On Monday, I conducted my third author talk. This one was announced in the local newspaper, The Sonoma Index tribune, so I was wildly unsure of what the attendance might be. Here is what the newspaper ran:
Five years ago, in reaction to the last-man-standing/reality TV craze, Sonoman Terry Sue Harms made a casual statement to one of her hairdressing clients that she would like to see something “where the losers were the winners.”
Little did she know that a creative muse must have been listening, because, on the heals of that thought, the storyline for “Pearls My Mother Wore” was born. Harms will share her book on Monday, June 28, at 6 p.m. in the Seven Flags Clubhouse, 1400 W. Watmaugh Road.
The story is about a young woman whose husband dies suddenly and unexpectedly, just as her wayward, bad-boy nephew shows up looking for yet another helping hand. Although complications arise, eventually they help heal each other.
“Ultimately this is a story about loss and recovery, resentment and forgiveness,” Harms said.
She considers herself an unlikely author since she’s a hairdresser by trade and didn’t read her first book until she was in her 20s.
While crafting the novel Harms sought professional help from Cary Tennis, the “Since You Asked” advice columnist of Salon.com.
Tennis said, “What I find admirable about this work is its untutored fidelity to internal phenomena, a fidelity that is at times clumsy but is also fierce and unrelenting. There are many ways to express grief, anger and revelation. A writer tutored in an MFA program might create a many-layered, lacquered sheen of grief, anger and revelation. What Terry has done, it seems to me, is make a large, true-to-life, lumbering monster of (it).”
Learn more at www.pearlsmymotherwore.com.
Nice, huh?
I’ve heard from several people that they saw the article, so thank you Sonoma Index Tribune! Despite the media attention, my talk was attended by nine guests, not exactly a sell out, but of the nine, six bought books. I can’t complain about that.
My friend, Carol Drews, arranged for us to use the comfortable (air conditioning) clubhouse at one of the local senior communities here in Sonoma. The intimacy of the group calmed my pre-talk jitters, so I was fairly relaxed. A couple of the attendees had heard me before, so I thought I would spend more time talking about my experiences with self publishing. I got about ten minutes into it, when one of the guests raised her hand and asked me to back up and speak more about my personal experiences and how they influenced my writing. The others seemed to concur. I admit, I was a little thrown off. I had prepared for the self-publishing topic. Learning to read an audience is now part of my book-promoting skill building set.
My personal story is easy enough to get into, but I was surprised that it seemed to matter. I was guilty of thinking nobody wants to hear about little ol’ me. It was a good lesson. My personal story is a big part of this whole writing adventure. How I made it out of reading no-mans land, and the sudden and unexpected deaths of four significant people in my life, are two key elements worthy of discussion at my author events. It’s a good thing these lessons come as they do, because I’m pretty sure that these personal revelations would have scared me silent in the early days of the novel’s creation.
In the “Figure/Ground Perception” blog post on February 19th, I’ve written some about learning to read. The sudden and unexpected deaths have not been covered. Briefly, when I was around sixteen years old, four important people in my life died without warning. My mother’s best friend’s husband had a heart attack and died on the living room floor. My best friend’s uncle, a man I had adopted as my own uncle, recently returned from Viet Nam, fell asleep at the wheel and drove under a semi-truck. My mother was next. And then, my best friend’s grandmother, who I called “Gramma,” died in her sleep. My best friend and I were the ones who found her.
So when it comes to the grief of Kelly Tremblake, the main character in Pearls My Mother Wore, those were the experiences I leaned on to write her with such emotional depth.
I have been mulling over the lessons learned at the Monday book talk, and I’m grateful to be building such an involved audience.
Speaking of involved audiences, Facebook. I now have 66 “Friends” on Facebook. If anybody reading this blog does Facebook, please send me a “Friend Request” with a message explaining how you found me. I’m so jazzed by the scene on Facebook. It’s difficult to convey exactly why because in the telling it sounds, well, a little weak. The contact is light and topical, mostly current affairs and current interests. I like feeling as though I’m in a big conversation. My normal world is generally not populated by so many people. When I log onto Facebook, it’s as if I’m walking into a big crowd where I know everybody, and I can chime in with my thoughts wherever I choose.
This is getting long, but on a final note about the week, I wrote this months piece for the “Road Works” blog. It’s the blog for my Left Coast Writers group. You can read what I had to say about my decision to self-publish by using the Left Coast Writers link on my sidebar here, under “Handy Links.”
Have a great week, and as always, I love getting comments.