E-BOOK -- FINDING EMMAUS

My publisher and I are now in talks about converting Finding Emmaus to an e-book, for the following: Amazon/Kindle, Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble Nook, Google Editions, Kobo, OverDrive, and Sony Reader. I think it sounds like a good idea, and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from friends and associates. So far, it looks as though I'm going to go for it.

Finding Emmaus on Facebook

Finding Emmaus now has a Facebook page, and I invite all my fans to come visit and post something about the story itself, its characters, the collusion between the pharmaceutical industry and the US FDA, what it's like to be an Empath, what life was like in 1600's America, what it's like to be a woman coming into her own --- essentially any of the many varied topics broached in the book.

The link is: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Finding-Emmaus/238292639525022

I look foward to hearing from you!!

If You Have No Voice, You Have No Power

My dear friend Roxy Lopez, host of the well-known radio show The Truth Denied, just sent me the following note regarding Friday’s interview about my novel, Finding Emmaus:

“Pamela, I am getting MANY e-mails as to your interview, and many are buying your book! This is wonderful news! So many people wrote in and said you just helped them to “make sense” of their lives, and that they had never heard of EMPATHY.”

Here is the link to my July 8th interview with radio host Roxy Lopez:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiuEOTyBWgk&feature=share

Red Carpet Interview

I recently attended the New York City premiere screening of "The Cover Up" (June 10th, 2011), a new cable TV crime drama, and was interviewed on the red carpet. Here is that interview.

Vagina Monologues' Eve Ensler

Vagina Monologues' Eve Ensler was in NY City last night, at the Russian Tea Room, and I got to spend some time getting to know this amazing woman. Gracious, intelligent, absolutely genuine, well-informed, passionate, and entertaining, she commanded the room the instant she entered. It was indeed an honor to meet her.

The Art and Faith of Giving - my latest Huffington Post article

“People who hate you don’t really hate you; they really love what you are but can’t seem to figure out how to get there. ... Consciously or unconsciously, they want to ‘absorb’ some of what (you) have. It’s not about envy ... it’s about emptiness and a desire to fill a void."

(to read the rest of the article, click on the link above)

Midwest Book Review Endorses and Praises Finding Emmaus

Each year, the Midwest Book Review receives approximately 18,000 submissions.

I am thrilled to be able to tell you that on September 8th I received notification from James A. Cox, its editor-in-chief, that my debut novel, “Finding Emmaus” was just chosen to be reviewed and enthusiastically endorsed by this prestigious organization.

This is what they had to say:

Empathy is within us all, but some feel it stronger than others. “Finding Emmaus” is the first book for the Lodestarre series, a historical fantasy telling a story of two Empaths who live three hundred years apart whose talents are written off as mental illness. Through this gap, the two Empaths seek to understand their talents and what they mean, even when society snubs them.

“Finding Emmaus” is a thoughtful and fascinating read and take on society through fantasy. Highly recommended.

Their publication, known as Book Watch will feature “Finding Emmaus” in their 2010 issue. Additionally, “Finding Emmaus” will also appear in the Cengage Learning, Gale interactive CD-ROM series "Book Review Index" (published four times yearly for academic, corporate and public library systems), as well as the book review databases LexisNexis and Goliath.

They will also be posting their review on Amazon.com.

This is just such an honor — I’m over the moon about it!!

A Woman With More Backbone Than You Can Shake a Stick At!

Harper Lee, one-hit-wonder author of the Pulitzer Prizewinning “To Kill A Mockingbird” displayed the kind of gusty, gritty fearlessness which makes me proud of my gender (stick those fingers in your suspenders, jut your chin out and throw those shoulders back!!) and all those who share it.

Early in the 1960’s, Virginia area school board attempted to ban “To Kill A Mockingbird” from their school, calling it “immoral literature”. My first reaction when I read that was, WTF?????

Well, it must have been Ms. Lee’s as well, because, amazing writer that she is, she penned, back in 1966, a clear, concise, cuttingly beautiful letter to the nincompoops which was, in my opinion, a thing of beauty — and this is what she said:

“Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board’s activities, and what I’ve heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that “To Kill a Mockingbird” spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is "immoral" has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.

I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.”

Bravo for Ms. Lee!! You have always had my respect and admiration. This makes me want to buy you a beer, slap you on the back and give you a hug!!



Copyright by Pamela S. K. Glasner © 2010, All Rights Reserved

" ... an intimate listening of our inner voices, deepest yearnings and even blind spots to our egoic sabbateurs ..."

Kelly Welles, President and CEO of Welles Financial Services in New York City, recently had this to say about Finding Emmaus:

“I've been reading Finding Emmaus and enjoying it immensely. What a gifted writer you are. What an intimate listening of our inner voices, deepest yearnings and even blind spots to our egoic saboteurs and authentic yearnings to connect with our source and fullness. What an observer of detail and history. Grand merci for the enchanting journey!

I predict you will build a growing and enduring following among those who resonate with your skillful, wise and lyrical story-telling .... lyrical because it suggests a tone poem with epic overtones. A superb work of art by a most gifted storyteller.”

Film Industry Mixer ........ and OMG!!!

(The following was written Saturday night, 28 August, after I got home, just before midnight)

I just got home from the Film Industry Mixer at Young Studio in Hartford and OMG, I had the best time!!

The evening began with a walk down the red carpet as I entered, with photos being snapped and flashbulbs going off — it was fun and I loved it. Then I got to spend the rest of the night surrounded by (and speaking with) producers, directors, assistant directors, journalists, radio and TV hosts, news anchors, cinematographers, photographers, actors, writers … I ran into old friends (lots of them!) and made several new ones. I was in HEAVEN!

I also got to spend time chatting (and laughing!) with some of my favorite radio and TV personalities: Ann Nyberg, Mary Jones and Colin McEnroe.

There were 600 people at this event but it didn’t seem like a zoo, at least not to me. Oh, it was crowded, but it was warm and friendly and there was electricity in the air, no matter which room I was in. I kept running into people I knew and people who knew me and who knew my book. In fact, I am to call a TV host who has a local show in the New Haven area and wants to interview me about my book and my upcoming national tour.

One of the interviews I especially enjoyed was Melissa Mackenzie’s. She is the Senior VP of Maverick Entertainment Group and they specialize in marketing and distribution, two things I know absolutely nothing about. She was fascinating to listen to — a vital segment of the industry but one I’d never even thought of. What a treat!

My car was parked about 2 blocks away and on my way to it, I saw a man getting on a HUGE motorcycle, so of course I just HAD to say something to him: “Wow — your ride is a lot nicer than mine!” and we wound up speaking for about 20 minutes. It turned to be Assistant Director Stephen "Lucky" Luckingham. Wonderful man, and so knowledgeable. It was a warm night and the street was quiet and it was just such a pleasure to speak with a professional about something he was so obviously passionate about.

I’m SO glad I volunteered to work at this event, because not only did it make it POSSIBLE for me to meet all those amazing people, it made it EASY!

It was a beautiful, magical night and I am so delighted to have been a part of it.

Copyright © 2010, All Rights Reserved

"...written with an assurance and style that seem like the product of years of published writing experience"

“I find it hard to believe that this is Glasner’s first novel; it’s written with an assurance and style that seem like the product of years of published writing experience–far removed from so many first novels.”

~~A Review of Finding Emmaus by Hugh Ashton, December 5th, 2009~~

A book review that started through Twitter. A fellow-tweeter and author (who happens to live only two stations up the line from me here in Japan), Christopher Belton, wrote a review of a first novel by Pamela Glasner that piqued my curiosity and, thanks to his review, I ordered it from Amazon. He has since interviewed Glasner, who talks more about the book here.

Described as a “dark historic fantasy” on the book’s Web site, Finding Emmaus is far removed from the “sword and sorcery” type genre (Glasner complains that she is often asked if her books are “like Harry Potter”. They’re not.). It actually tells the stories of two lives, running in parallel, but separated by several hundred years. Francis (”Frank”) Nettleton, scion of a wealthy 17th-century Colonial family, discovers the truth about his fits of seeming depression (his “dark days”) which, as he finds out more, turns out also to be the truth about a surprising number of people, who go about their lives in a state of terror–the terror that comes from the results of being diagnosed as insane or possessed by the devil; torture or death at the hands of the self-appointed cleansers of society.

Katherine Spencer, a 21st-century property developer, finds herself troubled by the many of the same fears as Frank, and finds herself being drawn closer and closer to him as she flees from the 21st century’s equivalent of Bedlam–the psychotropic drugs overprescribed by doctors in an attempt to cure what is seen by the medical industry as mental illness.

As the story progresses, the results of Frank’s life work, his Lodestarre (guide) to aid those who are cursed or blessed with the special gift of Empathy, becomes a near-obsession with Katherine and those around her as she settles into the house where Frank lived and worked centuries before.

The plot twists and turns through the lives of Katherine and those around her, taking in the lives and passions of her friends, the bombshell she explodes under the US pharmaceutical industry, and the diagnosis and treatment of mental patients. Since Glasner has described Finding Emmaus as the first of a trilogy, I did discover that the end of the book leaves a number of loose ends untied (good – it makes me want to read the rest of the series) but rushes somewhat to tie up others, compared with the more leisurely pace of the rest of the book.

When I first started reading, I found the style a little difficult to get into – not that it’s self-consciously literary, but it’s very much more concerned with characters’ interior thoughts and feelings than my usual reading fare. On reading further, it’s obvious why this is so–the plot is so concerned with characters’ interior lives that the story had to be told from the inside.

Although I do understand why this has to be the case, I found Frank’s 17th-century persona to be too 21st-century, and his language to be too close to our own present-day dialect for my taste, at least. Although it’s hard to read, and harder to write, in a style similar to (say) Pepys or Defoe for extended periods, Frank’s language, as well as his 21st-century sensibilities and reactions, jarred at times with the little I know of that period of American history and society.

One writer’s works with which I might compare Finding Emmaus are those of Robertson Davies; in its historical sweep, involving a broad cast of characters spanning different periods, and with an emphasis on the spiritual, books such as Murther and Walking Spirits come to mind. I find it hard to believe that this is Glasner’s first novel; it’s written with an assurance and style that seem like the product of years of published writing experience–far removed from so many first novels.

The physical book itself caught my eye as an example of the bookmaker’s art. Glasner apparently chose many of the design features herself; for example, the chapter headings are backed by a faint underprinting of a 17th-century manuscript. The typeface is clear and adds a classic feeling without being self-consciously Olde Worlde (and the dreaded fake deckle edge has been avoided). Maybe book design doesn’t mean that much when ebooks seem poised to take over the world, but for those of us who grew up with sliced dead trees, this is a good example of what can and should be done to match the physical book with the contents.

So, my main question now is: when are the next two volumes coming out? I know that Glasner has another project bubbling away, but I hope that Katherine and Frank aren’t being pushed too far onto the back burner. I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next (and isn’t that the ultimate test of what makes a good book?).

~~Hugh Ashton, author of Beneath Gray Skies~~

Authors and Arachnids

I’m thinking about doing a series of blogs on all the sleazy predators out there who have no particular talent themselves beyond the ability to zero in on their preferred victim: an up-and-coming hopeful with wishes and dreams, someone who possesses a sacred, God-given gift to write or paint or sing or act, but more importantly, possesses a wallet. I've heard those predators referred to as sharks, snakes, vultures, leaches, creatures lower than whale dung, but in my mind’s eye, I see a being whose body is dominated by one simple body part: the open hand. And who’s got more hands than a spider?

If you think about it, the arachnid really does conjure up the perfect image. It can sit down beside you, cross its legs and still have six appendages available to dangle carrots, rifle your belongings, stroke your ego and feel around in your pockets all at the same time — and still have two hands left-over: one proffering the pen with which to sign on the dotted line, the other covering its mouth so it can simultaneously hide the drool and the gluttonous smile.

And where’s the harm? After all, it’s not asking you for all of your life savings, just a portion of it — in advance, please. But it’s okay, it croons, as it begins spewing platitudes and sugar-coated venom, it’s such a pittance in comparison with the jewels I will one day lay at your feet: ten minutes on Oprah, sixteen column inches in the New York Times, a Hollywood contract, the Nobel Peace Prize and, on your way to the Pearly Gates, nothing short of canonization.

Now I want to ask you a question: has the following ever happened to you?

You go to the dentist and he informs you that you need a lengthy, expensive, invasive procedure known as a root canal. You’re in pain so, obviously, you agree to go ahead with it, but you’re apprehensive. You’ve never had one, you don’t know what it’s going to be like, you don’t know what you’re going to feel like. Of course you’re going to do it, you’re just nervous. And then it happens.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry, every butcher, baker and candlestick maker in your life and dozens of them who are not in your life are suddenly in your face telling you that they, too, had a similar experience. When you got out of bed that morning, you didn’t know anyone who’d ever had a root canal but by suppertime dental patients were crawling out of the woodwork.

You know what I mean. Even if it’s not about the dentist, it’s still happened to you, right? An insurance claim, a car accident, a delayed flight, a bad meal at a good restaurant. Whatever the circumstances, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We’ve all experienced the same phenomenon: If it’s happened to you, it’s happened to a dozen others who never once thought to mentioned it before, but suddenly have an overwhelming need to tell you all about it now.

That’s how I know I’m not alone when I say I spend a good portion of my time dodging the sharks and the snakes and the vultures. In fact, I’m in very good company. “Everywhere you turn,” sings Sarah McLachlan, “there's vultures and thieves at your back.” Wannabe’s — people who wannabe nothing more than in my checkbook.

And it really is a shame. It’s a sad commentary on humanity that no matter how much we evolve, we will always be divided up between the predator and the prey; we will always have to contend with shallow, hollow, miserable leaches who have nothing to give and therefore nothing to lose and therefore no problem devastating the dreams of the talented, the dedicated, the idealistic — as long as they get to line their pockets.

I've been up most of the night thinking about one such predator in particular, a person working overtime to ooze their way into my life with brazen demands of unfettered access and dubious promises of silver and gold and riches beyond imagining. I’m grateful I've been blessed with this gift worth coveting, and I’m equally grateful I've been blessed with the wherewithal to recognize a well-disguised arachnid when I see one, and I know that I will, along with the rest of us who have something of value to offer the world, spend the rest of my life en guard. I just can’t help but sigh in frustration when I think about it. Such a waste of good energy.

Oh, one final thing: Yes, I know — the way an arachnid’s body is structured, it cannot actually sit like humans do, but it makes a heck of a good image, doesn’t it?

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

Healing Our World

I am so deeply touched I hardly know what to say - and that’s probably the wrong thing for a writer to say, isn’t it? After all, am I not supposed to be The Woman With The Words? But this one actually - and quite literally - rendered me speechless. Fortunately, not for very long.

On Monday, Sept 7th, my fellow tweeter - yes, ladies and gentlemen, a friendship born of the virtual world of Twitter! - took it upon herself to honor me with a post on her wonderful blog, Healing Our World.

But this is not just any blog post - this one has heart. And soul. And it moved me deeply. Because she believed that the message of Finding Emmaus was worthy of inclusion in a website dedicated solely to healing humanity. Beautifully formatted in her exceptionally professional-looking blog and with lovely words of her own, Dee Braun, humanitarian, visionary, healer, tweeter, mom, and writer in her own right, told the world about Finding Emmaus.

I've said it before: I'd never really seen myself as an agent for social change, but through Finding Emmaus, wonder of wonders, ready or not, I have become one. And what’s even more stunning to me is that, since the April 3rd, when I posted my very first tweet, I have been graced with introductions to a plethora of amazing women who, like Dee (and, I suppose, like me), passionately want to make this world a better place.

So, while this post of mine is partially meant as a heartfelt thank-you to this remarkable woman, it is also meant as a means to get you to check out her site, her mission, and maybe even spur you to action.


Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

Can’t Have A New Life ‘Til You Let Go Of The Old

I cleaned my office this weekend - not vacuuming and dusting, but going through each and every little scrap of paper that was on my desk and, piece by piece, discarding it or filing it. Usually that task would feel arduous, but this time it was easy, almost enjoyable.

Why, I wondered, when I was done? Why did I enjoy it? Why was this time different from any other time?

Was it, I wondered, indicative of what’s to come, of what my life is about to be? Was it symbolic? Was I making room for new “stuff” by letting go of the old?

I was thinking about flying this weekend, how birds do it. I was on my way out to the orchard when a sparrow flew passed me, just above my head, not three feet away, close enough so I could hear the fluttering of his wings and his movement through the air and I remembered that birds have hollow bones, that they have to in order to lift themselves off the ground.

It’s an odd feeling I have as a result of this past weekend’s cleaning, as though I weigh less. I’m not referring to body weight, I’m talking about my heart and soul. I’m talking about a shedding of ‘mass’, a slow and steady casting off, link-by-link, of the Jacob Marley chain I've forged over the course of a lifetime and have hauled around with me since time began.

I don’t know if clearing the clutter out of my house is the reason for this feeling or if this feeling is what precipitated the clearing. Classic chicken and egg. All I know is, I’m getting ready to fly.

I’m not sure if that flying is a spiritual thing or if it’s just something as mundane as getting from point A to point B on a 747 during my upcoming book tour. Perhaps it’s both.

Whatever it is, I find myself embracing it, welcoming it. And that’s a huge change for me (there goes another link from that chain!) because “change” and the “unknown” used to scare the pants off of me. And now here I am, looking forward to it.

I am no longer terrified of it - rather, now I await it’s arrival like a child at a snowy evening windowsill, on the watch for reindeer.

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DARK HISTORIC FANTASY EXPOSES
CONTEMPORARY PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY CONSPIRACY

August 3, 2009, Hartford, CT – Connecticut author, Pamela Glasner, who originally hails from New York City, announced today that the release of her first novel Finding Emmaus, book one of The Lodestarre Series, is scheduled for October 1, 2009.

“The only thing worse than having an incomprehensible, incurable illness is having an incomprehensible, incurable illness in isolation”
~ Francis Nettleton, 1739 ~

The psychiatric community has confused Empathic personality traits with mental illness with tragic results, leading two Empaths – Francis Nettleton and Katherine Spencer – who live three hundred years apart, on personal journeys to learn the true nature of Empathy. Transcending time and death to right a centuries-old wrong, they inadvertently uncover a multi-billion dollar conspiracy in which millions of Americans are being misdiagnosed and drugged for no other reason than the enormous income they generate.

Finding Emmaus, book one of The Lodestarre Series, is a complex, dark, historic fantasy about human frailties and courage. It is an intricate, meticulously researched, deeply disturbing, suspenseful tale of love and sacrifice, obsession and the abuse of power and the indisputable right of free will. It is a story with a cast of characters who will keep you guessing as to what they will do and what choices they will make as they weave in and out of the story and each other’s lives.

Ms. Glasner is managed by Publicist, Deborah Riley-Magnus, (310) 637-1424. Finding Emmaus is published by Emerald Book Company, an imprint of Greenleaf Book Group. It is scheduled for release on October 1, 2009, and can be preordered now through Ms. Glasner’s blog at http://lodestarre.blogspot.com/.

Finding Emmaus will also be available for preorder in mid-September through Amazon.

For more information, or to schedule an interview or speaking engagement, please contact the author, Ms. Glasner at 860-533-9665.

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

Funny thing happened on my way to becoming an author, part one

I was recently asked the question: Aren’t you giving up an intimate part of you when you write?

My answer? Yes and no.

OK … OK … I know … that’s no answer and it sounds like a cop-out. But the truth is, it is yes and no. Maybe I am giving something up. But then again, maybe I’m not.

It doesn’t feel as though I’m losing anything.

To my way of thinking, it’s feels more like digging way down deep inside and accessing it. Certainly, once my words are published, they will be shared with the multitudes - and, God willing, the multitudes will keep up their end of the bargain (my bargain, anyway!) and partake of the sharing - but I never think about that when I'm writing. I never think about what’s going to happen to my words later on.

I think if I gave that part of the process - what it might mean once my readers have my words in their hands and then in their minds and eventually in their discussions with each other … if I stop to consider my audience … I might be inhibited. My writing might be inhibited.

Oh, mercy, I hope that doesn’t sound self-aggrandizing! It’s not meant to. It’s just that I write from a place inside me which is so primal and profound, it’s honestly still a mystery to me.

When I write, I don’t really think about anything. In truth, I've learned that I do my best writing when I get out of my own way, mind my own business and just let it happen … in other words, when I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. When I just let it flow, the story and the characters seem to create themselves. And those seem to be the phrases or the paragraphs or the chapters of the story which move me the most - even when I go back to them several months later.

So, am I losing some intimate part of me? Am I giving something up? I don’t believe so. It never feels like “giving”. It feels more like praying.

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

Rocks, Walls and Epiphanies

A friend of mine, a film producer, recently asked me in an e-mail what was going through my mind when I wrote “Finding Emmaus”. He said, “I meet so many people who confidently tell me that their book or play or film is going to change the world. Invariably their works are boring and pedantic. My take is that we need to tell the best story we possibly can. If, after being exposed to our work, people are inspired to make positive changes in themselves or their communities, great. But that's a happy by-product. Story matters above all.”

People who know me now but did not know me just a few years back may be surprised by this but, prior to this huge ‘epiphany’ of mine nearly two years ago, I was about as unemotional a person as one could get. I didn’t cry at tear-jerker movies and I CERTAINLY never cried in front of anyone - ever. I used to be envious of my friends who COULD cry on their way out of the movie theater, friends who could then tearfully, joyfully, tell the people waiting in line what a wonderful film it was and how much they’d enjoy it.

These same high school friends, and then, later on, my co-workers, firmly believed I was hard as a rock and twice as strong and everyone loved to lean on me ‘cause I never shed a tear. I was the one to go to. I was Wonder Woman, Underdog and The Rock of Gibraltar all rolled into one. I resented, BTW, that everyone automatically assumed I was so strong that I never needed arms around me, but I kept my mouth shut because I was like that.

I clearly recall a time in my late 20’s when an incredulous friend said, “…YOU need help? But Pamela, you’re so strong. It never occurred to me you’d be weak.” One of those memories which pops up occasionally in living color and brings with it anger and resentment in waves.

I was NOT a rock, I was behind a wall. But I had no idea and neither, apparently, did anyone else…

Something changed one day - August 8th 2007 - and I don’t know why. I can remember the exact moment, where I was, what I was doing, and the photograph I was staring at which is now indelibly etched into my brain as the foundation - and the starting point - of this “Dream Quest” I’m on, this path of mine which I am now certain ‘has a heart’ (thank you Don Juan and Carlos Casteneda!).

From that moment on, I've become a different human being. At first, and for a long time thereafter, I thought I was losing my mind. ALL I could do was cry - over anything. A GE commercial could reduce me to a quivering bowl of Jell-O. I still cry easily, but at least now I’m not afraid it’s a sign of impending insanity.

That said, I can now answer Burt’s question.

The only thing on my mind when I created the town and the people of Duncaster / Weavers Bridge, CT, and then the story and then the book “Finding Emmaus” was an almost frenzied need to write it with everything I had in me.

That’s all I knew: just tell the story.

And the way I knew I had written a phrase or a sentence or a paragraph or a chapter just right, the way I knew I had ‘nailed it’, was my emotional response to it as I wrote. If I didn’t cry, I put what I had written aside and started again. And I’m not just talking about the sad or emotional parts of the story - I mean EVERYTHING. If it didn’t touch my heart, even if was only a paragraph to describe how the early Puritans identified which plants they could use to dye their cloth blue, it got rewritten.

I didn’t write “Finding Emmaus” to be famous or change the world or to impress anyone. I wrote it because I HAD to. Seven hundred and fifty pages came pouring out of a part of me I did not know existed and still have yet to locate.

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

What A Piece Of Work Is Man

The process of writing my novel, “Finding Emmāus”, of creating and then developing each and every one of its characters, made me think deeply about what I write, about what is vitally important in my stories, made me truly evaluate what goes on in the deepest, most secretive parts of human personalities, the differences and the nuances from one human to another. Their actions, reactions and interactions with other characters within the story had to be consistent with their personalities throughout the book. I had to learn to really look at what makes people ‘tick’.

And in the process, I learned as much about me as I did about them - perhaps more…

I've always known that life is precious, just as I've always believed human beings to be resilient creatures. But life is also a fragile thing and prior to this time (prior to writing “Finding Emmāus”) I never truly appreciated just how fragile.

I never really thought about what went on inside the walls of a hideous place like Bethlem Royal Hospital in the 17th century, or what the original settlers of this country went through when they lived day to day knowing their survival tomorrow quite literally depended upon every minute they spent today - - if they couldn’t make it or grow it or trade with the Native Americans for it, they did without it.

But I also know this: life, even in its most profoundly tragic moments, gives us a break - as in the way we humans will fondly recount an amusing story about a recently-lost loved one, even at a funeral.

Fragile and resilient, heroic and terrible, determined and pitiable - Hamlet had it right when he said “What a piece of work is man!”

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

In Search of a Glimpse of Light at the End of This Tunnel

I lately find myself wanting to let all my friends and family know that, while I've been largely incommunicado within both of those communities - neglecting social engagements and phone calls and e-mails - I've not forgotten about anyone at all, even though it may look like that.

I’m having to divide my time and energy between writing my next book (which, in and of itself, can be a full-time job!), working with the publisher to bring “Finding Emmāus” to market, composing posts for this blog, managing my real estate holdings which I had on the market but, because of this lousy economy, never did sell, and Twitter (yes, Heaven help me, I’m a Tweeter!), which my literary agent was all but adamant I join and honestly, has become a huge boon for me and my future as an author.

Add that to church and elderly parents and a husband and a home and a son and a brother and a cat and a dog … (*takes a deep breath*) … and I'm seriously considering having myself cloned!!!

The majority of my communication/connection with the outside world, other than the occasional e-mail which invariably begins with “Dear So-and-So, sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you…” seems to be via these blog postings - at least they keep me feeling connected to humanity in some small way.

So I plod my way through this new, suddenly and dramatically reinvented life of mine, learning - one itty-bitty baby step at a time - how to balance it all, desperately hoping everyone understands or, at the very least, tolerates and forgives!

I've never been a published author before and I'm still trying to feel my way. And right now I spend lots of time feeling as though I'm in one of those absolutely lightless fun-houses… I love it but I'm not sure where I'm headed or when I'll catch a glimpse of light at the end of this very unsettling but absolutely trilling tunnel.

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

Finding Emmāus - The Very Human Need To Fit

I’m not sure just how much of children copying the styles of other children is peer pressure (something which is external) or how much of it stems from the innate human need for community (something which I see as internal). I think humans have universal needs - needs which would not be “universal” if they originated from an external source. Among those are the need for acceptance and community.

Humans are not solitary beings. We’re not like bumble bees. We’re social creatures, preferring the herd. Are there exceptions? Of course. Some of us live out our lives in seclusion, others want the comfort of knowing friends and family are near but still require “alone time” on a regular basis.

But in general, most of us want to feel as though we are a part of something bigger than ourselves: a family, a place of worship, a social network, a neighborhood…

So, back to my earlier statement about children mimicking the behavior of other children. I’m not all that convinced it’s a learned response. I think it’s more likely an internal - and very primal - need for attention, for security, for love. The youngest of infants have those needs. No way that’s born of societal pressure.

Children learn very quickly that the road to attention, security and love is paved with approval, beginning with Mom and never truly ending.

If I buy a dress like yours or move into the same neighborhood as you or start listening to the same music you listen to or start following the same sporting events you follow, I have just made a public declaration that what you have or what you are or what you like or what you do is worthy of imitation - the sincerest form of flattery, right? And if you, in return, give me the approval (aka love) I crave, then I have just become a part of something outside of me, a part of you, a part of a community and I am therefore no longer alone.

Conversely, without that, there’s a huge hole in me - sometimes big enough to drive a truck through.

If I’m different - if I’m an Empath or if I’m bipolar or if I’m a witch- then I don’t get to have that acceptance, that feeling of belonging, that security, because people will go out of their way to avoid me. I will become isolated. People shun me because they’re afraid or they don’t understand or they just don’t know how to handle my “different-ness”, my uniqueness.

When you get right down to it, no-one really wants other people to be that different from themselves. I think people would prefer that others fall in line with what they consider to be the norm because that’s their comfort level.

This is the foundation of “Finding Emmāus”: two Empaths in two different centuries dedicating their lives to the celebration of those differences and to putting an end to the isolation.

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved