Category: My Journey
Memoir Writing Update: Wherever the Road Leads
I can’t believe it’s been two years since I posted my last blog! How could it have taken so long to write my memoir? Originally, I set a goal for myself to finish within a year. For twelve months, I poured over old letters, studied maps, looked up details of time and place on the…
A Memoir of Love and Travel Van-Life Style
Travel is my passion and my way of learning about the world. What was the most influential journey of your life? How has travel changed your perspective? The first question is an easy one for me — it was my honeymoon! Granted, my honeymoon was a bit different…
A Summer Book for Young Readers
After two years promoting my adult novel, Immigrant Soldier, I decided go back to my roots – children’s literature. As a result of the publication of the novel, I now have my very own publishing company. Why not publish a children’s book? Last February, I pulled out one of my favorite children’s manuscripts – a work where…
My Mother’s Secret – A Self-Publication Success
I have to admit, Amazon has my number! Whenever I sign in to my account on their website, I get a display of “featured recommendations,” and when I order a book, I am shown selections that “customers who bought this item also bought.” It was one of these suggestions that lead me to the wonderful…
Book Promotion for the Self-Published Author
As a self-published author, the job of book promotion landed directly on my shoulders. It also soon became clear that some venues for sales were not open to Immigrant Soldier because it was self-published, or at best, were difficult to break into. Over the last year, I have tried a variety of promotional avenues…
The Real Clara Lang: Holocaust Survivor
When I speak with book groups, they almost always ask me questions about the real people behind the novel’s characters. Women readers especially want to know more about Herman’s mother, Clara. “Did she ever see Albert again?” is one of their most frequently asked questions. Telling readers more about…
A Writers’ Workshop -“Turning a True Story into Fiction.”
Last summer, as I planned a trip to the Dayton area, I contacted several organizations in southwestern Ohio which I thought might be interested in hearing one of my presentations and was pleased when I heard from the Dayton Metro Library that they were intrigued by my proposal for “More Than Simply…
The True Story of General Patton’s New Boots
My last blog explained the process of expanding and fictionalizing the true stories Herman told me. This imagining and expanding of Herman’s memories was great creative fun. Far more difficult, but equally important, was culling redundant or irrelevant sections so the novel maintained a momentum to keep the reader engaged. …
Truth vs Fiction: A Book Group Question about Immigrant Soldier
When I am speaking with book clubs who have read Immigrant Soldier, one of the questions I am most often asked is: “What parts are true and what bits are totally from the author’s imagination?” Naturally in the limited time we usually have, and in the limited space of a blog post, I cannot go through the…
The Ritchie Boys and D-Day
I have just returned from a trip to France which included almost a month in a Brittany village and a tour with Road Scholar. Because of my interest in World War II, the highlight of the tour was the two days dedicated to learning about the Normandy Landings on D-Day. We visited…