The Story Behind ‘Colonel Trash Truck’ by Kathleen Crawley

Throughout my life, I have been fascinated with watching people and trying to understand why they do what they do…from what they eat to what they watch on TV, wear on their bodies or even believe.  I absolutely love to people watch and kids are no exception.  For example, why do a lot of boys like dinosaurs and trucks and many girls like dolls and pick dresses at an early age?  For years, I noticed how kids, especially boys, go bonkers when they see a garbage truck coming down the street.  One of the first words my nephew said was trash truck.  I also noticed there weren’t many books or toys about trash trucks that tell kids how they pick up the trash we create.  I thought, “Someone needs to write a book”.  It did not occur to me at the time that the someone I was thinking of was me!  

Then one morning when I had slept late, I was awakened by the sound of the garbage truck in my neighborhood.  I opened my eyes and suddenly saw a clear image in my imagination of Colonel Trash Truck, just the way he looks on the cover of my book.  He had a friendly but determined look on his face and seemed to be telling me to write something.  I then reached for a pad of paper and began writing the poem that is now the majority Colonel Trash Truck.  It felt like I was taking dictation because it seemed like the Colonel had a lot to say about telling kids to pick up trash and recycle.  

Colonel Trash Truck is a fun, likeable but admirable character, determined to fulfill him mission to win the garbage war.  What is so exciting about Colonel Trash Truck is that he appeals to kids and parents on so many levels:

• Kids love trucks, especially garbage trucks so the Colonel will get their attention.
• He is a fun, sometimes silly character that will make kids giggle.
• He is a hero that kids will look up to and want to mimic…”Karunch!” is his favorite phrase.
• Plus, he is teaching kids at an early age one of the most important positive habits they could possibly learn – to pick up trash and recycle. 

At a time when so much is being discussed about the future of our planet and its natural resources, it can be challenging to get kids to understand how important their part is in saving the planet.  Colonel Trash Truck is the perfect book to get their attention and convince them to ‘join him in his quest.” 

Kathleen Crawley has been an advertising executive for over fifteen years.  She resides with her husband Ronald Thomson in Redondo Beach, California.  She is a native Californian having graduated from UCLA with a B.A in sociology.  Colonel Trash Truck is her first book.  About writing for children, Kathy says, “I have a number of books I want to write for kids because I think children are fascinating.  They are open, creative, and interested in everything; they bring out the kid in me.” 

You can visit Kathleen online at www.coloneltrashtruck.com.

Buy Colonel Trash Truck at Amazon.com today!

The Story Behind ‘For the Love of St. Nick’ by Garasamo Maccagnone

Over the years, I listened carefully to many of my wife’s stories. Her father was Commander Blake Field, a naval academy standout and veteran of the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf wars. I obviously patterned the commander in my story after him.

Prior to her parents’ divorce, my wife lived the typical military lifestyle, with the family moving every couple of years to far off lands. Often, her father went on secret cold war missions and I recalled listening to my wife tell me how frightened she was as a girl that her father would never return. That of course, sparked my interest and was the sentiment I built off of years later when I decided to write this story.

The other major incident, which inspired me a great deal, happened while I worked at a hospital in my early thirties. One morning after my shift was over, a priest I knew at the hospital divulged that a young mother died during childbirth the previous night. He used the term placenta previa and went on to explain what had happened and why he was told the woman passed on.

Together, somehow, over a fifteen- to twenty-year period these stories found their way to the forefront of my mind, and served as the mechanisms that launched my tale. From there, I simply needed to create the right setting and to apply my craft.

 

Garasamo Maccagnone studied creative writing and literature under noted American writers Sam Astrachan and Stuart Dybek at Wayne State University and Western Michigan University. A college baseball player as well, Maccagnone met his wife Vicki as a junior at WMU. The following year, after injuring his throwing arm, Maccagnone left school and his baseball ambitions to marry Vicki. After a two year stint at both W.B. Doner and BBDO advertising agencies, Maccagnone left the industry to apply his knowledge of marketing in a new venture in an up-and-coming industry. Maccagnone created a company called, “Crate and Fly,” and turned it from a store front in 1984 to a world-wide multi-million dollar shipping corporation by 1994.  

In the mid 90’s Maccagnone decided to fulfill the promise of his writing career, by first penning the children’s book, The Suburban Dragon and then following up with a collection of short stories and poetry entitled, The Affliction of Dreams. His literary novel, St. John of the Midfield was published in 2007, followed by his For the Love of St. Nick, which was released in 2008.  Maccagnone expanded the original version of For the Love of St. Nick and had the book illustrated for a new release in June 2009. 

Garasamo “Gary” Maccagnone lives today in Shelby Township, Michigan, with his wife Vicki and three children. You can visit Gary online at www.garasamomaccagnone.com.

The Story Behind The Peruke Maker: The Salem Witch Curse by Ruby Dominguez

The Peruke Maker by Ruby Dominguez (click on cover to purchase)

Driven by a mystical dream I had after trying on a 100% hand-tied human hair wig that I purchased online in 2004, described to be harvested from a reliable and youthful donor.

I woke-up from the dream in shivers, seemingly reliving a dark history of a young woman’s horrifying fate named Bridget and her father’s (The Peruke Maker) vindictive quest for justice beyond the grave.

Eerily, I believed that in Salem, Massachusettes from three centuries ago, the Peruke Maker’s Shop lay hidden behind a forgotten and abandoned room of an old crematorium built-up with dust and cobwebs with a finished white wig still sits by the boarded up window to this day.

Wefts of yak, goat, horse and human hair, fishhook-like needles, pomade, powder and a wooden head are laid down on a work table wherein a pair of rusty scissors, entwined with strands of Bridget’s red hair eerily rests by the wall mirror.

THE PERUKE MAKER – The Salem Witch Hunt Curse, is my first published book written as a screenplay.

It was my initial intention and still is, that it becomes a Halloween blockbuster  movie.

In the meantime to generate a buzz, I opted for self-publishing for immediate distribution to the e-world.

It didn’t take me long to discover Outskirts Press via internet and then submitted my manuscript for their consideration and acceptance.

And now my book is available in 25,000 internet stores around the world.

It took me 1 year of dreaming about it, 1 year of research work, 4 weeks to put down into written words, and another 2 years to crystallized the story.

Submitted it to Lejen Literary Consultant – Lee Levinson for script coverage analysis and after 2 months received it back with a good review.

Thereafter, it took Outskirts Press  approximately 2 weeks to review and accept

The author, Ruby Dominguez is challenged by the conflicting complexities of the past and future. Undeterred, she strokes with pen the somber and bright hues of her visions. She currently resides in San Francisco and works in the field of property management/leasing. She has been a recipient of the “Editor’s Choice Award,” by the National Library of Poetry in 1999 and 2007 for her published poems in the SHELTER OF SHADE. Visit her website at: www.outskirtspress.com/theperukemaker, and blog at www.salemcurse.wordpress.com

The Story Behind Charlie and Mama Kyna by Diana Rumjahn

Charlie and Mama Kyna is an award-winning charming book with beautiful illustrations for children. The story and illustrations are based on my internationally acclaimed film, Going Home, which was shown worldwide, including 45 film festivals and London Film Festival.

The story is about a little stuffed animal frog, named Charlie who runs away in fear after accidentally breaking his mother’s favorite vase. Charlie makes his way to the city and meets a stuffed animal Lion, named Leo and a stuffed animal giraffe named Joe outside Mrs. Cupcake’s Bakery. The three become best friends and live inside a little orange tent outside the bakery.

After awhile, Charlie becomes homesick, misses his mother, Kyna, decides to go home and invites Leo and Joe to live with them. On the next sunny day, Charlie, Leo and Joe, journey to find Mama Kyna’s home.

The book was written because I received so much positive responses for the film, Going Home. My passion is to tell you this story.

My inspiration for writing the book comes from my love of animals and stuffed animals. They are so cute! In addition, when I am listening to new age music especially music by Enya, I am so inspired to be even more creative.

Diana Rumjahn earned a bachelor’s degree in social science from San Francisco State University where she currently works at the College of Creative Arts . She wrote and directed the film Going Home which has been screened at venues worldwide. She is also the author of the new children’s picture book, Charlie and Mama Kyna. Rumjahn resides in San Francisco and is currently at work on film and book projects.  You can visit her website at www.dianarumjahn.com.

The Story Behind The Cutting by James Hayman

Like so many thrillers, the idea for the plot of The Cutting came from something I found in the news.

I read an article about so-called “organ tourism.” Americans traveling to foreign countries for transplants they couldn’t qualify for here at home.

As most of us  know, there’s of a chronic shortage of organ donors and organs available for transplant in the US and other first world countries.  People in desperate need of kidneys, livers, and hearts die each year because there simply aren’t enough.  Some of these people are considered too old to qualify for legitimate transplant programs in the US.  Others are deemed to be too sick to benefit from a new organ.

This has given rise to a new and thriving international black market in organs.

Desperately poor people in countries like China, India and in South America often sell organs for money.  A thousand dollars for a kidney may not seem like much to us but it’s considered a fortune to poor people in third world countries.

And the trade isn’t just limited to kidneys.  There are many documented cases where people have been kidnapped and murdered so their organs,  the ones they can’t live without like their hearts, could be harvested and sold to an unknowing American in desperate need of one.

There are a lot of problems inherent in becoming a so-called “organ tourist.” You don’t know if the organ you’re buying is healthy. You don’t know if the surgeon is competent by American standards.  You don’t know if kidnapping, coercion or even murder was involved  in obtaining it.

So I just said “What if?”

What if, instead of happening in some third world country, it was happening right here in the US?

What if there were a number of very rich, very sick old men who couldn’t qualify for legitimate transplant programs because of their age and condition who were willing to pay an immoral but highly qualified surgeon just about anything to get a new heart?

What if they could be assured that the blood type and tissue would be compatible to their needs.

What if the brilliant surgeon also happened to be a sadistic psychopathic killer?

That’s the basic premise behind The Cutting (though the story takes a number of unexpected twists and turns in the telling.)

The Cutting opens as a beautiful young woman is abducted while jogging through the idyllic streets of Portland, Maine’s upscale West End.  The very same night the body of a pretty young high school soccer star is found in an abandoned scrap yard, her heart cut from her body with medical precision.

Former NYPD homicide detective and single father, Michael McCabe, left New York and moved to Portland to find a safer and more wholesome place in which to raise his teenage daughter. But he suddenly realizes he found a lot more than he bargained for.

As it says in The Cutting “standing here in a scrap yard in Portland, Maine, McCabe suddenly…knew with an absolute certainty that…no matter how far he ran, no matter how well he hid, he’d never leave the violence or his fascination with it behind.”

The Cutting is the first in a series of thrillers featuring Michael McCabe. The second, called The Chill of Night, is due out from St. Martin’s/Minotaur in late June of 2010.  That too was inspired by something I read in the news.

Like McCabe, I’m a native New Yorker. He was born in the Bronx. I was born in Brooklyn. We both grew up in the city. He dropped out of NYU Film School and joined the NYPD, rising through the ranks to become the top homicide cop at the Midtown North Precinct. I graduated from Brown and joined a major New York ad agency, rising through the ranks to become creative director on accounts like the US Army, Procter & Gamble, and Lincoln/Mercury.

We both married beautiful brunettes. McCabe’s wife, Sandy dumped him to marry a rich investment banker who had “no interest in raising other people’s children.” My wife, Jeanne, though often given good reason to leave me in the lurch, has stuck it out through thick and thin and is still my wife. She is also my best friend, my most attentive reader and a perceptive critic.

Both McCabe and I eventually left New York for Portland, Maine. I arrived in August 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks, in search of the right place to begin a new career as a fiction writer. He came to town a year later, to escape a dark secret in his past and to find a safe place to raise his teenage daughter, Casey.

There are other similarities between us. We both love good Scotch whiskey, old movie trivia and the New York Giants. And we both live with and love women who are talented artists.

There are also quite a few differences. McCabe’s a lot braver than me. He’s a better shot. He likes boxing. He doesn’t throw up at autopsies. And he’s far more likely to take risks. McCabe’s favorite Portland bar, Tallulah’s, is, sadly, a figment of my imagination. My favorite Portland bars are all very real.

You can visit our website at www.jameshaymanthrillers.com.

The Story Behind Silk Flowers Never Die by Stella Mazzucchelli

The story behind my book was my need to share my experiences dealing with emotions and weaknesses that are wide spread such as mental illness, cancer and alcohol abuse.

My book has given me the thumbs up to reveal to the world that my son has schizophrenia without beating around the bush when asked: ‘What does your son do for a living?’ Like a race horse bursting through the starting gate I now feel free to pronounce the word schizophrenia without hesitation. I almost have to refrain a smile while waiting a reaction which usually is hidden shock, followed by admiration for my honesty and then curiosity.

Being their only source of information, they live with the impression that all schizophrenics might rip there throat at the drop of a hat. I hope that my story can assure my reader that most sufferers are very talented and sensitive human beings. The only problem of course is that due to the ’stigma’ we rarely hear about them as they are forced into a dark corner, silenced and alone.

I also wanted to describe the impact of mental illness on the family, which I would say usually affects the mother. Being an ongoing condition, the mother has to come to terms to live on a daily basis with the heart wrenching, mind debilitating illness that never lets go. It does not take long to realize that nothing really changes in our child except the torment, the voices, the hallucinations and his escape to a fantasy world which can sometimes be very cruel. I had the need to admit to my own alcohol issues which were crippling especially as I had to aid my son through his difficult journey. Once we began to see the light, he marries his on and off love of ten years Naomi. A year into their marriage Naomi gives birth to their daughter Katerina, but a week after giving birth, Naomi is diagnosed with terminal cancer. My son put his own needs and well being to the side and showed remarkable courage and tenderness during the year he was nursing his wife. Needless to say, I have long since given up my dependency on alcohol in order to raise my granddaughter who today is a feisty, beautiful and intelligent thirteen-year-old. As I can do nothing to contribute towards a cure, I can at least campaign against its reputation, that is why I have written my book and donated my proceeds to the U.K. based charity SANE.

Stella Metaxa Mazzucchelli was born in Athens, Greece and married, aged eighteen, Riccardo Mazzucchelli, the famous Italian businessman. During their twenty-two year marriage, they lived in Zambia and London, where she became a well-known figure on the social scene, and had a brief and successful modeling career at the unusual age of 28. Fedele is their only child. After their divorce, Riccardo married Ivana Trump in 1995, though the marriage was short lived. Stella now lives in Athens where she brings up her granddaughter Katerina. As well as being involved in the property and renovation business, which ensures she maintains connections with London, she is also a tireless campaigner for the better understanding of schizophrenia and mental illness. Silk Flowers Never Die  is her first book.

You can find Stella online at www.dynastypress.co.uk and at her blog www.dynastypress.co.uk/news.html

The Story Behind Dispel the Mist by Marilyn Meredith

While I was doing research for the last Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, Kindred Spirits, I met and became friends with a Tolowa Native woman who lived in Crescent City CA. One of the many things she told me about was the Tolowa belief in Big Foot, including many recent sightings.

I did some research on the Internet about Big Foot and while I was reading, a site came up telling about another large creature called the Hairy Man. Imagine my surprise when I learned that a pictograph of the Hairy Man, a woman, and child are in a rock shelter in a place called Painted Rock. Painted Rock is on the Tule River Indian Reservation which is very near my home. I borrow a lot from the Tule River Indians and the reservation for my Deputy Tempe mysteries, though I am writing fiction and have changed the names of the Indians and the reservation.

When it was time to write the next book in the series, I began thinking about the Hairy Man and the Painted Rock site. I e-mailed the local college’s anthropology professor and asked where and what it looked like out there. He invited me to go along on a field trip his class was taking the very next Friday. Of course I went.

The Painted Rock site is tucked away at the far end of the reservation. A cave like shelter was created by huge boulders, one sitting atop two others. To get down to the cave, one must climb down the side of one of these very steep boulders. I’d never have made it if two of the young male students hadn’t helped me down.

The inside of the shelter is decorated with all sorts of very large and colorful pictographs of a coyote, moon, frog, centipede, the river, geometric figures—but on the inside wall is an eight-foot-tall depiction of the Hairy Man. Alongside him is a five-foot female and a three-foot child.

While listening to the Indian guide’s explanation of everything, I busily took notes. He looked at me sternly and said, “Don’t ever come down here at night.”

I asked, “Why not?”

His answer was, “There are too many spirits here at night.”

Of course I never would, I could barely get down there in the daylight, but I knew Tempe would definitely have to go there at nighttime.

My visit to the Painted Rock and the legend of the Hairy Man is what inspired Dispel the Mist.

I had more fun writing that book and talking about it than any other book I’ve written.

You can read the legend of the Hairy Man and the first chapter of the book on my website: http://fictionforyou and the book is available as an e-book or trade paperback directly from the publisher: http://www.mundaniapress.com or any online or regular bookstore.

Marilyn Meredith is the author of over twenty-five published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest, Dispel the Mist from Mundania Press. Under the name of F. M. Meredith she writes the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series. No Sanctuary is the newest from Oak Tree Press.

She is a member of EPIC, four chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, WOK, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. She was an instructor for Writer’s Digest School for ten years, served as an instructor at the Maui Writer’s Retreat and many other writer’s conferences. She makes her home in Springville CA, much like Bear Creek where Deputy Tempe Crabtree lives. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com/.

The Story Behind The Cutting by James Hayman

Like so many thrillers, the idea for the plot of The Cutting came from something I found in the news.

I read an article about so-called “organ tourism.” Americans traveling to foreign countries for transplants they couldn’t qualify for here at home.

As most of us  know, there’s of a chronic shortage of organ donors and organs available for transplant in the US and other first world countries.  People in desperate need of kidneys, livers, and hearts die each year because there simply aren’t enough.  Some of these people are considered too old to qualify for legitimate transplant programs in the US.  Others are deemed to be too sick to benefit from a new organ.

This has given rise to a new and thriving international black market in organs.

Desperately poor people in countries like China, India and in South America often sell organs for money.  A thousand dollars for a kidney may not seem like much to us but it’s considered a fortune to poor people in third world countries.

And the trade isn’t just limited to kidneys.  There are many documented cases where people have been kidnapped and murdered so their organs,  the ones they can’t live without like their hearts, could be harvested and sold to an unknowing American in desperate need of one.

There are a lot of problems inherent in becoming a so-called “organ tourist.” You don’t know if the organ you’re buying is healthy. You don’t know if the surgeon is competent by American standards.  You don’t know if kidnapping, coercion or even murder was involved  in obtaining it.

So I just said “What if?”

What if, instead of happening in some third world country, it was happening right here in the US?

What if there were a number of very rich, very sick old men who couldn’t qualify for legitimate transplant programs because of their age and condition who were willing to pay an immoral but highly qualified surgeon just about anything to get a new heart?

What if they could be assured that the blood type and tissue would be compatible to their needs.

What if the brilliant surgeon also happened to be a sadistic psychopathic killer?

That’s the basic premise behind The Cutting (though the story takes a number of unexpected twists and turns in the telling.)

The Cutting opens as a beautiful young woman is abducted while jogging through the idyllic streets of Portland, Maine’s upscale West End.  The very same night the body of a pretty young high school soccer star is found in an abandoned scrap yard, her heart cut from her body with medical precision.

Former NYPD homicide detective and single father, Michael McCabe, left New York and moved to Portland to find a safer and more wholesome place in which to raise his teenage daughter. But he suddenly realizes he found a lot more than he bargained for.

As it says in The Cutting “standing here in a scrap yard in Portland, Maine, McCabe suddenly…knew with an absolute certainty that…no matter how far he ran, no matter how well he hid, he’d never leave the violence or his fascination with it behind.”

The Cutting is the first in a series of thrillers featuring Michael McCabe. The second, called The Chill of Night, is due out from St. Martin’s/Minotaur in late June of 2010.  That too was inspired by something I read in the news.

Like McCabe, I’m a native New Yorker. He was born in the Bronx. I was born in Brooklyn. We both grew up in the city. He dropped out of NYU Film School and joined the NYPD, rising through the ranks to become the top homicide cop at the Midtown North Precinct. I graduated from Brown and joined a major New York ad agency, rising through the ranks to become creative director on accounts like the US Army, Procter & Gamble, and Lincoln/Mercury.

We both married beautiful brunettes. McCabe’s wife, Sandy dumped him to marry a rich investment banker who had “no interest in raising other people’s children.” My wife, Jeanne, though often given good reason to leave me in the lurch, has stuck it out through thick and thin and is still my wife. She is also my best friend, my most attentive reader and a perceptive critic.

Both McCabe and I eventually left New York for Portland, Maine. I arrived in August 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks, in search of the right place to begin a new career as a fiction writer. He came to town a year later, to escape a dark secret in his past and to find a safe place to raise his teenage daughter, Casey.

There are other similarities between us. We both love good Scotch whiskey, old movie trivia and the New York Giants. And we both live with and love women who are talented artists.

There are also quite a few differences. McCabe’s a lot braver than me. He’s a better shot. He likes boxing. He doesn’t throw up at autopsies. And he’s far more likely to take risks. McCabe’s favorite Portland bar, Tallulah’s, is, sadly, a figment of my imagination. My favorite Portland bars are all very real.

You can visit our website at www.jameshaymanthrillers.com.

You can purchase The Cutting at Amazon by clicking here!

The Story Behind Family Plots by Mary Patrick Kavanaugh

I have to have a funeral, I thought, walking in my neighborhood cemetery on a hot July afternoon last year.

Not for a dead person, mind you, but for a dead dream. Mine.

Earlier that month I’d received a strained call from my literary agent. My first novel, Family Plots: Love, Death, and Tax Evasion, had just been rejected for the sixteenth time.

Given that some wildly successful authors have been rejected many more times than that, I didn’t think it cause for alarm. But my agent informed me that the publishing industry—like many professions—was in financial crisis, and she didn’t think a first-time author with no sales history had much of a chance in this climate. “You should try some of the small presses,” she said, “or even self-publish.”

Self-publish? After all the time, money, work, visioning and prayer I’d put into this?

NO WAY.

That wasn’t part of the plan.

After I became a widow at age 38, something told me I’d better get to work on my life-long dream of publishing a novel before my own stint on earth was up—and as luck would have it, my dearly departed husband had left me with a juicy tale to tell. He was a criminal attorney who, it turned out, was committing a few crimes of his own. In an attempt to find romance, family, and financial stability, I’d stumbled into a world of pseudonyms, fake weddings, and hidden bank accounts. Events that landed my beloved into the family cemetery plot, also revealed unexpected secrets and stashes that transformed a seeming tragedy into one of surprising healing and redemption. It was a great plotline, but I still needed to write it down.

This is not one of those stories where the author gets an idea, God dictates it to her in thirteen days, and then, while flying to Kalamazoo, she fortuitously meets a famous agent who promises to sell the book. No. Labor and delivery of this baby was harder and possibly more expensive than the one I raised and sent off to college.

With love, support, and regular spiritual mind treatments from countless Religious Science practitioners, I harnessed the inspiration and discipline necessary to get to work. I wrote four versions of the manuscript over four years. After that, I hired three professional editors to help me cut, trim, revise, and re-pace the book. A New York literary agent offered representation, and we celebrated my good fortune when a best-selling author went on record saying it was a page-turner.

The fact that it took seven years—the time it takes to replace every cell in the human body—to prepare the manuscript struck me as a good omen. I wasn’t even the same person as I was when I’d started, and the new me was confident that this book would find exactly what I’d prayed for: the perfect publisher.

When my agent threw in the towel, I spent countless hours cocooned in bed, feeling destroyed—like the caterpillar that dissolves into goo, having no idea if it will ever re-emerge into the light. After all that work, mentally and spiritually, it seemed impossible that I didn’t have the backing of a reputable, recognizable New York publisher to provide the marketing, PR, and distribution to bring my dream to life. What had I done wrong?

I was especially depressed that I wouldn’t get to hold a book launch party at the cemetery, where so many scenes in the novel took place. I’d had such a clear vision of the event, from the pallbearers carrying a casket filled with books, down to the tombstone brownies for dessert. Despite my hard work, prayers, and the colorful vision boards I’d hung all over the house, my dream was dead—or at least it had reached a frustrating dead end—and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

That’s when the miracle happened. It became clear to me: /My dream had died, but I could still have a book launch at a cemetery./ It could be a funeral, which was thematically appropriate for the book and the rejection. This was even BETTER than a mere book launch.

The clouds parted, a chorus of angels sang, and the butterfly emerged from her cocoon. How perfect! Not only would I embrace this failure—I would flaunt it. I’d have a funeral for my dead dream of landing a mainstream book contract, and use it as a publicity stunt to draw attention to my book. Guests would be invited to bring remnants of their dead dreams and dashed hopes to toss in the casket as well. What better way to acknowledge and overcome life’s disappointments than to do it in community, with music, ceremony, and a tasty snack buffet? We could all use an opportunity to take ourselves a little less seriously.

The idea immediately resurrected my spirits. I’d been praying for “the perfect publisher,” and apparently I was the one I’d been waiting for all along.

Doors opened immediately. The cemetery management loved the idea and donated the chapel, casket, and reception hall. Friends contacted the media and articles appeared in the local and national press, generating a standing-room-only crowd. A gaggle of chic, black-clad wailers filled the pews and made the appropriate scene as the pallbearers escorted the casket and me into the chapel. My beloved practitioner played the role of “the preacher,” and by the end of the service, I, as well as most of my guests, had thrown remnants of dead dreams into the coffin and were dancing in the aisles to James Brown’s /I Feel Good./ The book received great reviews on book blogs and Amazon.com, and newspapers, radio, and TV booked interviews. I even had bloggers criticizing and debating the relative merits of the event, teaching me that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Lest I mislead anyone, deciding to produce this spectacle was not /all/ rainbows and unicorns. I wrestled with the demonic inner voices of fear, and was worried sick that no one would come to my funeral, or that I was wasting time or pouring money down a hole.

But I ignored the naysayers, even in my own mind, and squeezed more fun out of the event than I ever thought possible. By the end of the year, I even had an offer from a new agent to pitch my next book: /Cemetery Mary’s Turning Life’s Crap Into Compost/ (CrapIntoCompost.com).

When a dream has died, how do we avoid the urge to crawl into the coffin with it?

It’s hard to believe that celebrating death could feel so uplifting, but isn’t that what we learn as students of Science of Mind? “The experience of dying is but the laying off of an old garment, and the donning of a new one,” says The Science of Mind. Many of us are able to accept this as truth—so much so that in this philosophy, the word “death” is replaced with “transition,” to help us reframe the experience.

But as we know, concepts are easier in theory than in practice. The death (or transition) of a cherished person, relationship, or dream inevitably comes packed with grief and is far more disorienting than a simple garment change. It’s more like having our skin peeled off, followed by a period of over-exposure and raw pain, and then a gradual healing. No wonder we do whatever possible to deny, ignore, or resist it.

But everyone and everything in our lives is going to die—to transition. It’s the only way to make room for new growth. Spouses, lovers, parents and children; relationships, careers, and artistic endeavors; youth, beauty, and bank accounts—no matter what visions we hold, they will ultimately die in the ebb and flow of time. And sadly, sometimes they die before their time—causing us even greater trauma, because that wasn’t part of our plan.

That’s why one of the first things I publicly tossed into the casket was my vision board. Creating vision boards, lists of desires, and measurable goals offers great tools and direction. But when our goals and visions are not out-picturing exactly the way we have dictated, I wonder if clinging to these road maps may block a path to greater possibility? Maybe there is a time when we have to let go of the dream or relationship or expectation because, let’s face it, it’s not working or making us happy.

When I finally put to rest my grandiose dreams of publishing contracts, movie options, book tours, and a guest spot on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the rush of the release was liberating and invigorating. Though the book publication didn’t turn out to be even close to the way I’d rendered it on my vision board, a comment made by a business associate who’d watched a YouTube video of the funeral best summed up the deep satisfaction I ended up feeling. “Wow,” he said. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to be so completely creatively expressed.”

If I’d had a publisher, a marketing department, and a cast of others, all with opinions, who knows how it would have played out? Even my agent, whom I told about the funeral, warned me she thought it odd, and in fact a bad idea. /Bad idea?/ Impossible given the doors that were opening and the fun I was having, I thought, suddenly relieved she was no longer my agent.

Just like our over-attachment to vision boards may limit our view of greater possibility, our egos often get in the way of our spiritual growth. And let me go on record as saying my ego was freaking out about me stepping in as publisher and producer of my own book launch. (Who did I think I was? New York didn’t take me, why should anyone else? Bury the book privately and get on with it!)

But when we select a spiritual path, we are consciously choosing expansion and growth. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of support for the ego in that process. The old ideas about who I was and what I deserved had to die too—there was no other way to make room for new growth.

Though becoming my own publisher garnered me some great attention, it has not yet catapulted me to fame, fortune, or a seat on Oprah’s couch. And while that would be nice, the beating my ego took in the process of trying to get my book published made me realize that it didn’t matter anymore. Recognizing that I had the power within to realize my vision for this project without getting outside approval from the book-publishing industry made me feel a bit like Dorothy when she learned she’d always had the power to return to Kansas.

Giving up the dream of how my book was to be published pushed me to be more courageous, creative, and resourceful than I ever knew possible.

Where my writing career will travel from here remains a mystery, and I am certainly not creating a vision board to guide it. Everything I’ve ever tried to force has become a struggle, so I now cheerfully surrender, and focus my efforts on enjoying the work.

Is this bad? Is it good? Who knows? It just is.

Watch the Trailer!

A writer since the age of eight, Mary’s award winning creative non-fiction has been published in Alligator Juniper, Room of One’s Own, San Jose Mercury News, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her professional writing has appeared in numerous trade journals. Mary is the 2003 recipient of the nonfiction award from the Soul Making Literary Competition sponsored by the American Pen Women, and winner of a 2004 honorable mention. She was awarded writing fellowships at The David and Julia White Artist Colony, Hedgebrook: Women Authoring Change, and The Vermont Studio Center. She recently published her first book, Family Plots: Love, Death, and Tax Evasion.

View Mary’s outrageous book funeral at www.MyDreamIsDeadButImNot.com. Or read her blog at www.CrapIntoCompost.com.

Attention!  Mary (aka Cemetery Mary) is holding a funeral (December 31, 2009) and resurrection (January 2, 2010). These two events will allow others to bury dead dreams, dashed hopes, old habits and grudges in 2009 so they can come to the resurrection to begin again in 2010. Information about the live and webcast events will be posted at www.CrapIntoCompost.com, so readers are invited to sign up for the mail list.

The Story Behind Tails of Sha’ar Hagai by Myrna Shiboleth

Imagine a typical “Jewish American Princess” finding herself, inadvertently and to her own astonishment, a “pioneer” in Israel.  From a comfortable upper middle class metropolitan life, she is transplanted to living in a modern day wilderness, without electricity or telephone, trying to make a living working with dogs, horses, and other animals (not a particularly respected or profitable profession in this part of the world), and to cope with the very foreign Middle-Eastern mentality.  That girl was me, and I (apparently a masochist through and through) am still in Israel, after years of struggle, smiles, tears, and adventures, telling the story of my attempts to survive life in Israel under conditions totally different from any I had experienced before or from anything I might have expected. The only things that enabled me to survive were an invincible stubbornness and a sense of humor.

The book begins with an introduction to Shaar Hagai, an overgrown and long abandoned group of buildings dating from the British mandate, perched on a hillside over the main road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The next few chapters explore what brought me to this point in my life –  family background and an unexplainable attraction to animals and odd lifestyles.

Moving to Israel is just the start of a series of adventures.  Coping with a strange and totally different mentality as I try to support myself doing the things I love – but which are not so acceptable in Israel, especially when done by a woman – result in some very strange and funny experiences.  There are many animals sharing my life – first and foremost are the many and varied dogs, but there are also raccoons, cats, gazelles, geese, goats, sheep, horses, and Baba the striped hyena.  And of course, the varied people that are part of this world – “sabras”, abrasive and hard to understand for an American born and bred, Arabs from the nearby village, other immigrants from varied countries – all a challenge.  Marriage and raising a family Israeli pioneering style is part of life at Shaar Hagai, as well as having to cope with various disasters ranging in seriousness from a badly leaking roof to a major forest fire.

There are also adventures outside of Israel – three years spent in the heart of Africa as the unconventional wife of a career diplomat, and some rather unorthodox trips to Europe and other more exotic destinations, accompanied by a pack of dogs and non-conformist  friends.

Life at Shaar Hagai has never been easy – but it has certainly never been boring!  I found, over the years, that the only way to survive and stay reasonably sane was not to take myself too seriously.  Tails of Shaar Hagai is a humorous look back at my life – a life very different from what is experienced by most.

Actually, I wrote this book for myself.  I wanted to preserve all the adventures I have had over the years, and thought that writing them down would be the best way.  Then I could pass the stories on to my grandchildren. Once I started writing and re-reading what I had written, and letting friends read parts of it, I realized that it actually was pretty good and quite funny, and that maybe I could become the James Herriot of Israel.  Who knows?

Myrna Shiboleth is an animal behaviorist, world champion dog breeder and international dog show judge, and is acknowledged as the world authority on Canaan Dogs, one of the few remaining breeds of feral dogs in the world. After growing up in the U.S. and receiving a degree from Northwestern University in art, she made a radical change in her life by emigrating to Israel.  She has worked at a variety of animal related occupations over the years, including stable manager and riding instructor, kennel manager and dog trainer, advisor on dog behavior to the Israel Defense Department, keeper and animal trainer at the Safari Park, and more. Her previous book, The Israel Canaan Dog, has been published in two editions. She lives and breeds Canaan Dogs and collies at Shaar Hagai Farm in Israel, lectures and instructs in Israel and abroad on a wide variety of dog related subjects, writes for professional publications in Israel and abroad, and continues to enjoy new adventures with her dogs.

www.sephirotpress.com

www.canaandogs.info

www.collies-israel.com