It is now mid-summer, and high time for me to write a new blog. I am very excited to have plans to travel to the Yucatán Peninsula the first week of September. While there, I will be accompanied by a bilingual tour guide from that area. My purpose in going, in addition to seeing the beautiful countryside, towns, and cities, and meeting the local people, is to do research for my prequel to Klara’s Truth, which [...]
It’s now been about ten months since Klara’s Truth was first released, and I’ve happily had several book events and discussions during that time. One of many questions I’ve gotten on more than a few occasions is, “Can Klara’s mother really be that mean? Can parents really be that awful?” One audience member responded that she thought Klara’s mother, Bessie’s character, seemed more like a caricature of a bad mother than someone real. As I nodded [...]
It is the beginning of a new year, and there is so much division in the world between various factions, it’s hard to know where to begin. Klara’s Truth which came out six months ago is about trauma and healing within the context of the present-day repercussions of the Holocaust. It’s about both learning from our history so we don’t repeat the ongoing fighting and killing of one another, and it’s also about healing from our [...]
Many people say that we must learn from history so that we do not repeat the same past mistakes. While I would certainly agree with this, I would add that we must also work to heal from our histories as well as to know them, as preparation for and prevention against repeating the detrimental parts, the ones where we hurt others and got hurt ourselves. This includes our societal histories, cultural histories, family histories, and individual [...]
Setting healthy boundaries is an important skill we all must master from the time we are children throughout our adulthoods to preserve our sense of self. If you put your arms straight out, making a 90-degree angle with the rest of your body, everything inside that space is considered your own “personal space.” This gets tricky in crowded areas but is generally a good rule of thumb. However, our emotional boundaries are often much more difficult to [...]
As a trauma therapist I’ve often worked with people on developing their resilience in dealing with traumatic events, relationships, and upbringings. In our Western society, we often think of resilience as something we need to build on our own so that we can be more independent. The truth is we are all much more interdependent than we may believe, and it is through this interdependence that we can heal. When people are depressed, they commonly complain [...]
Finally, after many months of waiting, planning, and waiting some more, my debut novel, Klara’s Truth, will launch next week, on Tuesday, June 11th, and expectant readers should receive their pre-order copy on that day. It has certainly been a long journey with an ever-growing learning curve—first learning how to write and edit a novel, then learning how difficult it is to get published, then finding a wonderful hybrid publisher in She Writes Press, and then [...]
Klara’s Truth will now be coming out in three-and-a-half weeks. I can’t believe it! So much goes into writing a debut novel, particularly when coming from a different professional background. There is a large, long learning curve that needs to occur, first in the writing and editing process, then in finding a home for one’s book, and finally in marketing it. I don’t believe any author goes into this field thinking they’re looking forward to the [...]
This week, I just received two boxes of books of the final version of Klara’s Truth which will soon be going out into the world on June 11th. I have to say, receiving and opening those boxes was very exciting! It made me contemplate the reality of what it means for a book I wrote to be released into the world. It means that the story that came out of me no longer belongs to just [...]
Until we walk in someone else's shoes, we cannot know their full experience and they in turn cannot know ours. A collaborative understanding and perspective doesn't mean we believe and think exactly the same way as the other person, but it is how we grow and learn from one another. We may not agree on all points, in fact we probably won't, but we can glean a lot from each other as we continue to communicate [...]