Meet Tom Sechrist
1. Describe your book and its inception. What made you decide to write this?
“The Stones of Andarus” is the first book in The Devenshire Chronicles series. It introduces us to the main characters and sets up the premise for the rest of the series. A demented Master Mage named Xavier annihilates a village in order to obtain the Stones of Andarus, which legends claim contain a fragment of the power of creation mixed with the twisted essence of a crazed sorcerer named Andarus. Daimion Devenshire realizes what is at stake and sets off on a desperate quest to stop Xavier from unleashing the unholy power of these three ancient artifacts. Joining him on this adventure are a group of unlikely heroes including The Lady Brianna Standish, governing lord of Prothtow Province, Shantira Dubris, sole survivor of Xavier’s attack on her village, Raven Darkseed, rouge adept of the Mystical Arts and Zandorth Krahl, Warrior of the Ancient Class.
What made me decide to write this was a desire to write in a genre I had never tried before. Prior to “The Stones of Andarus”, I had writt
en manuscripts in multiple genres including westerns, science fiction, and detective/thrillers. I had always enjoyed a good Fantasy story and one day in 1998 I decided to try my hand at it. Little did I know that I was setting out on a story that would dominate and consume me for over a decade.
2. What were your influences? Is there anyone from your genre you especially admire?
My biggest influence when it comes to writing is Ms. Joynelle Pearson. When I was 13 I had a very explosive temper. One day that temper led me to punch a brick column in my schools court yard. Needless to say I wound up in the nurses station with an ice pack on my very swollen hand (thank goodness nothing was broken). Ms. Pearson happened to walk by and saw me sitting there. She lifted the towel over the ice pack and shook her head. She looked up at me and said, “You really should get a handle on that temper of yours. Have you ever tried writing a short story about whatever it was that angered you?” That piece of advice started me down the path of becoming a writer. At first they were just really bloody and violent short stories. As time went on I found that it really did help ease my temper and I really enjoyed the writing process. Those initial short stories started being expanded with actual plot lines, character development and so forth.
My other writing influences include Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Clive Cussler, Dean Koontz, Louis L’Amor and, of course, Tolkien. In the Fantasy genre I really enjoy C. S. Friedman, P. N. Elrod, and George R. R. Martin.
3. Many authors are heavily influenced by their environment when they write. Where is your safe space? Do you have mood music?
I don’t really have a designated place to write. Sometimes I write at my desk, sometimes I write in my backyard, and sometimes I write in my bedroom. I would have to say that my muse decides the environment I’m going to write in.
I absolutely have to have music blaring through my headphone when I’m writing. I have a very long playlist of all types of music on my computer. Everything from rock to rap to instrumental to big band to jazz, the list is practically endless. Sometimes I’ll pull up an Epic Music track on YouTube and write to that. Like my writing environment, it seems my muse picks the music as well.
4. What do you find to be the easiest of the writing and editing process? What is the hardest for you?
The easiest is the writing of the first draft. I don’t worry about the mechanics of writing, I just write, let the ideas flow and hope my fingers can get the ideas out as fast as my mind is producing them.
Editing gets tedious after the fifth or sixth time through the manuscript, but I enjoy the process of seeing where I’ve made mistakes and how to keep myself from repeating them. I also have a very talented editor (Rogena Mitchell-Jones) who has been a tremendous help in improving my editing skills.
The hardest part of the writing process has to be starting a new book. The excitement and urge to write are so strong and yet, getting that first sentence out has always been the hardest part for me. I’ve spent hour upon hour staring at that blank screen and blinking cursor and… nothing. I have lost count of how many millions of first sentences/paragraphs that I’ve deleted trying to get that new story started.
5. Many authors participate in book signings and conventions. Artistic authors like yourself who write and create for this genre do especially well at ComicCon and Comicpalooza. Are you interested in branching out into the event world? What would your ideal celebration of The Devenshire Chronicles look like?
I would love to branch out into the event world. I think book signings, conventions and other events where I can introduce readers to the world of The Devenshire Chronicles would be ideal. The perfect celebration of The Devenshire Chronicles would feature a booth with copies of all my books for sale, all sorts of book swag, portraits I’ve created of all the characters and a monitor set up playing the book trailers and other videos I’ve created for the series. I would be there signing copies of the books and talking with people about the books, writing and other creative processes. It would be great.
6. Did you learn anything about yourself or the world you live in by writing this book (that isn’t included in the book itself)?
Over the 16 years that I’ve been involved in The Devenshire Chronicles, namely The Stones of Andarus, I’ve watched myself grow as a writer and a person. I go back to the original first draft of Book 1 and I almost cringe at how bad the writing was. At the time I thought it was the best piece of literature ever produced, but looking back on it now, I can see how much I’ve grown. My wife has read both versions and she has made the observation that I’ve seasoned as a writer and a person since I began this story. As I have grown, I can see how the main characters of the story have grown as well. I have learned that while my skill as a writer has improved tremendously over the past decade, I still have much more to learn and that there is always room for improvement.
7. How have your friends and family reacted to your content?
My friends and family have been tremendously supportive of my writing. I have to temper their praise with the fact that they are my friends and family, but it’s good to have that kind of support.
One of my friends is hooked on the series and is always asking me when the next book is coming out and that I need to hurry up. She says she actually misses the main characters in between books and can’t wait for the next one.
My wife, Renee, is, without a doubt, my staunchest supporter and the primary reason Book 1 was ever published. When I met her three years ago I had given up on ever publishing The Devenshire Chronicles. She read part of “The Stones of Andarus” and encouraged me to keep writing. She has become my sounding board for story ideas and keeps me on track when I get discouraged or distracted.
8. What are your future writing plans? Do you have other books in the works?
I am currently working on Book 3 of The Devenshire Chronicles entitled, “The Amulet of Talmara”. I’m hoping to have it released later this year. I also have ideas for a pirate novel, a science fiction novel, a western, a post-apocalyptic novel and another Fantasy novel as well.
9. Tell me about your art ventures.
After I had released “The Stones of Andarus” I wanted a book trailer to go along with it. I had watched several book trailers and started playing around with a movie making program. I produced a crude trailer but I was never completely satisfied with it. I needed/wanted characterizations of the characters in the book and I didn’t want to use someone else’s artwork or photographs. I saw the trailer for “Sanctum of Souls”, a work in progress by Bex Pavia who is a friend of mine. She had 3D representations of her characters and I was blown away by that. I asked her how she made the characters and she introduced me to a 3D graphics program.
Over the next couple of months I played with the program, watched tutorials and experimented until I was finally able to produce the first 3D rendering of Daimion Devenshire. That was a very powerful moment for me. I had always pictured Daimion in my mind, but to actually “see” him was incredible. Once I had 3D portraits of all the main characters I started revamping my book trailer and found that I absolutely love doing that sort of creative work, almost as much as I love writing.
Since then I have gone on to produce a book trailer for Book 2 “Predator & Prey” and have gone back and replaced the text-on-screen in both trailers with my own voice over work.
I have also produced a video which is a remake of the original “Hawaii 5-0” intro. In the remake I call it “Prothtow 5-0” (Prothtow is a province in the books) and I use the characters from the book as its “stars”. I did it for pure entertainment value and the fact that I so enjoy making these videos.
I have found it’s a good outlet for me when I have a particularly bad case of writers’ block.
10. If there was one thing you’d want fans to know about you, what would it be?
I don’t write these books to become rich and famous (though I won’t deny the more pleasant aspects of that thought). I write these books because I want to touch people the way I’ve been touched through someone’s writing. I pour everything I have into these stories so that maybe, just maybe, someone will read them and feel like we have some sort of connection. I want people to read my work and feel like we had one hell of a good time together and it leaves them with some very warm and fond memories.
The Stones of Andarus (Kindle/ paperback)
The Stones of Andarus on Smashwords
The Stones of Andarus book trailer
Predator & Prey book trailer
Hello GGP and the Zombie Apocalypse
Title:The Dying of the Light: End
Author: Jason Kristopher
Publisher: Grey Gecko Press
Genre: Thriller
Length: 417 pages
Last year I worked the Half Price Books booth at Comicpalooza. It was amazing and fun and I met some of the best people in the world – geeks like me who had gathered from all over the world to bask in their geeky-ness.
I’m in a little bummed out that I am not there this year, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t be back in the future. What it does mean, however, is that I am spending my weekend re-creating at home what I am missing at the G.R. Brown Convention center right now.
Last year, I was so lucky to come across Grey Gecko Press, a local publishing company who had pulled out all the stops for their authors. The booth was gorgeous, had professional banners for all the authors, hardback and paperback books on display. It didn’t look indie at all. Penguin and Tor would have been impressed, I think.
Of course, I asked them to come be a part of Half Price Books events in the Humble area. My floor space is your floor space, I basically said, and I have not regretted it one bit.
It is because of them that I have had the pleasure of reading Spindown by George Wright Padgett, a book that I thought was pretty brilliant. So brilliant, I connected him with the artist of the art company I work with, Gershom Reese Wetzel, when he said he was ready to publish his own science fiction title. We got a review copy to Padgett, and the rest is history. Padgett was the perfect person to write an editorial review for us. It’s a fascinating sub-genre they share.
Now, finally, one year later, I’m digging my teeth into Jason Kristopher’s work – The Dying of the Light series.
I don’t generally read or watch a lot of zombie material. When everyone was on that craze, I was not. But I do love a good zombie story. Usually when in the mood I go on a Resident Evil binge. One of my all time favorite movies (top twenty anyway) is 28 Days Later, the first time I saw it I was impressed by the cinematography and the choice in music made me cry it was so lovely.
I chuckled and snickered all the way through reading Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and just recently I was introduced to the movie Warm Bodies and absolutely loved it.
So even though the zombie craze isn’t entirely my thing – I’m not ignorant of the genre and I do enjoy it. I existed in the house when my husband was watching The Walking Dead, he watched too many episodes without me to follow the whole show, but now reading The Dying of the Light I feel like I got the better end of the stick.
Kristopher’s work is both an easy breezy read as well as an involved and intricate apocalypse novel. Current events are tied into the possibilities – which is always the best way to build a dystopian or apocalyptic world, in my opinion. The characters are real, the main one appropriately both strong and sappy. (Without a little bit of nostalgia and romance, what in God’s name would anyone want to save?)
Of course, that’s always the best part of an end of the world story – it’s why millions have fallen in love with Doctor Who. Any fight to the death for a whole world must involve a story of humanity and what it means to be human. Jason Kristopher pulls this off well, without overwhelming the casual reader with too much intensity.
After reading several books lately that involve a lot of plodding and lengthy prologues (from biographies to novels), Jason Kristopher’s opening sentence “I didn’t see Rebecca die the second time” was just the clincher I needed to jump into a refreshingly fast paced story.
I’m looking forward to Interval, the next book in the series.
Life of Pi
It seems I’ve been playing movie catch up this week. Of course, I naturally lean toward choosing movies that have a literary base, which allows me to write book to movie reviews.
I read Life of Pi a few years ago. Possibly a few more than a few years ago, as I can’t remember the actual year and I know it was long before I was anywhere close to being a parent and I currently have a three year old.
I initially picked it up because I was working at a bookstore in the fiction/ literature section which included dealing with all the school reading list titles we were aware of. Yann Martel had managed to make it to a high school English class’s required curriculum and that sparked my interest. Someone somewhere thought you shouldn’t leave high school without reading this book and those same people were the ones that introduced me to John Steinbeck and George Orwell.
I read it quickly. It’s a breezy read, full of riveting emotional adventure on a life raft in the open water. I remember thinking, ‘Now this is what a book about someone stuck on a boat should be,’ after all, I was never a fan of Old Man and the Sea, despite feeling like I should.
I also remember hearing about it being made into a movie and thinking, ‘This could be really beautiful or they could really screw it up.’
Finally, I was able to discover the answer to my speculations.
It was so beautiful.
It was extraordinary.
It was exactly what I imagined.
I haven’t experienced a movie so true to my experience of the book since Ian McEwan’s Atonement was tackled by Joe Wright.
Ang Lee nailed it.
Which of course is apparent by the fact that at the 85th Academy Awards it won four awards, after being nominated for eleven. I have a tendency to be a teensy oblivious to things like the Academy Awards, whether I watch them or not. Two years later, I’m cheering for the wins.
Well done. Well done.
Also Known As The Sechrist Chronicles
Title: The Devenshire Chronicles: The Stones of Andarus
Author:Tom Sechrist
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 464 pages
I’ve been reading this book for some time now – The Devenshire Chronicles by Tom Sechrist. Book One: The Stones of Andarus to be precise. I’ve been reading it 5 pages at a time or so for weeks.
Pick it up here and pick my way through some bits of story, pick it up there and hide away in another world from my own life. My own life hasn’t been going exactly as planned and sometimes I need a break from watching plans go sideways.
Every time I bury my head in his fiction, I dive in knowing a review awaits me at the other end and I’ve been trying to decide what to say about it – how to say what I’m thinking.
I’m thinking it would make the most fascinating meta-fiction television mini-series. One in which we are introduced to our characters and the story by Tom Sechrist himself. And during that introduction we flash back and forth between the story Sechrist is telling and the story he is living. Remember The Princess Bride?
Yes, like that, except Sechrist isn’t that kind of funny.
Instead, Sechrist writes a rich high fantasy tale somewhere between Tolkien and Rothfuss. He’s old timey language and lengthy descriptions. He’s lords and ladies, warriors and… vampires.
And in it all, there’s a note from the author at the end about important dates in his life. This note reminds you of what you already know when you’re reading about Daimion Devenshire’s adventures: The Devenshire Chronicles are Sechrist’s magnum opus. He has poured his heart and soul into every word… and just as every quest has many footsteps, the telling has as many words.
The Mortal Instruments to Film
I finally watched City of Bones, the movie. I’ve been debating writing a review for it since I first watched it and have since watched it two more times.
I’m trying to figure it out – why it seems to just fall flat.
(For the record, despite my use of the marketing, I am still opposed to book and movie covers/posters featuring shirtless men. It seems so unnecessary and ridiculous. I see it and all I can think is ‘I’m too sexy for my shirt’ in the most absurd voice that makes the song even more ironic than intended.)
Lily Collins did a great job. I have a crush on Jamie Campbell Bower, have since I heard him sing – then watching him in Camelot just set it in stone. He’s amazing, not just pretty. I’ve been giggling at Robert Sheehan since Misfits. Lena Heady is my hero. When have I not loved Jonathan Rhys Meyers? – I’m 30, so pretty much never. (The movie August Rush makes me swoon to no end.) So it’s not the cast.
The action sequences are brilliant. Even my Kung Fu self loves them. My I- Read-The-Book self loves them. They are grand and epic enough. The weapons are fantastic.
The graphics are great, the demons exciting and true to descriptions.
But something just didn’t quite work.
Then, I realized what it was:
The ending was all a muck. We gloss over Simon becoming a rat, we skip through Valentine’s castle. Jace is awake the whole time. The writers just gave up halfway through and quit trying to stay true to the book. They tried to wrap up 485 pages into a short teen flick of generic proportions when it should have been the introduction to something as grand as Harry Potter.
It fell flat. It brings forth the reminder: “Don’t judge a book by its movie.”
The movie isn’t bad per se, it just makes me sad. It could have been epic and instead it was a ‘pretty good date movie.’
Of course, Jamie Campbell Bower is still ever so pretty and makes it all worth it anyway. He also manages to radiate that he read the book and knows who Jace is supposed to be. Of course, I have no way of knowing if he read the books or not, but it makes me feel better thinking someone on set did. And if he didn’t, his performance is even more impressive.
The movie is a B+
I wanted it to be so much more.
Mother’s Day
This is my third mother’s day – fourth if you’re one of those people that count mother’s day when you’re pregnant because you’re a mother from the first heartbeat. I believe in life from the moment of conception, but I wasn’t really thinking of myself as a mother yet. I didn’t really feel like a mother until I was nursing and changing diapers and praying I didn’t screw it up.
Although this blog began as a book review blog, it is still a blog and by definition it is an online diary. Which means it contains not just one of my passions, but all of them. Books, Kung Fu, Cycling, and now, of course, for the last three years – mothering.
Being a mother, for me, has meant that I have found every possible way to make half my previous yearly income from home. I’m not quite making half as my book sales are chronically lean because it’s in the wrong category on Amazon. I’m a little conceited about the beauty of its cover and enticing back jacket blurb and think it would sell like hotcakes if only the right people could find it by browsing.
Of course, being a mother has actually made it possible for me to finish writing a book in the first place.
Being a mother, for me, has meant that my book reviews take me twice as long to write because I used to be able to completely bury myself in a book until I felt like coming up for air. Now, I don’t get to choose when I come up for air – that is usually chosen for me by a precocious three year old who will say things like, “Mommy, I need more juice.” “Mommy, look, it’s echoes, like in the bathroom.” (After drawing a series of parenthesis like lines getting larger across the width of her chalkboard.) “Mommy, I need a peanut butter sandwich.” “Mommy, you be the orange dalek and I’ll be the white one – ‘Exterminate! Exterminate!” (While dancing rubber Daleks across my kitchen table.) “Mommy, I want to learn something. Can we do a lesson?” “Mommy, can you teach me my letters now?” I love my tiny, vocal, human who will assert her needs and remind me to read to her at every turn and not neglect her schooling.
Being a mother, for me, means endless beautiful walks in the woods. Miles and miles of trails, flower picking, foraging, bird-watching, and outdoor story time. It means multiple trips to the park, the lake, the grocery store, bookstores, and libraries. It means art projects, painting, dancing, extra house cleaning just for the fun of letting her sweep and mop knowing I’ll have to do it again. It means demonstrating all of your passions, all your talents, all your dreams, and all your healthy habits to a small person who is watching your every move and gathering every ounce of information she can from it all.
Being a mother has meant seeing this little girl go from this:
To this:
In what can simultaneously be equated to a blink of an eye and the longest three years of my life.
I didn’t think I’d be a mother. But I’m enjoying it immensely.
The Crows of Pearblossom
A Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
Title: The Crows of Pearblossom
Author: Aldous Huxley
Illustrator: Sophie Blackall
I first bought this picture book simply because I wanted to raise my child to be literary and it was written by ALdous Huxley. Naturally, a literary child should be raised on the works of Huxley, naturally.
The first time I read it to kiddo, I remember being a little creeped out. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I had mommy hormones and it took the mother crow at least 297 missing eggs before she got upset about her lost babies. Maybe because father crow didn’t swoop down and kill the rattlesnake right away. To be honest, I have no idea, but I do know my kid must have picked up on whatever I was feeling and furrowed her little brow.
Nevertheless, we read it all the time now. It makes its emergence in the spring and summer and gets tucked back into the shelf during the fall and winter unless we’re on a bird or snake kick. It’s not that the book itself is set in any particular season, the illustrations are just sort of sunny and Owl doesn’t wear shirts, so of course it must be somewhat warm out.
I adore Sophie Blackall. I know I say this about a lot of authors and artists and people and things in general – but there just is no limit to how much a person can love and adore things. That’s the marvelous thing about love and adoration, it is limitless and unending.
Obviously, her artwork is fantastic. In addition to that, I think her ‘about the illustrator’ blurb in the dust jacket of the picture book is too adorable:
Sophie Blackall is the illustrator of Ruby’s Wish, the Ivy & Bean series, and many other picture books. Her father once arrived at a party as Aldous Huxley was leaving. They may or may not have crossed paths in the vestibule. She lives with her delightful children, an ambivalent cat, and several presumptuous squirrels in Brookly, New York.
Can someone please write something equally adorable for my author blurbs? I never seem to know what to say for them. Me – who writes endlessly and speaks just as often – has nothing to say. Not in any concise and witty manner, anyway.
Back to Huxley, he apparently wrote The Crows of Pearblossom for his niece in 1944. It wasn’t published until 1967 with Barbara Cooney as illustrator.
That edition looked like this and is now out of print:
Which means, if you see it laying around somewhere in a clearance rack or heap bin – snatch it up! It should not be cast aside. It isn’t necessarily worth a whole lot, you can find copies on abebooks.com for $2 – $10, but out of print is out of print and you never know when you might be holding the last clean copy. I like Sophie Blackall’s illustrations better, but the original work should be salvaged.
Stuffed Grape Leaves and Dewberry Pie
Homeschooling adventures have turned into some serious life skills lessons, which in turn have become foraging.
As previously mentioned, we use foragingtexas.com as a main source of information, but we do a lot of external research on our own as well.
Mustang Grapes – from foragingtexas.com
Scientific name: Vitis mustangensis
Abundance: plentiful
What: fruits, leaves, young tendrils
How: fruit raw (very tart), cooked, dried, preserves, wine; leaves and tendrils cooked,
Where: Edges of woods. Mustang grape leaves are fuzzy and have a white underside.
When: summer
Nutritional Value: calories, antioxidants
Other uses: water can be obtained from the vines (see technique in grapes- muscadine post), wild yeast from the fruit
Dangers: Mustang grapes are very acidic and handling/eating large amounts of the raw fruit can cause burns to hands and mouth.
When homeschooling, this is a good time to teach your kiddo about plant classifications. While picking the leaves (we had a mixture of Mustang grape leaves and Muscadine grape leaves, but I don’t recommend stuffing the Muscadines, they end up a little stringy).
Kingdom – Plantae
Order – Vitales
Family – Vitaceae
Genus – Vitis
Species – V. mustangensis
Our lessons then continue into the kitchen where we follow recipes and learn about fractions and conversions. You’d be amazed at how much a three year old will pick up on if you just show them. We halved this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/my-own-famous-stuffed-grape-leaves/ as well as added lemon balm from our home garden to the rice mixture.
Our dewberry & grape leaf haul.
Dewberries – from foragingtexas.com
Scientific name: Rubus species
Abundance: plentiful
What: flowers, berries
How: open mouth, insert flower/fruit, then chew. seep flowers/young leaves in hot water for tea
Where: Sunny wastelands, borders between woods and fields. Dewberry plants grow as a low, horizontal ground cover.
When: Spring
Other uses: wine, jelly, tea, wine
Nutritional Value: carbohydrates, vitamin C; small amount of minerals and vitamins A & B
Dangers: sharp thorns
Again, our goal is to memorize the classifications and understand how they work:
Kingdom – Plantae
Order – Rosales
Family – Rosaceae
Genus – Rubus
Species – R. arborginum
Well, that and to make pies.
We used this pie recipe, except exchanged the blackberries for dewberries, and used a bit more sugar.
It was a hearty dinner and dessert.
Texas Earth Day Tour Recap
In her own words, sans my interjections: Texas Earth Day Tour Recap
It wasn’t a blog tour, it was a real tour. We left on April 9 and returned–on schedule–May 1. A rental car we wished we could keep carried us safely through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada as we attended the wedding of a niece and appeared in bookstores and schools in Texas. I met great folks in fifteen bookstores in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. I wrote with students at Claughton Middle School in the Spring district (Houston area) and watched in awe the presentation of projects made by students in response to an assignment after the class read Seed Savers:Treasure at Austin Jewish Academy. I am so sorry that many of the photos from that visit did not come out for one reason or another…
I met for the first time my biggest fan in Texas and had dinner with a…
View original post 379 more words
Have Child, Plant a Tree, Write a Book
“Then it came to me: Zola had said: ‘To have a child, to plant a tree, to write a book.’ That, he said, was a full life!” – Betty Smith
What I love about being a book reviewer is the constant discovery of new things. Picking up books I may have never had the opportunity to read, and learning from those books – not how to write better necessarily, but – what kind of writer I want to be.
Book reviewing has also required me to read things more closely, not just the way I would for school, but in a more personal way as well. It’s not just about finding the literary value, it’s not just about liking or not liking, it becomes more and more important to be able to people and my readers why I loved a book. What moved me to passion? What is so relevant about this story to my own life? In doing that, it makes me dig deeper into myself, deeper into my library, and deeper into the art of research.
I’ve slacked off the last few weeks about publishing a literary journal post, but I haven’t stopped reading the literary journals. I meant to write this yesterday, it’s been dancing around in my head the last few weeks as I’ve alternated between picking my way through McSweeney’s issue 18 and researching to see if anything was written about Betty Smith. I’ve been scouring the internet for evidence of things written about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, or perhaps a long buried article or story she may have had published before infamy. I didn’t know a lot about her, so it’s been an educational endeavor.
I started with what was available in the back of the Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition that I read the book from. The little extras this edition provides are wonderful, including the first piece Smith ever published: a bit of prose called “Winter” when she was 8 years old and still in grade school, under the name Elizabeth Wehner.
I enjoyed reading the article from This Week that she wrote called “Fall in Love With Life.” It’s a beautiful glimpse into her mind and life and what led her to know that she had had a full and marvelous life. It was refreshing to read, after feeling like a failure on most days, knowing I’ve had a child, planted a tree, and written book, changed my outlook on my life at 30.
Of course, the research continued and in my searching I found this: http://web.njit.edu/~cjohnson/tree/context/context.htm
I also found this and am pretty disappointed that I can’t find a copy of “On Discovering Thomas Hardy” anywhere: http://www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/s/Smith,Betty.html
If anyone knows of any publications or articles written on or by Betty Smith, please share. I’d like to discover them too.
Anakalian Whims 