Looking Ahead

It's that time of year when we begin to think of all those goals that we didn't quite meet last year or focus on changes we'd like to make in order to better ourselves, our living conditions, our financial, mental, physical, or spiritual health.

I have learned that in order to make my "New Year's Resolutions" come true, I must commit to being true to myself; keep my word to myself in order to be of use to others.

I was able, thanks to help from caring people, to take the training of the More To Life Weekend, a program of the Kairos Foundation. The most important lesson that came out of that training for me was the realization that it is just as important to keep promises made to myself as it is to keep promises made to others. The latter has always been vital to me, but to keep my word to myself often just seemed selfish, and therefore, not only unimportant, but sometimes altruistic to surrender.

A promise is a promise, and anyone who makes one is bound by his or her honor to stick to it. I learned that when making promises to myself, such as when setting goals, it is imperative to keep them. This if easier to do if the goal is concrete, measurable, set in a specific time frame, with a plan of action for implementing it. When I subscribe to this plan, I find it works, and goals are met exactly as I defined them.

In order to meet goals, make changes, and improve one's life, keep your thoughts and motives positive. Visualize what you want; see the steps completed and the goal met. As Norman Vincent Peale so aptly advised, "If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal. "

I wish you all a happy new year that includes the realization of your dreams and goals.

Journaling and poetry: Confessions of a closet "rimer"

For far too long, I have neglected my online journal, my blog, as I focused on other tasks, events, and distractions. I'm turning over a new leaf and committing to posting more regularly.

Those who know me will remember that many of my early morning thoughts and journal entries are in the form of poems, mostly rhyming poetry. Sometimes I awaken to "hear" rhymes chanted in my head. I call this idiosyncrasy a Gift from my Internal 'Rimers'. If I'm diligent and lucky, I write down the rhymes before they are forgotten.

The poems can be about anything, usually whatever is of concern at the time and sometimes the product of a dream. They can be serious, simple, humorous, or nonsensical. I embrace the nonsensical with gratitude, after all, one of my favorite poems is "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll.

Here is a poem about why we write, a gift from my "rimers" in the early morning hours of August 24, 2009.

We like to write as time goes by

Of things that trouble you and I.

Sometimes we write to ease the pain

Sometimes just 'cuz we must complain.

It can be joy that prompts our rhyme

Ecstatic feelings almost sublime.

And when all is said and done,

By writing we've increased the fun

Or eased the pain or shaped the gripe

Or shared our cause with earnest hype

Or given voice to strong emotion

While writing of our heart's devotion.

So when verses sound within the mind,

Pen them to paper that you may find

What thoughts and feelings are held within

And from the words some meaning spin.

The Benefits of Solitude

Sometimes a person needs to get away in order to find out what is important and to shed the extraneous worries and cares of daily life and business. We then come back refreshed and ready to conquer the world. The important thing is to conquer our own doubts and demons first, for only then are we armed with the confidence needed to meet our goals.

H.D. Thoreau wrote that he went to the woods that he might live life more deliberately. What a goal! To be deliberate about our lives. So often, as life gets busier and more demanding, I find myself swimming with the current, just trying to keep my head above water, doing what is expected of me as best I can. Nothing deliberate about it, except to meet the most pressing obligations as they arise.

Time spent alone in the woods, the mountains, or your favorite nook and hideaway offers time to reflect on who you are and what matters most to you. So it was for me last weekend, as I packed up the car, bid my family farewell, giving them no more information than that I was going camping. I did have one stowaway, however. When I finally arrived at my destination after a couple other stops to pick up what I had first forgotten, Hannah, our elderly black Labrador, revealed herself and joined me for the night under a star-studded heaven brilliant enough to take my breath away. This gorgeous display appears on clear nights at least monthly during the new moon and on other nights when the moon has not yet risen, while I sleep under a protective roof, oblivious to the beauty. It's a bit sad.

Born in a high mountain valley in the Colorado Rockies, I spent a lot of my life among the natural beauty of the alpine forests and meadows. It is in such a setting that I feel most at home. Montana offers many pristine forests, lakes, and streams, for those who find time to venture forth and find them. I sit in my office, where I can look out at near hills and distant peaks, too absorbed in work or electronic distractions to take advantage of the natural offering of peace and introspection. After last weekend I have vowed that I will go to the hills, alone, more often.

I think an important part of the kind of camping I do is the simplicity of it; the leaving of THINGS behind. Things provide distractions to keep you from looking inward and meeting yourself face on. Thoreau also said that "a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." He says that the cost of a thing is the amount of what he calls life that is required to be exchanged for it. "When the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him." I see that. The more things we accumulate the more we are tied down by them. Do we, as Thoreau suggests, settle down on earth and forget heaven?" Shedding our material possessions, at least for a time, and returning to nature, losing the obstructions between ourselves and the heavens, we have a better chance, like Thoreau, "to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

In both life and writing, I hope to follow his advice and seek, "simplicity, simplicity, simplicity." By letting go of daily cares, the muse is free to lead my pen to truth through stories that have substance.

What you think is what you get

I just read Ted Turner's autobiography, "Call Me Ted." As I write about the power of mind over matter, I can't help but think of Mr. Turner as a good example. I am impressed with three things that have made this man great: his honesty and his positive attitude combined with action. His example proves that Brian Traci was absolutely right when he said, Whatever you dwell on in the conscious grows in your experience.

In other words, the more one grumbles and complains about a problem, the more the problem grows and intensifies in experience. Conversely, the more you think and speak positively about what you want and express gratitude for what you have, the more you will experience positive outcomes.

There are times in everyone's life journey when the going gets tough—financially, physically, morally, or mentally—or a combination of some or all of these areas. We can look at those times as hardships or as opportunities. We can be depressed or grateful. It's our choice.

The recent recession has caused some lean times for many industries including the publishing business. Like many suffering loss of sales, I've acquired greater frugality and have seen the importance of living and publishing within my means. For that I give thanks. As sales pick up again, I see a a lot of potential for growth in the future for Raven Publishing. The possibilities are many.

Lean times have revealed personal and relationship challenges as well, and as long as the thinking turned negative, situations went downhill fast. A cautionary quote that reminds me to find the positive perspective is this one:

Yearning is not only a good way to go crazy but also a pretty good place to hide out from hard truth. — Claude T. Bissell

Yearning, complaining, and lamenting will get us nowhere but depressed. However, in facing the reality of the present moment and looking to a future with positive belief and action, we escape the pain that we would otherwise cause ourselves and others.

Which brings to mind a quote by Anthony Robbins: It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.

And this one by Benjamin Disraeli: Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

I aim to shape my life by thinking positively about whatever comes my way. I want to avoid inviting trouble by negative talk and musings. It's just not worth it.

Public Speaking—with confidence

When I think back to the jitters—no that's too mild—the mind-numbing, paralyzing fear that I used to experience when I found myself facing a crowd and was expected to speak, I am proud of the progress I've made. And surprised at how much I enjoy the interaction with each group of people to whom I am presenting. From whence came this transformation? From years of work and counseling to overcome self-consciousness with improved self-esteem and from forcing myself to take the role of presenter in workshops, seminars, school visits and book talks. 

Practice makes perfect, and perfection is my aim. Notice, I say aim, for I haven't yet reached that lofty goal. I am encouraged, by a book I just read, to believe that it is not an impossible goal, and with planning and practice, it is within my reach. The book is Presentation Skill 201 by William R. Steele. I've read it from cover to cover and will use it as a bible to keep me on track to further improve my public persona. 

Here is a tip that has helped me move from knee-knocking, dry-mouthed fear to a more comfortable and enjoyable stance. If you are subject to stage fright at times, you may find, as I have, that you must put yourself out of your mind, completely. I don't mean you should lose your mind; I mean lose your self-concern: What will people think of me? How do I look? What if I forget what I'm supposed to say? What if I'm asked a question, I can't answer? What if they don't like me? Take care of those concerns before you go "on stage." Check yourself in the mirror to be sure your wardrobe is adjusted properly,  your face is clean, your hair is in place, and you have no broccoli between your teeth. Make sure all the props you plan to use are in order, your electronics are working if you are showing slides or using a power point display, etc.. Be sure beforehand that you are ready. 

Then forget yourself. Focus on your audience — on how you can best serve them. Focus on putting them at ease without putting them to sleep. Make eye contact. Care about each of them. You are there for them. Not for you. When you are thinking of them, you will lose the consciousness of yourself that produces stage-fright.  

For how to prepare; how to feel confident that you can meet every challenge that could arise, I recommend Steele's book. He also has a blog where he posts helpful hints on public speaking. 

For those of you who have heard me before, you may notice an improvement in my upcoming events, which include a four-day writing workshop at the Madison Valley Public Library in Ennis, Montana, August 17-20, a one-hour talk on "True Fiction: What It Is and How to Write it" with excerpts from some of my novels, also at the Ennis Library on August 22 at 10 a.m., and in Billings on October 3 when there will be readings by all award finalist authors in connection with the 2009 High Plains BookFest. 

And, I'll plan an acceptance speech—just in case Kyleah's Tree wins the High Plains Book Award for fiction at the banquet on October 2. 

More Insightful conversation with Janet Grace Riehl

Photo shows Janet Grace Riehl with her father, Erwin Thompson.

Today, I have the pleasure of continuing yesterday’s conversation with Janet Grace Riehl author of Sightlines, a Poet’s Diary, and the audio book, Sightlines, a Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.

JMH: Janet, as I listened to your audio book, I was impressed with the way you tell your family story in poetry, music, and casual conversation. It is uniquely honest and touching. You and your father found a way to confront terrible grief as well as to enshrine the memory of your beloved sister, mother, and a way of life that is unfortunately disappearing. Your poems have helped me process losses of my own.

"Scribbler," in which you describe joy you found as a child in your father's writing is one of my favorite poems from you book. How has his influence rippled into your adult life as a writer?

JGR: Completely. It was hard when I was an English major because my father’s writing is pretty straight-ahead story telling. But, as a Recovering English Major, I can now see, once again, how good his writing is. We’re starting to get some of his 40 books into print.

His lack of self-consciousness is what allowed him to be so prolific. During the time of writing “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary” it was that same lack of concern about how the book would be received by the literary community that allowed me to be so productive in a short period of time.

Last year we read together for the Alton High Creative Writing Club annual meeting. He’d co-founded the club. We’d just found and replicated an early edition of their magazine. He read first. For my turn, I read “Scribbler” in homage to him and his influence and encouragement.

JMH: In “String Bridles” (p. 42 in “Sightlines) your father tells a story about his relationship to the Bluff House, a place that remains a source of refuge and solitude for you. What does the Bluff House mean to each of you?

JGR: For Pop the Bluff House was a working chicken house for Spring, built to get the early warmth of the sun’s rays. The Bluff House was designed as a passive solar building before anyone spoke of such a thing. He also used to play there with simple toys he made. The poem is slightly adapted from a letter to his mother who lived at a distance in Rushville, Illinois. Pop wrote this letter when he was 13 in 1929. His mother died the following October the same day the same day the stock market crashed, both crushing blows to the family. The naturalness and clarity of his voice in the poem show his writing talent at an early age.

Seventy-six years later when Pop and I were taking care of Mother, he told me this spot on the property could be mine. I took old furniture down there. It was a place to rest in solitude for reading, writing, and contemplation. It was a place separate from the family’s activity which I sorely needed at that time. My brother cleared a path to it and hacked out a view of the river down the bluff. We mucked it out and trimmed back scrub trees grown in the cracks of the cement floor. By that time the chicken-green house had been vandalized, with all the glass long gone.

JMH: Do you see your childhood differently as a result of writing these poems and returning to the Midwest?

JGR: Certainly. The decision to be directly involved with the family struggles and be in contact with Midwestern culture brought my entire life into stronger, clearer focus. I’d spent many years living in California. Two different worldviews could not be found. I could now see how my family viewed my life there. By being in my childhood home and working with my parents in a new way in a different role, made me confront certain illusions and delusions I’d held. My father and I forged a more mature relationship. I saw my Mother differently as she became more fragile and a transformed person in her illness.

JMH: You include two poems written from your great niece's point of view. I lost my beloved grandfather at the same age that your grand niece Amelia lost her grandma Julia. The loss was treated very differently. When I was eight, the death of my grandfather was never talked about in my presence. I was not allowed to attend his funeral. Thus I had no way of understanding and processing it.

In the poem "Amelia's Double Rainbow" (p. 16) Amelia says, “the more I talk about her, I'm crying less." I believe it is vitally important that children be given a framework in which to process and talk about their own feelings and memories. I'm thankful that your grand nieces were. It seems to be more acceptable to talk about these days than it was in the fifties, when I first encountered the loss of someone I loved. I just wanted to thank you for including poems for Amelia in your memoir. What were some of the things you did to support your great nieces Amelia and Margaret in their loss of their “Grammy”?

JGR:  I cared for my two great nieces for four days after Julia's death. That story is told in "Just Like You and Me” (p. 13).

I wrote condolence notes to both children. After my sister’s death I began to become expert at writing these notes. I developed a style that broke the usual template to become more clear and direct.

Later, I made a book for Maggie, then three, who was afraid she was losing her memories of her Grammy. We titled it “Maggie’s Deep Well of Memory” with each memory starting with the prompt: “I remember the times….” She’d dictate these to me and I wrote them down. I made these into a lovely bound book with illustrations.

Last year after we buried Julia's ashes, I wrote Maggie a letter using a similar form telling Maggie how I’d always remember her at that ceremony and ending with: Grammy Julia’s world is the world of love and it is the world of yes! That world lives in you, Maggie.

It’s been a pleasure to know you through the years as a result of our Women Writing the West connection. Thanks for this insightful interview.

JMH: Thanks, Janet. The pleasure is mine as well. I feel as if you are a true sister. I guess it’s the sisterhood of “Janet.”

As I announced yesterday, Janet’s internet tour continues July 10^th on Susan Gallacher Turner’s http://sculpturepdx.blogspot.com and Mary Cunningham’s WOOF! (Women Only Over Fifty) on July 15^th. Her guest post will discuss how to use collaboration to reach your dreams as an over-50 woman. http://www.woofersclub.blogspot.com/

And don’t forget to participate in the drawing to win a copy of Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music?Watch the featured video of the week.  Leave a comment underneath the post.  Janet will run a drawing among the comments.

 

 

 

Conversation with Janet Grace Riehl

I'm honored to have Janet Grace Riehl as my guest today and to be included in her blog tour as she discusses her audio book, Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry & Music. You can find a complete list of Janet’s tour on her blog. The previous post on the audio book tour was at Molly Lundquist’s Lit Lover book club site. There Janet posted a regional recipe of scrapple, a guest blog useful for both individuals and book groups, tips on how to appreciate both book and audio book together, and a review of “Sightlines” audio book.

Following a family tragedy, the death of her beloved older sister, Janet Grace Riehl returned to her childhood home in the Midwest. Her book, Sightlines, a Poet's Diary, came into existence as she confronted and processed the pain of this great loss and reconnected with her family, her ancestral home and family, and herself through story poems. Her father joined her in the collaboration of the audio book, reading his own poems and adding his music. Janet, it’s a pleasure to discuss your book, and audio book, and what lie behind their creation with you.

JMH: One of the main themes running through your 90 poems, Janet, is the gap between the memories you carry from your childhood of your family's home place, and what you find before you upon your return so many decades later. I can intimately relate to this theme, as I left my family home in my early twenties, returning many years later to nurse, first my father, and later my mother, in the final months of their lives. I'm sure many of our readers have experienced this gap between memory and a new reality of place and relationship. Tell us how this felt and how it crept into your poems.

JGR: One of the over-arching themes of Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary was how ephemeral, changing, and transient our lives are. Buddhist call this “Impermanence,” and include this principle as one of the four noble truths.

During this period of time impermanence showed up in several ways: Julia’s sudden death; my parents aging; my mother’s vulnerability in her illness that required constant care; the fragile and fractured family system; my displacement from the place I’d called home in Northern California back to the place of my childhood.

I’d visited the homeplace often in the gap after I left for part West in 1979. But, that’s not the same thing as living there. Life and circumstances and the physical identifiers on the Homeplace had moved on.

All of these changes and signs of impermanence were unnerving, but useful in illustrating this powerful principle.

JMH: As a writer of children’s fiction, I often borrow from my own and my children's childhood experiences in order to express the natural emotions and responses to life-like situations through my characters. Thus I am especially interested in how your childhood influenced the woman you have become. What part did your childhood experiences play in the way you chose to confront the grief of the tragic death of your sister?

JGR: In childhood my parents emphasized self-sufficiency. I often roamed the woods. They also emphasized hard work, being stoic, moving ahead, achievement, a life of service, and the deep importance of family and heritage. My Buddhist training and intuition led me to go into the small retreat around my birthday at the end of 2004 which gave me the leading to write the book.

The hard work, moving ahead, achievement, and life of service came together in making the book. My motivation for writing the book was a prayer that it be useful to others. This wish shaped the form of the story poems as the narrative vehicle. Moving ahead, achieving, and working hard were all needed in completing the project.

Me, stoic? Not so much. Rather the opposite. But, my father is, and that influenced the understated, simple way I revealed emotion. If I was overcome with emotion, I cried upstairs into my pillows or went out into the woods to wail and keen.

Self-sufficiency was essential because the situation I found myself in was rather isolated, with minimal support.

Emphasis on family and heritage is clearly one of the major themes in Sightlines.

JMH: Your father's music is an integral part of your audio book. Was music a big part of your childhood?

JGR: Music was part of our lives, big time. My father’s music is part of his heart’s blood. Other than his family, music is no doubt the thing in life Pop is most passionate about. We sang in the car together. We went to square dances where I learned to waltz standing on my father’s steel-toed work boots. Each of us children played several instruments and joined music groups at school.

My father’s greatest grief is that he had to give up playing music while we were kids and well into his middle-age because of family demands. It’s a joy to see him doing that again now.

It’s only because singing and playing were a natural part of life that I felt I could sing by myself at my talks and on the audio book. I have at least as good a voice as Garrison Keeler, I reckon! That gave me courage.

JMH: I have a few more questions for you, but since this is getting a bit long, I’ll limit myself to one more today and continue with a few more important questions tomorrow.

You have described your childhood as "anachronistic." I think I can see this in your poetry in Sightlines. Could you tell us more about what you mean by "anachronistic childhood?" How did such a childhood affect you as the person and writer you are now?

JGR: My parents came from families that were wedded to their land. We lived on land in the family for generations. We carried a sense of legacy and stewardship.

Our main goal as a family was to save up enough money that each of us children could go to college, with everything paid for. Mother made Pop promise this as they walked away from the altar. This meant that we worked like serfs raising and putting up food on our land and my grandparents on my mother’s side.

Living in the country we were socially isolated. While my friends lived in suburbs just stirring in the 1950s and ‘60s, we lived outside time within our own family culture. They had Barbie Dolls, training bras, make-up, the newest fads, new clothes, and TVs when they first came out. We did finally get a TV so we wouldn’t be next door watching it there.

I read books from the late 1800s and early 1900s, scouring our bookshelves for what I’d missed. I wore clothes mother cut down from Julia’s. Mother knitted me this beautiful outfit, but it was so incomprehensible within the context of current fashion, that everyone laughed at me when I wore it. That happened a lot—being laughed out and excluded—because I was out of touch with the times—not modern—and a thoroughly odd duck.

This gives you a sense of my childhood. There were losses in this way of life, but gains as well. I’m sure I wouldn’t have shaped such an idiosyncratic life if I’d grown up more conventionally bounded by conformity. As a result of my upbringing I’m stronger and make my own choices, with less outside influence.

JMH: Thanks for your time and in-depth answers, Janet. I look forward to continuing our discussion tomorrow with more questions about childhood influences on your poetry as well as some about your grand nieces. 

Janet Riehl’s internet tour continues July 10^th on Susan Gallacher Turner’s http://sculpturepdx.blogspot.com  and Mary Cunningham’s WOOF! (Women Only Over Fifty) on July 15^th. Her guest post will discuss how to use collaboration to reach your dreams as an over-50 woman.  http://www.woofersclub.blogspot.com/

Want to win a free copy of  Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music?Watch the featured video of the week.  Leave a comment underneath the post. Janet will run a drawing among the comments.

Life's changes

There are times in life when we feel as if the world is a sunny garden, planted for our enjoyment, and we will flourish, no matter what. Our possibilities are endless. Then something shifts to rock our world, and we must adjust. How we do so depends on our inner resources to cope. We may process and move on or we may peacefully accept the circumstances we are given. 

Change is never easy, yet life without change is stagnant and unproductive. Perhaps it's when a major event nudges us from our comfort zone that we search our innermost selves and find what we need. Looking through my poetry, I found a few poems that, though written some time ago, strike a resonate chord when I feel I'm facing an hour of decision or when I hear of a major life-changing event in someone's life. 

(Iris, by Stan Hill, Photographer) 

I'll share three of them: "Time," "Life," and "Death," which could also be titled "Accepting Mortality." (Scroll down for all three.)

Be sure to join me on the 8th of July for a conversation with Janet Riehl, author of “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music,” about how she coped with a traumatic life-changing experience.

Time

 

When all is said and all is done

and when the race is over,

Will we be happy that we’ve run?

Will we wish to do it over?

 

Time marches on without a care

about what we are doing.

It bothers not with when or where

or what trouble is ensuing.

 

We may be bored; we may be stressed.

We may be steeped in sorrow

But time keeps plodding as if pressed

to reach the next tomorrow.

 

If in the end we have regret

for the things we didn’t do

we’ll be reminded if we forget

that there’s no use to rue

 

the time that’s gone will not return

and useless are excuses.

For if nothing else we learn,

know time bears no abuses.

 

Every second, minute, hour

is the same to every man.

It is within each person’s power

to do with as she can.

Life

Life is too short to be little

Life is too dear to deny

Life is too precious to squander

By living an emotional lie.

Follow your heart, find your center

Leave conformity and pretense alone

Be only  yourself when you enter

Live a life that is truly your own.

Be not afraid of your feelings

It’s really okay to cry

Express the indignation inside you

Be honest with life ‘til you die. 

Don’t assume to make other’s decisions

Nor let others make choices for you.

Do what for you is important

And unto thine own self be true.

Death

A woman died today.

Suddenly

unexpectedly

without notice.

A man lost his wife today

Suddenly

unexpectedly

without notice.

Parents lost their only daughter today

Suddenly

unexpectedly

without notice.

It challenges my belief

About mind

Over matter

Willful control.

I thought the mind

Always leads

Body follows.

Not so.

It makes death sadder

that I know

it can happen

against one’s will. 

I’m sad for the woman

Who died

her husband

and parents

I feel my own mortality

For a moment

disappointed

betrayed.

My belief, though juvenile

and subconscious

was pervasive

my own. 

Of Death Do We Speak? Helping children cope with death of a loved one.

My paternal grandfather died when I was eight years old. I cried as I watched my parents and two older siblings drive away to attend the funeral.  I was not allowed to go to the funeral. I guess my parents felt I was too young and it would be too hard on me. Or maybe they were just so steeped in their own grief to think of my need for closure. I loved grandpa. I did not want to be left out of anything that involved him. And I knew I would never see him again.

Grandpa's death was never talked about in my presence. Maybe no one talked about it. I think in those days, people, at least in our family, hid their grief. If anyone cried, they did it privately. Death, like sex, was a subject children should never hear or speak of. So what did I do with my grief at age eight? I guess I stuffed it somewhere deep down and out of sight, adding death to the many mysterious evils that I was to fear, but not to question. 

I think—hope—it is generally different today. Children who experience the death of a peer,  a parent, or anyone close to them are often taken to a therapist for grief counseling. And therapists often use books or stories to help children better understand the feelings they are experiencing. When children read of a character with whom they relate and see that character experience the same feelings they suffer, they can better accept that they are not alone, and that their feelings and reactions are not wrong. 

Because death is natural, inevitable, and universal, it has found it's way into many of the children's novels I have written. It is my belief that children who have suffered or will suffer the death of a beloved person or pet will be better prepared for sorrow that threatens to overwhelm them by reading about a character who is going through the same grief. 

Janet Burroway, in her book, Writing Fiction, wrote, "Literature offers feelings for which we don't have to pay." Kids will find it easier to articulate their own feelings when they can relate them to those of a character in a book. 

Characters in my books who, each in his or her way, have each dealt with loss of a loved one through death are Danny in Danny's Dragon whose father is a casualty of the Iraq war, Kyleah in Kyleah's Tree whose mother died, and her father, and brother, with whom she is separated. Miranda, who lives with her grandparents in Miranda and Starlight, knows nothing of her father until she gets a letter from him and an explanation of the accident that resulted in his missing at sea and presumed death in Starlight's Courage. In Starlight Comes Home Miranda loses a mentor who is like a grandfather to her. Kids and adults alike like these books for the emotions, happy and sad, that they experience when reading them.

For other books, both fiction and non-fiction, written to help kids deal with death, I Googled "books to help children cope with death." One site that gives a nice list of books, most of which I confess I have not read, is:  http://www.leeanne.com/grief/

Although I still encounter parents, librarians, and teachers who would "protect" children from "sad" topics in books, I also find that kids like to have their emotions touched, and their favorite books are the ones in which the characters feel deeply about life's problems that they may also face.

Kyleah's Tree is a finalist

Kyleah Ralston's mother has died. She doesn't know where her father and brother are or even if they are still alive. She joins her friend Benjamin to leave the foster home in Kansas where they both live. Though she seeks to find her lost brother, it is her true self she is looking for—and finds, through the many hair raising adventures they encounter from Kansas to Canada.  

Kyleah's Tree, by Janet Muirhead Hill has been selected as one of three finalists in the fiction category for the Parmly Billings High Plains Book Award. Read on for the entire press release:

2009 High Plains Book Award Committee Announces Finalists

Thirteen books have been selected as finalists for the 2009 Parmly Billings Library High Plains Book Awards. All finalist books were published for the first time in 2008 and written by a regional author or writing team, or are literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains region.  The High Plains region includes Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  Nominations were received from 20 publishers and several individuals in the U.S. and Canada. 

 

The finalists have been selected in five categories : Best Novel; Best Nonfiction; Best First Book; Best Poetry and Zonta Best Woman Writer.  The Best Poetry award has been added this year.  A five hundred dollar cash prize is awarded in each category. The finalist books are: 

 

Fiction

Kyleah's Tree, Janet Muirhead Hill, Raven Publishing; So Brave, Young, and Handsome, Leif Enger, Grove/Atlantic; Another Man's Moccasins, Craig Johnson, Viking/Penguin

 

Nonfiction

In Contemporary Rhythm, Peter H. Hassrick and Elizabeth J. Cunningham, University of Oklahoma Press; The Wide Open, Ed. by Annick Smith/Susan O'Connor, University of Nebraska Press; Legacy of Stone, Margaret Hryniuk, Frank Korvemaker and Larry Easton, Coteau Books

 

Poetry

Made Flesh, Craig Arnold, Ausable Press; Prairie Kaddish, Isa Milman, Coteau Books; The Baseball Field at Night, Patricia Goedicke, Lost Horse Press

 

First Book

Horses That Buck, Margot Kahn, University of Oklahoma Press; Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles, John Fitzpatrick, Riverbend Publishing; Wind River Country, Bayard Fox and Claude Poulet, Fremont County Publishing

 

 

 

Zonta Best Woman Writer

 

The Wide Open, Edited by Annick Smith and Susan O'Connor, University of Oklahoma Press; Road Map to Holland, Jennifer Graf Groneberg, New American Library/Penguin; Horses That Buck, Margot Kahn, University of Oklahoma Press

 

More than 40 local volunteers read and evaluated the nominated entries.  The top three books in each category will be sent to regional judges for final selection as award winners.  Judges are published authors in the various genres with strong ties to the High Plains region. 

“We are hoping bookstores and libraries will publicize the nominees and finalists so the public will have an opportunity to read this interesting array of books,” said Parmly Billings Library Director Bill Cochran.

Winners in each category will be announced at the High Plains Book Awards Banquet on Friday, October 2, 2009 in Billings, MT.  The event is the kickoff for the 7^th annual High Plains BookFest. For more information go to: http://highplainsbookawards.org

 

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