It's wonderful to have Eleanor Vincent back on Choices on the last day of her WOW Women on Writing blog tour. I'm delighted to share about her memoir, Swimming with Maya: A Mother's Story with you. (See my review at Goodreads.) Eleanor's work hugely inspired me to write my memoir Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mother's Memoir of Living with Her Son's Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide. Swimming with Maya had been released a few years before, and I felt if she can do it so can I as hard as writing about the death of a child is. As soon as we met in December 1999 I felt we were soul mates the deaths of our eldest children bound us together, and we have been friends and writing buddies ever since. Just last weekend my husband and I visited with her in northern California. It was such a treat to meet her two grandchildren for the first time. I wrote a blog piece about how we met earlier this year you can find it here. About Swimming With Maya; A Mother's … [Read more...]
Happy rebirthing [via Eleanor Vincent]
[This is a reblog of Eleanor Vincent's post today - by permission] I'm throwing a party for the rebirth of Swimming with Maya. Thanks to the power of networking, it has a new life as a paperback and eBook. But in 2010, the future of my book did not look bright. Capital Books, the independent publisher that issued the hardback in 2004, was closing its doors. My beautiful book about raising daughters and rebounding after loss would be pulped. I tried everything I could think of to sell the remaining hardback copies and had some success. But even if I sold them all, the book would still slowly fade and die. I considered the Author's Guild program Back in Print that creates print-on-demand books for authors in situations like mine. But I'd have to live with a generic book cover and format, and no marketing support for the book. Sadly, this story is not uncommon. Small publishers close their doors with alarming frequency. And big publishers those consolidated megaliths can … [Read more...]
Please welcome Eleanor Vincent, author of Swimming with Maya
I first met Eleanor Vincent, memoirist, essayist, and award winning author, in a writing workshop at Esalen in Big Sur California. It was in December 1999, four months after my son Paul took his life. While I was just getting my writing fingers moving again. Eleanor was already writing the first parts of her wonderful memoir, Swimming with Maya: A Mother's Story. We have been friends ever since. And I am so pleased that Swimming with Maya was just re-released in paperback and eBook by my publisher, Dream of Things, this past February. Join me in welcoming Eleanor Vincent to Choices as she discusses her life since Maya died, the writing of Swimming with Maya, her writing work now, and some of her favorite books, authors, and things to do on a Sunday afternoon. MS: You have experienced one of life's greatest tragedies. How can people who have experienced a personal tragedy find peace and meaning in daily life? EV: I think it's different for everyone, but in general the … [Read more...]
