NEWS OF MUSIC AND BOOKS

I find that I've had visitors to this site, but wish I'd hear from more friends known and unknown. Now that I'm linking to my Facebook site perhaps there'll be some action!

NEW MUSIC BLOG:

I've a new blog for my musical ventures called Heron d'Elle which is a pun: it means, with French spelling, a swallow. But with the French pronoun Elle, Her Heron. Namely, mine! there are so often herons on my dock. Here's Heri the heron, photo by daughter Tina Botond. (An arcane bit of information: daughter Lila tells me that the word for "happy" in Swahili is, "heri.")

Supposedly a CD called AMBUSH is coming out being promoted by Jeffrey Collins and the label FAMOUS RECORDS CORP., and to be distributed later by Universal. It's very interesting to me as ten of my songs are included. The artist, Robby Wayne Varner, is from Rockport; his father, Hughes Varner, is pastor of the Fulton Community Church. When I have it, I'll post information on Robby and the CD onto my empty Heron d'Elle blog.


NEW BOOK UNDERWAY:

I'm over 20,000 words into my third book, a memoir on my first ten years in Shanghai, China. This covers an extraordinary period when vast luxury and glamour lived side by side with utmost misery and death on the streets, and three wars were going on simultaneously. I don't have a final name for it but for now it is called Bitter Tea on the Great Wall. The first ten pages of the book were recognized among the Finalists in the June Austin, TX Writers League conference.


ACTION ON FIRST AND SECOND BOOKS:

In the meantime, an abridgement of my first book, To Bernard Berenson with Love, is appearing next month in a publication not on the book stands, but which reaches a broad and interesting audience. When I figure out how to do it, I'll add the photo of the book cover and the Amazon code to the right side of this blog.

And, I've been asked to lead a workshop on my second book, Survivor's Guide to Grief, on how friends can help a person paralyzed by grief, and also, on recognizing vital signs.

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The fish are jumping, really they are, on the canal a few feet from my dock. I just have to stop to watch them. More soon.

Slideshow of soldiers from the Marshall Islands who are fightibng in Iraq

I think that most Americans aren't aware that young men and women from the Marshall Islands and other Micronesian nations are fighting side-by-side with Americans in Iraq and other areas. I have found photographs of some of these in an online publication called Yokwe Yuk (sort of like "Aloha" in Hawaii, meaning hello, goodbye, I love you) and want you to meet them. Some of their elders are old enough to remember the American Marine landings in World War II. If any of my readers know anything about the landings in Enewetak, please let me know.

Slideshow

NEW VENTURES

Good morning!

I'm upgrading my "social presence." Also my work presence. Seems that these are linked.

I'm beginning to add pieces of my writing to "SCRIBD" which is an amazing new facility for writers of all kinds. Your books can be sold, your lyrics published, your thoughts immemorialized, your ego pampered.

To date I've published two pieces in SCRIBD on Micronesia: a short memoir, "The E.T. and the Man from Bikini" which is about my day with the nuclear-affected people of Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands; I am, of course, the Extra Terrestrial in the story. Then, I've published "The Micronesia Institute: a Twenty-Year Review."

Later I will offer for sale in the SCRIBD "book store" my first book, To Bernard Berenson With Love, and, abstracts from my present book, Survivor's Guide to Grief" which should have been called the How To Book for Idiots on Dealing with Death."

Underway is my next book: Tea on the Great Wall (working name) on being a little girl growing up in Shanghai, China when three wars were on-going: the Communists vs the Nationalist government, the Japanese invasion of China, and the reach of Nazi Germany into our community.

Marketing my beautiful book on grief is very hard for me especially as it relates to the unexpected death of my husband C. Brewster Chapman a good many years ago. With its completion I've been better able to steer myself away from that subject into other activities; but the marketing must be done or the book won't have surved its purpose of being of real help on the most emotional, most primitive level, to people who are suffering. Knowledge of the value of the book must reach these vulnerable people who are without protective skins, without defenses.

Next Posting I'll quote some of the great review I've had. Meantime, come greet me on Facebook!

THE CONTENTS OF "SURVIVOR'S GUIDE TO GRIEF"

People have asked what this book includes. The most practical way to answer is, to post the contents. I apologize for the fact that all the separated lines and columns are here lumped together. Didn't expect the post to look like this! Hope you will take the time to make sense of the blur of lines. Working with blogs takes arcane skills.


CONTENTS

PROLOGUE
Learning about Vital Signs

CHAPTER 1. OUR LAST FIVE DAYS
At home
The hospital

CHAPTER 2. THE FIRST WEEKS
Immediate care for the survivor
Rituals
Notifying people

CHAPTER 3. AWFUL MONTHS
Lunacy 101: Administration of the estate
Taxes: Here a paper, there a paper,
Multiple personalities of grief
Time line: emotional trampoline

CHAPTER 4. GROWING LEGS
Part 1: IDENTITY: ½ x 0 = 0
Fail-safe rescues
Plans: drift with the tide
No-work food
No-work exercises
Maintenance of the grave
Part 2: SOCIAL LIFE
Parties
Dear Diary
Entertaining at home
Appearance
part 3: THE FUTURE FOR ME

APPENDICES

I End of Life Care:
Interview, Christopher Lucci, MD
"Vital Signs: Basic Functions of Life”

Notes, Pat Mason, LMSW, RN
"Will the Treatment Cure?"

II A Man's View
“Similarities and Differences”

III A Mother's Anguish
"You Need to Get Help"

IV Helen Fitzgerald
Certified Death Educator
“The Emotional Response to Grief”

V A Registered Nurse:
“Sharing, Counsel, and Practical
Information on Hospitals
and Terminal Illness”

VI "How Friends Can Help"
Patricia Luce Chapman

AMAZING MOVIES: "SEVEN POUNDS," AND, "THE READER"

I've just seen two amazing and unusual movies on DVD, both of which end in an unexpected way. I can't tell you how, because that would spoil the viewing for you. The acting in both is superb. In "Seven Pounds" Will Smith, never before one of my heroes, conveys most complex, contradictory emotions, and he leaves us crying, but for the right reasons. I didn't know he had such depth and discipline. Ralph Fiennes (how is that pronounced?) in his "The Reader" leaves us profoundly moved; and the story evokes questions I'll bet you never considered. Co-star Kate Winslet's performance is astonishing. and worthy of the Oscar she received.

My latest book Survivor's Guide to Grief is moving along. It is helping several people I know who are trying to live through sudden death in their families. I wish I could reach all the families of the victims; you are victims too. How will the family of Natasha Richardson survive the total shock--one minute the lovely young woman is alive and vibrant and skiing, the next minute, with no warning, she has gone into the silence of death and can't be reached. Her young children, her husband, need help in trying to understand and deal with what has happened to their lives, now forever damaged. I have a friend whose wife was playing polo and suddenly the horse stumbled, she was thrown off, and the horse fell on top of her, killing her instantly. Her husband and children have asked me to send my book to them.

I am trying to learn how to create hyperlinks so that people looking for help will find me and this particular book. It has proven to be valuable.

It is different from most other books on the subject, including the recent elite success by Joan Didion, because mine is a narrative AND How To; it is not introspective but outward reaching; it is like a friend sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of coffee and talking over what on earth to do next. It isn't being reviewed by the "great" reviewers and media because it is self-published. However, it has had really remarkably good reviews in smaller outlets and in my next blog, I'll excerpt from them.

See you then!

"STARFISH'S NEW READERS; SONGWRITING SUCCESS

I'm finding that my book is travelling around to people who need it--exactly the people for whom I wrote it.

One mother found her daughter lying by the side of the road, dumped there by the people she'd been with when she OD'd. A very young widow's husband died suddenly from a heart attack. A mother can't recover from the grief of losing her husband. The book is being passed around--which doesn't help the sales but is greatly appreciated by me because all the work and expense of creating it is proving its value.

In giving talks on the book, everyone wants to hear about how friends can help. Earlier I discussed how to write a letter of condolence. Here's some of what you can do for your suffering friend:

Remember that however normal your friend appears to be, she or he will remain in shock for months. Don't say, "Let me know what I can do for you." She/he won't have any idea how to answer--every kind of help is needed. Take her/him [this pronoun thing is a pain, I'll just say "she" but please know that it's for men too] out to a quiet dinner, just three or four of you. Take her to a comic or mystery movie. Ask her to visit you in the country for a few days and then drive her there and back. The helplessness is hard to understand--but she won't get there on her own. Knowing how much I hate shopping for clothes, one friend forced me to go with her and picked out some new things for me to wear. The friend who brought me a quiche to eat doesn't remember doing it; but she is engraved in my heart.

You can't imagine the waves of pure gratitude that flow through a newly bereaved person at these simple acts of kindness.

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It seems that perhaps I will open a second kind of blog, this for those of my songs that are being published. It is thrilling to me to have ten of my songs--I think of them as sparkling little Christmas tree ornaments--due to be released in Nashville on March 30, 2009. The songs have the singer, the producer, the publisher, the label, the distributor. What may hold them up is the money for production and promotion.

THE VALUE OF A BEAUTIFUL COVER

Several people have bought my book "Survivor's Guide to Grief" first because they were attracted to the cover, then to the meaning behind the starfish: "Be like a starfish and grow new legs" when you have lost your life partner.

Cathi Stevenson, who designed this cover, found an arrangement and colors which immediately draw people to the book regardless of any existing interest in surviving grief. She has been courteous, intelligent, flexible, and all those good words in addition to having an amazing talent. For any authors who read this blog, I strongly recommend that you look up Cathi at www.bookcoverexpress.com.


In my last blog I set forth the kinds of Letters of Condolence which help, and those which hurt. The same conditions apply to Acts of Friendship.
There is no time in your life when friends are more necessary than when you are paralyzed by grief. Let me get through Hallowe'en and then I'll present thoughts which will I hope help you be a true friend. Booooooo!