Down the Long Lane Helping Women Write
My family taught me to love life and tell stories.
Of all my family’s stories I have to share, I started writing a memoir about my brother Chuck first because he died first and was dearest to me for so many reasons. I finished the manuscript a number of years ago, but after getting some feedback from editors, I decided it needed to be completely structured and put it in the drawer to first finish my YA novel Rose Glass Horse, a story about a troubled girl who is forced to move in with her horse-trainer mom whom she hates for leaving her and her dad in Illinois to follow her mom’s dream job all the way to the high desert of California. With the YA complete and on submission, I am returning to reworking my memoir and will be working on it in the coming months.
I love watching my horses roll. When I let the horses out in the morning, Charlie, the bay colt throws his head up, shakes his sleepy sand-filled eyes awake, bucks and rears, twisting toward the two chestnut mares, Sonia and Maggie, who dance and prance in the crisp morning air.
I always knew my oldest brother Mike was an artist, but I never imagined him as a soldier. Going to war seemed to conflict with his gentle nature. The three of us grew up living in lake towns outside of Detroit.
n response to Maria Shriver’s question, “What gift did your mom give you?” I must answer, INTUITION and EMPATHY.
I lost my mom six years ago, but since I’ve been working on my memoir over the last four years, we’ve had daily conversations with her (no, I’m not crazy. I talk with the mom who lives in my head, along with all my other characters, real or imagined).
