The Power of Story Telling
The Woman in the Photograph is on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and can be ordered through your independent book store. I’ve done a few “book salons” in private homes, and have a reading/signing at Pegasus Bookstore in North Berkeley, CA on June 21, the longest day of the year. I have worked so hard to bring this story to a form that I can share with other people. It’s been a yearning in my heart, knowing that the specifics may not be the same in your life, but everyone has inherited a family legacy that is weaving its unresolved issues and efforts to come into balance in your life, often without your really knowing all the details.
Each time someone asked me what the book is about, I struggled to find a simple sentence that could at least point in that direction. Now, thanks to a lovely testimonial from one of my favorite writers, Elizabeth Rosner, author of The Speed of Light and more recently, Blue Nude. Here are her words:
“The Woman in the Photograph” is an eloquent account of a daughter’s transformational journey into the heart of her mother’s hidden past. Although Ms. Rosner’s books are fiction, the core issues she works with are so similar to my own. On her own site, her recent book tour in Germany bears this description: Ms. Rosner will be discussing themes of inherited grief and the power of storytelling to help heal the complex legacy of the Second World War generation.
So often in discussions surrounding my book, I hear that very theme–from an African American man whose family never talked about their history though she knew that a great grandmother has been born a slave, from a woman born in El Salvadore who lost several relatives, and a friend from the Czech Republic who only recently discovered the truth of what happened to her grandparents. All are finding the power of story telling, especially in allowing creativity to enhance understanding. Creativity is a step into unknown terrain. Creativity takes courage and the willingness to be uncertain, sometimes groundless, but to listen to your intuition and go forward. We know more than our minds alone know.
One of the main reasons I independently published my book was because I felt it needed to come out now. The generation that lived through the Holocaust and World War II is almost gone. My mother would have been 98 next month. Some of the people who lived through this period of history have had their stories written or recorded. Many have not. It seemed really important to me that the story of my mother’s herstory come out in 2012. In the world of traditional publishing, a good publishing process could take two years. For my last book it was a year of submissions to agents and then her pitching the book to dozens of publishers. The company that produced “Journey from Anxiety to Freedom” set its publication date for a year later, and often that process takes 18 months. I didn’t want to wait. And I didn’t want you to wait.
So here it is. Don’t wait to read it. And don’t wait to write from your heart. Enjoy.