Meet author Lisa Braxton, who is visiting us on her WOW! Women on Writing virtual book tour. Lisa's lyrical memoir about grief - Dancing Between the Raindrops - will make you want to hold on to your loved ones and protect their memories for your lifetime. She also assures you, you are not alone. Lisa has also written an essay for Choices about how a writing group saved her manuscript. We all need to listen to that. Here's Lisa: My Writing Group Saved My Manuscript by Lisa Braxton Since childhood I knew I wanted to write a novel. I’d curl up with my copy of Little Women or Charlotte’s Web and dream of creating stories of my own. But I wasn’t able to begin the work of fulfilling my dream until many decades later. My career in journalism helped me learn the fundamentals of writing a story, how writing doesn’t really begin until rewriting, and the importance of a good editor making a story even better. But journalism was all consuming. As a reporter covering stories about … [Read more...]
In grief, we are never alone
What’s in a book title?
The title of my memoir is Leaving the Hall Light On (Dream of Things). A lot of people ask me what the title means. Here's an explanation. At first I believed my magical thinking that if I left the hall light on, if we didn't move away from our house, if we didn't change our telephone number, Paul, our son who took his life at age 27, would know how to make his way back. Paul would know we were still here waiting for him. For a long time I waited for that familiar sound of his Volvo coming into the garage, the sound of the door from the garage slamming as he entered the house and went down the hall to his room, the sound of him walking around the house at night, the sound of the door opening and closing as he went in and out of the house. In fact, for a while I thought I heard those sounds. And for a long time I left most of the things in his room alone for fear of removing his presence there. For a long time I refused to give away his things in case he would need them when … [Read more...]
