A friend of mine was recently asked to read at a book club meeting. The group had adopted her book to read that month, and since she was local, they asked her to come and read excerpts.
In Seattle, a group of poets formed a group called “A Poet at the Table,”where different area poets did readings at local book clubs.
Do you have any experience with book clubs?
My new book, Touch My Head Softly, is about my partner having Alzheimer’s Disease.
I guess this might interest an Alzheimer’s support group. Do you have any experience with Book Clubs?
Her father, Bronson Alcott, was a Transcendentalist who knew Thoreau and Emerson. He moved here, to Fruitlands Farm, to form a Utopian Society. it failed after 7 months, but it influenced Luisa May, his 10–year–old daughter, to write Little Women and Little Men. What has influenced your writing?
I had a partner who died of Alzheimer’s in his 60’s. It influenced me to writer Touch My Head Softly, due out from Finishing Line Press in January.
It’s always nice to have your work appreciated so I thought I’d share some reviews I’ve received in the last week for my upcoming book, Touch My Head Softly, on Goodreads. , Thank you to everyone who continues to support my writing and I hope to share more positive reviews in the weeks ahead. Have a great day wherever in the world you are.
“In Touch My Head Softly. Eileen P. Kennedy has written an extraordinarily book about the death of a male lover taken in middle age with Alzheimer’s Disease.” —Preston M. Browning, Jr., Director, Wellspring House Writer’s Retreat.
“Many people are now trying to become less helpless, both personally and politically, trying to claim more control over their own lives. One of the ways people most lack control of their own lives is through lacking control over words. Especially written words.” – Peter Elbow
So how do we gain control over our written words? I think it requires work, but it’s rewarding when the result is good. So many problems in the world incapacitate us: the pandemic, pollution, poverty. But learning to use writing as an empowerment tool can be liberating.
I have a new book of poems coming out with Finishing Line Press. Check it out:
I’ve canoed and hiked in beautiful places all over the Northeast this fall. The nature sustains me. Writing sustains me. I have a new book, Touch My Head Softly, which will be out from Finishing Line Press in early 2021.
Set in the Santa Clara Valley during the turbulent sixties and seventies, REAL ESTATE, is the story of how a bucolic agricultural valley is transformed into the iconic Silicon Valley.
As acres of apricot orchards are converted into suburban subdivisions, families flock to the area. Air Force pilot Joe Jackson moves his family to Sunnyvale soon after the Hopkins build their dream house. Harriet Jackson, her father’s eyes and ears, finds herself living next door to Bobby Hopkins, aspiring circus performer and math whiz. They share a side-yard fence, but the worlds they live in differ radically. A shared love of the Beatles and the loss of the inspiring young President Kennedy bring them together in an unlikely friendship, but their family’s differences soon tear them apart. While Harriet struggles to fulfill her family obligations, Bobby builds a computer in his garage.
They meet again as adults, but by then everything has changed. In the electric valley, both Harriet and Bobby learn that family is not always destiny and houses are sometimes more than a home.
“I believe the world is beautiful and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone, and that my veins don’t end in me but in the unanimous struggle for life, love, little things, landscape and bread.”
-Graffiti on a wall in the Mission District of San Francisco
I believe poetry is for everyone. Although many people who read serious print matter and quality fiction do not read poetry, I think that this is their loss. The poetry coming out today is accessible, relevant and enjoyable in concept and sound. Take look at Billy Collins, Natasha Trethaway or even Louise Glück, the 2020 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” ― Aldous Huxley
For the artist, the world is shaped by perspective. It is that ability to view things from their own unique point of view, yet contextualize this point of view in factual reality. Can everything be defined in a limited world? Can the artist place his/her/their work in the larger framework?
As a writer, I try to contextualize my work in the larger world, but it changes so rapidly. I find I have just gotten my pen around one situation when another arises to contradict the first.
I have been doing phone banks these past few weeks to get out the vote for the presidential election. I try to listen to other people’s perspectives when I speak with them because if there is no dialogue, there is no bridge to unification and understanding between people. If I can’t listen to someone, I can’t convince them of my point of view. The country is so divided that I fear we will never come together again. There are so many signs in front of people’s homes, even in my own community, that advocate different philosophies. How will we all find a common voice after the election?
The dream state is sometimes a source of inspiration for writers, but this is the opposite of reality. But writes thrive on illusion, on an alternate view of what is.
As we pass through daily living, we pass through many―colored lenses that paint our writing with its own view. Yet how do we bring our view back to the world view, so everyone can relate?
My book, Touch My Head Softly, was recommended by Brilliant Light Publishing. It is my perspective on Alzheimer’s Disease. Take a look:
Eileen P. Kennedy Author 