Our UK Cover!

Simon & Schuster has designed a wonderful new cover for our UK release. What do you think? (Click on the image to see it full-sized.)

r.kv.r.y

I am honored to have my work appear in the fine journal r.kv.r.y. You can read it here: Medusa Song

A fun article about ITME and me

Michele Deluca is a charming reporter and it was a delight to be interviewed by her. You can read the results here. (Photo by Dan Cappellazzo)

The Maternal Is Political

Today I received my contributor copies of the anthology The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change. What a great looking book! And I am thrilled to have my essay appearing alongside the work of Barbara Kingsolver, Anne Lamott, Anna Quindlen, Nancy Pelosi, and Benazir Bhutto. Way cool. A huge thank you to editor Shari MacDonald Strong for putting together such an amazing anthology--and to my friend Linera Lucas for encouraging me to submit!

Feeling the Book Club Love

Andy and I recently had our first book club experience and it was amazing!

The wonderful thing about book clubs is that they are most often held in private homes, with a small group of attentive readers, there's food and drink, and no need to "perform" as with a public reading. The meeting is held primarily to discuss the book with readers who have already read it, who are discriminating and intelligent and have interesting questions. We even sold nine additional books to members who already had their own copies and wanted to share the book with others.

It was so amazing to see this articulate group of interested readers sitting there with their books all marked and tabbed and highlighted. I think they remembered more about the book than I did. And several members had marked specific passages where a quote or a lesson or even just a simple observation had come to them at the perfect time to help them through some difficulty in their lives. What could be better? This is why I write. This makes all those long hours at the keyboard worthwhile.

I feel so grateful to readers, strangers who voluntarily give me approximately 8 hours of their lives, attending to words on the page--words that I've written. Then they take the words into their minds and hearts and make the book into an experience that speaks to them alone. They finish my book. Did I mention that it's amazing?

Looking for a good story to read?

Check out the new website Five Star Stories that features new stories available on the web that have been nominated by the editor that published them (as the best of the issue) and are then critiqued by an established author. What a great idea! (I thought it was such a good idea, I volunteered to go first.)

Second Printing!

Good news! We've just heard that Radical Gratitude is going into its second printing tomorrow--whoo hoo!!

Chimpanzee Release and Rescue

Encourage your federal legislators to support new legislation that will prohibit:

-Invasive research on great apes
-Federal funding of such research both within and outside of the U.S.
-Transport of great apes for such research
-Federal breeding of great apes for such research

And require:

-Permanent retirement of all federally-owned great apes

It's time, don't you think?

INTO THE SUNSET by Donald Capone

Wayne Benson is tired of living a complicated life. His needs are pretty simple—quiet time to write, three square meals a day (preferably prepaid and prepared for him), and comfortable surroundings. But where to find all of these things in one place? Enter The Sunset—a retirement community he once toured with his parents, prior to their move to Florida. The only problem? He’s thirty-two years too young. Enter Wayne Senior, his alter ego and aged doppelganger, courtesy of a grey wig and stage makeup, complete with cane and a stooped, halting gait (he’ll learn not to run for the bus when late).

For a time, Wayne’s plan works great. But what he hadn’t planned on was the complications of falling for a sexy fellow resident (yes, sixty can be sexy!) and becoming friends with his cranky next-door neighbor. Add a suspicious landlady and a blackmailing security guard, and things soon get way more complicated than Wayne’s former young life had ever been.

Perhaps the best part of the book for me (and so much of it was great fun) was moving through Wayne’s emotional maturation as he goes from viewing his fellow residents as obstacles to insightful, interesting people. His initial, skeptical view is evidenced by this passage:

“Eventually, the van would arrive in front of the supermarket and park. The driver would stay inside with the engine running and the A/C downgraded from arctic blast to cold front. Slowly the seniors would stir and with the help of a couple of Sunset staffers begin to vacate the vehicle. The legs of walkers and the tips of canes would emerge first, like the tentacles of some strange space creatures trying to blend in with humanity, they would descend on the store, sporting wraparound sunglasses, shawls, light-weight summer sweaters, and fistfuls of double coupons. Aisles would be congested, workers berated, and cashiers interrogated.”

Into the Sunset is a lively, engaging, romp-of-a-read, and by the end of the book, Wayne’s attitude and understanding have greatly softened—a truly older, wiser and more sanguine Wayne has emerged for us, his readers, and we welcome his rebirth into old age.



Amazon

My first blogger book review...

...can be read over at Don Capone's blog. Exciting!

Here are two pictures from our wonderful book launch this weekend, held at The Roycroft. This is the banquet room before people began to arrive, and this is us at the end--tired but very happy.

Radical Gratitude

Whale Sharks Turned Into Carnival Ride

Read about it at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website.

The Money Factor

Kelly Spitzer gets feedback from a number of authors (including yours truly) over at her blog, Writers in Profile on the subject of submitting to paying vs. non-paying journals.

The Roycroft Campus Corporation

The RCC in East Aurora, NY has very graciously offered to host a luncheon and book launch for Radical Gratitude and other life lessons learned in Siberia.

The luncheon will be held at the Roycroft Inn on March 8th.

If you had asked me two years ago to dream big and tell you where I'd most like to celebrate a local book launch, I'd have answered, "At, the Roycroft, of course, as if that would ever happen..." Well, I can't believe it, but it's actually happening! Yay!!

And (by the way) if you'd ask me, nationally where I'd like to launch a US release of the book, I'd say, "Oprah, of course, as if that would ever happen..."

(Just putting that out there for the universe to mull over...)

The Liar's Diary

Today is the day that the blogosphere is celebrating and supporting and sending hope to Patry Francis, debut author of The Liar's Club. It's an amazing story--hers and her book's--and you simply must check it out at Susan Henderson's wonderful Lit Park.

The Writer's Life

A writer's life

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The Story of Stuff

If (like me) sustainability and consumerism have been on your mind lately, you simply must watch this video: The Story of Stuff.

Press release!!

In the tradition of Tuesdays with Morrie, this is the inspirational story of how one man learned life's greatest lessons in the face of incredible hardship.









RADICAL GRATITUDE
and other life lessons learned in Siberia

Andrew Bienkowski & Mary Akers

Published by Allen & Unwin on 7 March 2008
No article or review should appear before this date without prior permission
RRP: $22.95 * Format: Paperback * ISBN: 9781741754223



Andrew Bienkowski was five when, exiled with his immediate family, he watched his grandfather starve to death so they could survive.

Reminiscent of Viktor Frankel's great classic, Man's Search for Meaning, this extraordinary book melds the unfolding story of survival against the odds with the practical wisdom 5-year-old Andrew gained while coming to terms with his new home; with its dramatic landscape and endless challenges. In amongst the pain are moments of great beauty, breathtaking northern lights, the appearance of the first butterfly after the long months of winter, the unexpected kindness of strangers who risked everything to be kind. It was these experiences that inspired Andrew to become a psychotherapist, and to devote his life to helping others.

As Churchill famously said, "We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give."

Each chapter details powerful ways to achieve this with such concepts as radical gratitude (learning to be grateful even for the difficult experiences in life); who we can and cannot help; genuine being with others in need, and the remarkable changes that we can experience when we do.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Andrew Bienkowski has spent more than 40 years as a clinical therapist. After Siberia, the family spent a year in an Iranian refugee camp where Andrew nearly died from dysentery, malaria and malnutrition. Three years in Palestine and a year in England followed before he finally immigrated to America. There, he went on to earn a Masters in Clinical Psychology and to become a psychotherapist.

Mary Akers' work has appeared in literary journals, many related to health and healing. Her story, Wild, Wild Horses was a Notable Story of 2004, and she has been a three-time Bread Loaf work-study recipient.

For further information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Kelly Doust * Publicity Manager * Allen & Unwin Book Publishers
Tel: 02 8425 0137 Email: kellyd@allenandunwin.com
Download 300dpi cover images from the Allen & Unwin website.

Hair and mushrooms...

...used to clean up oily beaches in an environmentally friendly way. Amazing!