers, and page designers): be ready to pay what those professionals are worth. If you pay $2 for a cover, you’ll get a $2 cover. Many publishing professionals have been doing this work for many, many years and can heighten your book’s quality. I see this conversation often in author communities where people resist paying real money to their editors or cover designers. Some even question why they can’t just do it themselves, and I can tell you: even editors don’t edit their own books. And most author-designed covers (unless the author is a graphic designer) are not good. Don’t think of publishing professionals as afterthoughts; we’re vital collaborators who will help your book’s success. 

NS: Your bio hints about a new book. Would you care to tell us more about that?

MK: Well, let’s just say it’s still mostly just an idea. Even though I’m in publishing and I make my living helping other people get their books published, that doesn’t mean I have the discipline to write a book! I do have most of the intro written.

It’s about relationships, particularly how women can get into patterns of unhealthy relationships and how to get out of that pattern. The book really encourages those who are in that pattern to do some hard soul-searching about their own assumptions and expectations about relationships. It comes from my personal experience with this pattern and with leaving it behind, but as a self-help editor, I’ll obviously include lots of research and possibly even seek a co-author with a professional psychology background.

NS: Do you have anything else on the horizon?

MK: So, so much on the horizon! Professionally I want to do much more video content and also produce some courses and some group coaching opportunities. And I want to write more useful content to offer authors on their various publishing journeys (how to write a book proposal, how to organize a nonfiction book, etc). Funnily enough, with my work with clients, I just never seem to have the time or energy. I’m going to take some time off in October to try to get some of this stuff done.

Personally, I’m looking for rural land in the Sierra foothills where I can expand my gardening and live closer to nature. Typical “city girl goes to the country” stuff. But I feel happier surrounded by trees than surrounded by cars.

NS: And is there anything else you would like to add, anything you wish I had asked?

MK: Your questions have been great!

One thing I see very often in publishing and author communities is that people use the word ‘editor’ without specifying what kind of editor they mean. I’ve seen this in social media postings, job listings, even books about editing. I always point out that there are at least two different kinds of editor, three if you include proofreaders (four if you include video editors, who are becoming more involved in the book industry these days, but I won’t include them in this list).

The types of editors are: 

  • Developmental Editors – They typically take a more birds-eye view of the manuscript and look at the book concept, the organization, whether the writing and elements in the book help the author meet their stated goals, and whether those elements are going to effectively reach the target audience. 
  • Copyeditors – They usually focus on line-level and paragraph-level edits: fixing the writing, correcting grammar and syntax errors, making sure the logic is sound in each sentence, etc. They may also query the author on organizational and thematic questions. 
  • Proofreaders – They focus specifically on fixing errors in the pages, which by then have usually been typeset. Proofreading is usually the last stage before the book goes to the printer (or is uploaded to the e-book service). 

Many editors offer more than one service. I offer developmental editing and copyediting, but not proofreading. I just don’t have the patience. I really value and respect good proofreaders.

I have a goal to educate publishers and authors about the importance of identifying what kind of editing they’re talking about. Probably that’s partly because people typically use the term ‘editing’ to mean copyediting and I always think, “Hey! What about me??”

Melissa Kirk is a developmental editor, writer, book coach, publishing consultant, and agent in the psychology, health, and wellness genre. She works with wellness entrepreneurs who are ready to level up their businesses by creating engaging writing and video about how to live better and healthier lives. She has been working in publishing for 20 years in editorial and acquisitions, including 13 years at New Harbinger Publications where she grew to love the wisdom that comes from studying human psychology. She has been running her own business, Words to Honey Content Services, for 4 years, working with psychology and wellness professionals to get their messages out to the people who need to hear them. In her leisure time, she grows vegetables and is working on a book about her own quantum leap towards mental wellness. Her website is: https://wordstohoney.com/