True Love

"Do what you love," they say, "and the rest will follow." It is simple, almost obvious advice, but so easy to forget. I love to teach, I love to hike, do yoga, cuddle my dogs, hang out with my kids, and listen to great music. All those things and many more fulfill me and give my life meaning, but there is another, less worldly endeavor that strengthens, fills and enriches me, and that is the relationship I have with my writing.

This passionate relationship may not look like much from the outside, but as we who work in the trade know, it's as vital to survival as air, food and water. I don't know how other writers feel; all I know is that writing completes me. Maybe it’s because I grew up an only child, spent so much time alone, daydreaming the hours away. Or maybe it’s because I have found in writing a way to connect with other souls, to squash the loneliness and sort through the bouts of existential angst.

Like most loves, the source of my devotion to my writing is pretty much a mystery. All I really know is how it feels to be in the groove of a writing project, to work through the pain of uncertainty, and to see a book or screenplay grow from the seed of a little concept inside my head to a full blown mess and eventually, hopefully, something good and even perhaps worthwhile.

The best way I can describe the affair I have with writing is that it's a stewardship, much like parenting. In fact, the bond between myself and the work I create has many similarities to the bond I have with my children. For example, writing helps shape and define who I am. It enables me, in some small way, to attain immortality. I feel a certain emptiness and longing if I can’t be with my writing for a while. I get mad at it when it doesn’t behave the way I want to, and I am moved to tears during especially poignant moments. I sometimes feel totally hopeless and sure that I will ever be any good at it, just like I do as a parent. The parallels are practically endless, but you get the idea.

I have spent 30 years trying to “make it” as a writer, as if there is some mountain to climb to get there, when actually, the truth is, I’ve always been one and I'll never escape it. Sure, over time, I’ve become a more confident and experienced writer, but the signs were always there: The whispers of the next story that needs to be told, the deep need for regular space and time to write, and the tendency to experience life as one long stream of “material” for the next poem, essay, screenplay or book have all been a part of me since childhood. The bond is eternal, much like true love, and therefore it needs to be nourished and cherished as often as possible.

Candace Kearns Read is the author of the memoir The Rope Swing (Eagle Wings Press, Sep 2016). She is a screenwriter who has also been a Hollywood script reader for actors and directors, including the likes of Anthony Hopkins and Michelle Pfeiffer. Her screenplays have been optioned by producers and developed with Fox, Disney, HBO, and Lifetime. She teaches creative writing for Antioch University and the Young Writers Program at Denver’s Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She’s the author of the screenwriting handbook Shaping True Story into Screenplay, and co-author of the memoir Bogie’s Bike. Her essays have appeared in fullgrownpeople.com, The Manifest-Station, and The Rumpus.

Ghost Lessons

Photo by Dead Cat, via Flickr

I have lived many lives in addition to my own. I have heard the best stories, been influenced by the best wisdom, learned life-giving lessons, laughed at the best jokes, had the most fascinating experiences. This is because I have been a ghost for nearly twenty years, and have ghostwritten, rewritten, or developmentally edited over seventy books. (This doesn’t count the books I’ve written for me.)

I tell my clients their life stories and the lessons they’ve learned are vitally important, that what they feel, think, say, and do matters. To them, their families, their communities, to history itself. I am now taking my own advice by writing a new book, tentatively titled My Life As a Ghost, which shares what I’ve learned from all these lives that are not my own. I can’t share the actual stories because they don’t belong to me, but what I’ve learned does.

A ghost has to learn to think like someone else, even others radically different than her. Like actors, ghostwriters play many roles, just on the page instead of the stage. Unlike an actor, I’m not constrained by my gender, age, race, or culture. I am a middle-aged white American woman from the West Coast. But as a ghostwriter, I’ve been an African-American man from New York, a Japanese-American woman, an Iranian immigrant, a self-described redneck from Oklahoma, and oh yes, some middle-aged white American women. I’ve been many ages, from 20 to 90. I’ve been a doctor, an accountant, an entrepreneur, a cop, a scientist, a shaman, a gardener. Etcetera.

But here is the main thing I’ve learned over the years of pretending to be someone else. At heart we are all the same. We all want to love and be loved. We all want our lives to be meaningful. We all want to explore possibilities and practice our talents. And we are all so gloriously different in how we express our wants.

I love being a ghost.

Kim Pearson is an author, ghostwriter, and owner of Primary Sources, a writing service that helps others become authors of professional and compelling books and articles. She has authored 12 books of her own, and ghostwritten more than 45 non-fiction books and memoirs. To learn more about her books or services, visit kimpearson.me.

Love Month and More

February is Love Month on The Blood Red Pencil. Of course, it’s Valentine’s Day month. I have to admit I’m not the mushy type. I don’t leave little hearts or xoxo on my notes, never did. I don’t do squiggly hugs either, though I do write the word when I want to hug someone in person but can't. Hugs.

I love my family and love my friends. I have friends I’ve known for almost my whole life. We stay in contact and still care what happens to each other, maybe more than ever now that we’re older. We’ve been through marriages, divorces, births, serious illnesses, and death, but our bonds are still strong. They’re family and in some ways closer because we knew each other through grade school, teen years, through schoolgirl crushes, loves, college, travels, and beyond. We were silly and stupid and crazy together and did things I’d never admit to my own children. One made me promise I wouldn’t tell her son that she drove 100 miles an hour down the beach road with me riding shotgun. Of course I never would.

My sons are gone, living their own lives. I love the women they’ve chosen, so I’m lucky in that respect. The closest is four hours away by car; the other farther. In 2014, I became a grandmother for the first time at--cough-cough, sputter-sputter--years old. Ella is very much like her daddy: determined, smart, and fearless, with a touch of temper. She's a charmer, and I have no doubt she’ll turn out to be as fine a person as both her parents. It had been thirty-three years since I held an infant, but it all came back to me as if it were yesterday. The warmth of the cuddle, the sweet baby fragrance.

Last year, my husband became ill. Illness changes people and it changes lives, whether it’s your illness or someone you love. It tests you until you wonder how strong you are or how patient, how loving and compassionate. I try. I don’t think I always succeed.

And then there’s Bogie, my dog, a stray my son rescued from the streets of Savannah. The pup had my name written all over him, and he wound up in the perfect place, for him and for me. I say my dog because he’s totally attached to me. He follows me everywhere, even sleeps with me. I’m never alone even at my loneliest, and he makes me smile every day, even when I don’t feel like smiling.

We’re born without our permission, we grow up, we love, we win some, we lose some. February 14th comes around every year. We shouldn’t let sharing our emotions depend only on a gushy card or a call or a few roses, but to take inner stock of what’s important―who we love, who loves us. This year, my husband and I received the best present of all: a puzzle from Ella that she made, maybe with a little help. We had fun putting it together, and we’ll keep it forever and ever and ever.

Whatever genre we write, we draw from deep inside us those life experiences we remember with a clarity we could never convey if we hadn't felt them. Love is one of the most powerful of all emotions. Who among us fails to remember our first love, though decades have passed, the sweet smell of a newborn, or the warmth and security of a beloved parent? Happy Love Month.

Polly Iyer is the author of eight novels: standalones Hooked, InSight, Murder Déjà Vu, Threads, and Indiscretion, and three books in the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, Mind Games, Goddess of the Moon, and Backlash. A Massachusetts native, she makes her home in the beautiful Piedmont region of South Carolina. You can visit her website for more on Polly and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

#Friday Reads - One Perfect Love

To me there is something rejuvenating that happens in February. January is cold and dreary and dismal here in East Texas, and I always feel a letdown after the the Holidays that were filled with so much celebrating and excitement.

Then there is February, and my spirits are lifted.

Maybe it's because I can feel Spring hovering just around the corner. Often, we have an early warm- up the first weeks of  February, and if I look closely enough, I can see the first bits of green in my front pasture, and tiny white flower sprinkled across it.

But my spirits are also lifted because of Valentine's Day. I love all the bright displays of candy and trinkets in the stores, and the lovely bouquets of flowers. For so many people it is a time for celebrating love, and who doesn't enjoy a bit of romance? That is one reason that sales of romance novels continues to dominate the publishing marketplace.

With that in mind, I thought this was a great time to tell you about my latest book, One Perfect Love: Sequel to One Small Victory.

When I was working with the editor at Five Star Cengage/Gale before One Small Victory came out in hardback, she kept encouraging me to add more romance and spice to the story. (I wrote a little about that here in 2014 in a post To Romance or Not. ) But there were many reasons that the central characters, Jenny and Steve, could not do the wild thing within that story, even though sparks had been igniting between them. She was a civilian, working in a special capacity with a drug task force, reporting directly to Steve. Romance could not complicate their working relationship, even though they were both unattached.

There was also the matter of their emotional fragility. Jenny's oldest son had just been killed in a car accident, and Steve was still reeling from the death of his wife two years before the story of One Small Victory opened. They both realized that was not the best time to try to establish any kind of romantic relationship.

One Small Victory was published in June 2008 in hardback, and then in 2010, I released the e-book version and paperback. In 2012, Books in Motion released the audio book.

In the years since, many readers asked me if there was ever going to be a happy-ever-after for Jenny and Steve. They wanted to know what happens next for their story.

Several times, I toyed with the idea of writing a sequel, but nothing came to me until one day Jenny popped back into my head. I just love when characters do that. Since she was talking to me, I sat down at my computer and wrote the first few hundred words of the story late last summer, then finished the book in the fall.

At that time, I desperately needed to write something, as this nasty Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, with complications in my ear and right eye, as well as the postherpetic neuralgia on my face and scalp, had limited my writing time for too long. So I decided to write a novella. That was doable with only an hour or two of computer time, and it did wonders for my state of mind, which was not great last year.

When I started to write One Perfect Love, I was thrilled that Jenny and Steve came back like old friends dropping in. I didn't have to struggle at all to bring them to life. They were already living inside my head, and we had a grand time telling, "The rest of the story," as Paul Harvey was noted for saying.

Have you written a sequel to any of your books several years after the first book? Did the characters come back to you like Jenny and Steve did for me? Do you read sequels?

Maryann Miller - novelist, editor and sometimes actress. Her most recent mystery, Doubletake, was named the 2015 Best Mystery by the Texas Association of Authors. She has a number of other books published, including the critically-acclaimed Season Series that debuted with Open Season. Information about her books and her editing rates is available on her website. When not writing, Maryann likes to take her dog for a walk and work outside on her little ranch in East Texas.

To My Valentine, the Deadline

My dearest darling Deadline,

you keep my focus clear

by pestering my conscience as

submission time draws near.

I never have to wonder what

I’m gonna do today,

for each idea that sounds like fun

must needs be thrust away.

“Oh, no you don’t!” you counsel,

“You cannot run around.

You’ve got to get that blog post done;

it’s time to buckle down.”

I took a call this morning;

my friend was free for lunch.

You stopped that plan before its start,

“No time! We’re in a crunch!”

I thrill to hear your nagging,

it leaves me overjoyed.

Although it sucks to be stuck home,

at least I’m still employed.

You’re shrill and you’re annoying;

you fill my mind with shame.

But since you keep me on my toes,

I love you just the same.

And so, beloved Deadline,

to you I’ve penned this ode.

I could be having fun right now,

but you’re my constant goad.

When she's not dealing with deadlines, Audrey Lintner loves to bake, especially if the recipe includes lots of chocolate. She runs the recently-launched ALTO Editing Services, and is on a mission to someday knit up her yarn stash.

For Love or Money?

The past three years were challenging to say the least. From a pileup of rare autoimmune diseases, to a cancer scare, then nearly dying from an emergency operation, my body was under siege. Then my husband retired and we moved from one state to another.

The demands on my time were endless. I barely had time to breathe much less write. My vacillation on whether to continue writing didn't start there, but it certainly escalated.

With the move, my writing peeps were now a two-hour plane ride away and I didn't have high hopes of finding a tribe in my new location.

The hubs and I had always dreamed about how we would travel Europe once we had the free time. Due to pharmaceutical tethers and an uncooperative carcass, that is unlikely to happen now.

However, living in the land of eternal summer, there are so many things to do and a new social whirl that eats up the time between doctor visits. Not to mention our new 24/7 togetherness. Gone are the twelve to fourteen hour days of alone time with the cats and a laptop. Two workaholics attempting "retirement" is certainly an interesting social experiment.

As a result, I find myself asking: What is the best use of my remaining time?

I have never made a lot of money off my writing. Mainly because marketing and publicity are things I just don't have the passion for. I always joked that I didn't care about fame and didn't need the money. But the truth is, I have a deep-seated dislike for being the center of attention. I have always preferred giving rather than receiving. Although passionate about the topics, I have never been comfortable talking in public and am not a natural teacher. As an INTJ personality type, I have always preferred my intellectual fortress over the messy real world.

What has remained consistent is my love of the work and the desire to help other people. When people tell me I have helped them, it is the greatest compliment.

Last month, I had pretty much decided to walk away from writing entirely. But it isn't that easy. The ideas continue to arrive. The muses bug me every time I am alone: in the shower, at the wheel of the car, sitting in medical waiting rooms. I still love the work. Perhaps it is the addiction, but I find it difficult to stop cold turkey.

I always had the plan to write a workbook for each genre covered in Story Building Blocks I: The Four Layers of Conflict. So this year, I am plunging ahead and adding fourteen genre workbooks to the series. Nonfiction is easy for me.

So I decided that even if I don't make much, it isn't costing me anything but time. I still have the love of work and if I help even one writer it is worth it.

I am not alone in the internal struggle over whether to write for love or money or whether writing is a suitable use of my time if I am not raking in J. K. Rowling's cash.

Writing can be time spent in happy occupation. You can still use your skills to help and entertain other people.

More importantly, with the world in chaos, there has never been a more urgent time for writers to use their voices to make a difference.

I can't tell anyone else what to do. I can only pose the question: Since there is no guarantee of money, is it worth your time to write for the love?

Diana Hurwitz is the author of Story Building Blocks: The Four Layers of Conflict, Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict, Story Building Blocks III: The Revision Layers, and the YA adventure series Mythikas Island. Her weekly blog, Game On: Crafting Believable Conflict explores how characters behave and misbehave. Visit DianaHurwitz.com for more information and free writing tools. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Lowcountry Crime - #FridayReads

I was pleased when Jim Jackson asked me to contribute to an anthology titled Lowcountry Crime. Each story involves a crime north of cozy, south of noir, and take place in the lowcountry. For those of you who don’t know what the lowcountry is, the area can best be described as that portion of the Southeastern United States characterized by low country, generally flat—whether barrier island, tidal marsh, tidal river valleys, swamps, piney forests, or great cities like Charleston and Savannah.

Lowcountry Crime is published by Wolf Echo Press and is available here. Individual novellas are available on every ebook platform. I’ve read and enjoyed all three of the other stories. Here’s a rundown:

Trouble Like A Freight Train Coming,

by Tina Whittle is a prequel to her Tai Randolph Mysteries. Tai is accustomed to murder and mayhem…of the fictional variety. As a tour guide in Savannah, Georgia, she’s learned the tips are better when she seasons her stories with a little blood here, a little depravity there. She’s less experienced in real life criminality, however, preferring to spend her days sleeping late and her nights hitting the bars. But when she gets the news that her trouble-making cousin has keeled over while running a marathon, Tai finds herself in a hot mess of treachery and dirty dealings. Worst of all, the clues lead her straight into the moonshine-soaked territory of the most infamous smuggler in Chatham County—her Uncle Boone.

The novella is set in Savannah several years prior to the inheritance of her Atlanta gun shop and her first encounter with security agent Trey Seaver, who ultimately becomes her partner in both romance and crime solving. For readers familiar with the rest of Tai’s adventures, this story is a chance to watch her develop her sleuthing chops. For those meeting Tai for the first time, welcome to her slightly reckless, somewhat hungover, not-quite-respectable world.

Polly: I’ve read a couple of the Tai/Trey books and loved them, so I thoroughly enjoyed this novella. Check out all of Tina’s books.


Blue Nude, by Jonathan M. Bryant introduces us to Brad Sharpe, who has problems. Not just the problems you would expect resulting from traumatic injury and a destructive divorce.

His ex-wife has gone missing and a priceless Picasso has been stolen. The cops have pegged Brad as a person of interest in both cases. Worse, a violent sociopath might want Brad dead. Only with the help of friends and his knowledge of the Georgia Lowcountry can Brad fight to clear his name and resolve the case of the Blue Nude.

Polly: I found the descriptions of the area fascinating. I didn’t know any of it, and now I want to go exploring. Check out all of Jonathan’s books.

In Low Tide at Tybee, James M. Jackson

brings three of his Seamus McCree series characters (Seamus, his darts-throwing mother, and his now six-year-old granddaughter, Megan) to Tybee Island, Georgia to vacation and escape winter up north. Megan spots a thief going through their beach bags, after which their vacation unravels with a series of twists and turns that will leave you guessing until the end, trying to figure out who done what.

Polly: In Jim’s series, which I’ve also read, Seamus is a financial crime investigator, and that opens the door to some interesting stories. Check out all of Jim’s books.


And finally, The Last Heist by yours truly. Coincidentally, my last published novel, Kindle Scout winner, Indiscretion, takes place partly in Charleston, so I resurrected my diamond thief character, Paul Swan, and built the story around him. It takes place pre-Indiscretion while Paul is still active in his not-chosen-but-forced-upon-him profession. You have to read the novel to find out why, but I digress.

Paul Swan travels the world buying exotic automobiles for wealthy clients, but underneath his believable cover is a first-class, never-been-caught diamond thief. When he sees a picture in the Charleston newspaper of a magnificent diamond necklace on the wife of a visiting South American strongman, he can’t resist the temptation to steal it. Paul doesn’t anticipate what he finds in the hotel room’s safe besides the jewels. Now he has to figure out how to stop a political catastrophe without exposing himself as the thief who stole the diamonds, and he has three people complicating his effort: a sexy TV reporter angling for a story, a suspicious cop eager for an arrest, and a rogue mercenary bent on ending his life.

Check out all my other books on Amazon.

I hope you will enjoy a trip to the lowcountry. Consider the area for your next vacation.

Polly Iyer is the author of eight novels: standalones Hooked, InSight, Murder Déjà Vu, Threads, and Indiscretion, and three books in the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, Mind Games, Goddess of the Moon, and Backlash. A Massachusetts native, she makes her home in the beautiful Piedmont region of South Carolina. You can visit her website for more on Polly and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

No One Loves Writer's Block

Photo by Abi Skipp, via Flickr

Each of us knows the pain. We sit at our desk/dining table/log in the woods, inhale, and poise our fingers to tap-dance across our keyboards.

Nothing comes.

We exhale, crinkle our noses, and reposition our hands.

Still nothing.

Here are methods which have worked for me. Love them…use them…throw them aside.

Have a bath. Words flow. However, if you haven’t brought a pen/paper with you and have it resting on the tub’s edge/handy table, those words will disappears as quickly as the water down the drain.

Go for a drive. I learned this technique from a writer-friend. It does work. I talk to myself and talk my way out of the problem. However, use a recording app or something similar. Writing notes and driving is not recommended. I also keep a pad of paper and pen in the car to record sporadic inspirations….once I’ve reached my destination of course! Safety first.

Walk. Not an amble or a stroll... a walk. Swing those arms. Turn on that recording app. As the number of steps increase so will your words.

Revisit your first notes on your project. Touch what inspired that primary fire. It may spark up for you again.

Bake cookies. This may unjam your block, it may not, but cookies are always a good idea.

Your words may stop when you’ve written yourself into a deep plot hole. Go back and find out where you started the unconscious digging and thus avoid the hole and the stoppage.

Work on something else. It’s amazing how many times my brain will untie the knots of another plot while I’m working on something else. However, I write mysteries. This may have something to do with it.

Remember why you’re writing and what you’re writing will follow. Maybe.

Pay attention to your pet. Like the baking of cookies, this is a win-win.

Elspeth Futcher is a bestselling author of murder mystery games and playwright. She has been the top selling author at host-party.com since 2011. Her British games are published by Red Herring Games in the UK. Elspeth's 'writing sheep' are a continuing feature in the European writers' magazine Elias and also appear on this blog from time to time. Connect with her on Twitter at @elspethwrites or on Facebook at Elspeth Futcher, Author.

Love 'Em or Love to Hate 'Em — How Do You Feel About Your Characters?

When writing my first book, A Brother Betrayed, I included several lovable characters. They were imperfect as we all are but good of heart and motive—like friends and family. Then I came face to face with the antagonist, a truly despicable man who failed to display a single redeeming quality. A beta reader reminded me that no one is all bad. Really? An image of Adolph Hitler came immediately to mind—and memories of the millions in concentration camps who'd died at his command. I've never read or heard a single good thing about that man. Still, my reader had a point, and I tried to find something positive about my antagonist. It didn't happen.

Now, twenty years later, I have revisited the story and rethought my antagonist. He's still despicable. I still love to hate him. But in the updated version, the reader will get a few glimpses into what happened to the little boy that created the abusive man he grew up to be. Are they enough to make him lovable? Not in my book (pun intended).

Three antagonists populate my multi-layered second book, Tormented Tango, The first appears early in the story but isn't identified as an antagonist until near the end. Surprisingly, I never hated her, but rather sympathized with the torment that drove her to become a threat to those she loved, as well as to
others.

The second antagonist I disliked from the first moment she appeared in the story, even though at that time she wasn't openly antagonistic. Interestingly, I couldn't put my finger on why she infuriated me; but as the story progressed, my dislike grew into full-fledged loathing. By the end of the book, I loved hating her.

My third antagonist in Tango is a secondary character, an unscrupulous lawyer who's climbing the judicial ladder to bigger and better paying positions and greater notoriety. He's so enamored with himself that he doesn't need anybody else to love him. Good thing!

How do you feel about your characters? Do you love them? Love to hate them? Are they real enough to you to evoke an emotional response as they tell you their stories?

Editor Linda Lane has returned to her first love—writing—while maintaining her editing work. She also helps new and not-so-new writers improve their skills through posts on Blood Red Pencil and offers private tutoring as well as online seminars. You can contact her through her writing website, LSLaneBooks.com. Also, you can visit her editing team at DenverEditor.com to find experienced editors in a variety of genres to help you polish your book into a marketable work.

Related posts:

Reinventing the Hero
Showing Some Love
Villains Are People Too
When's the Last Time You Took Your Antagonist on a Date?

The Foundation that Holds Us Together

Looking outside my window I see a lovely field, sundappled and windblown. The goats are browsing along its edge, wishing, I bet, for the fresh leaves they remember from summer. The children are working on a playhouse outside, the dogs running and barking, hoping to entice them to play. The gardens are mulched now, and I know that come Spring we will be harvesting rocks for days before we can plant a single seed. The Ozarks are beautiful, with a surface abundance that belies their rock and clay skeleton. A wild, beautiful place that reminds me of another land that I loved and called home for almost ten years.

I once saw an optical illusion, where if you looked at a drawing a certain way it looked like a young woman, but from another angle it appeared to be an elderly one. Yemen is like that, the old and the new juxtaposed, shifting, always giving a glimpse of one when you are looking at the other. I found this especially to be true in the villages, where life goes on in the same manner it has for hundreds of years, while the people are struggling to enter into the twenty-first century. Brightly colored clothing splashed against a backdrop of varied browns and tired greens, the heady fragrance of bread and spices at noontime, the call of the vegetable sellers unchanging, making time fluid, hard to hold onto.

The same things that draw me to the Ozarks drew me to Yemen, and, before that, to the Driftless Region of Southwestern Wisconsin. Place, for me, often echoes what I value in myself and others. Strength, for one, as shown in the trees that come up in spite of the bad soil and rocks that make up the land itself. Honesty, the knowledge that what you see is what you get, mixed with hope that what is there can be improved with hard work, attention, and love. Compassion tempered with fate, something everyone who raises animals understands. I have lived in many places in my life, but the ones I have truly connected to have lived for me, and taught me more about myself than I would ever have thought possible.

Yemen, right now, is a hotspot, an incredibly poor country being made even poorer by the war that is raging across it, the same war that caused me to leave it when the Arab Spring was in full bloom. I am guessing that even now, very few people could pinpoint it on a map, or list any of the major cities, yet alone speak of the rich history and culture of this ancient land. To me, having walked both it and my home in America with love, respect, and reverence, the differences between them are beautiful and soul stretching. Yet, it is the chords that run through both of them, holding them together even in their diversity, that touch me the deepest. My love of both lands will make my upcoming book, Yemeni Journey, a bridge that connects them, celebrating the richness of difference while at the same time showing that truly, the foundation that runs beneath them unites us, and keep us strong.

Khadijah Lacina lives on a small homestead in rural Missouri with her children, goats, chickens, cats, dogs, and an elusive bobcat. She is passionate about speaking up and working for change, and is writing a book about the ten years she spent in Yemen. She is a writer, teacher, translator, herbalist, and fiber artist.