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Sneak Peek!
Chet Baker: Always Looking for the Light

(previous working title Chet Baker: The Later Years)

In this short excerpt from the upcoming 2nd volume of memoirs by bop drummer Artt Frank, he offers an insight into the virtuosity of Chet Baker’s style.
Renaissance

“Ready?” Chet asked, and called out to us and counted off the tune, “I Remember You,” in a medium up-tempo, and sang a chorus while Sal (Nistico) stood off to the side listening with a look of admiration on his face. Chet finished singing and just sat there, eyes closed, left leg crossed over the right, with his head resting on the hand holding the trumpet, listening and drinking up every note that Sal was laying down. We did another six to eight tunes and took our first break.
Chet would often get requests from his fans to play a tune he’d played the night before or even two sets ago. And each time he would phrase the melody differently. Chet had a ‘never repeat clause’ in his performance philosophy. Being a ‘total ear’ player, he could play the same tune ten times in a row and each time it would be completely different from the one before.”

Listen to the track, recorded live from the Renaissance II Club in Buffalo, NY Chet Baker (Vocals and Trumpet); Sal Nistico (Tenor sax); Lorne Lofsky (Guitar); Chris Conners (Bass); and Artt Frank (Drums), Nov. 11, 1984

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WGF Panel – 01/13/2017

WGF Panel - 01/12/2017
Panelists (l-r): Monica Macer (Queen Sugar, OWN), Shernold Edwards (Hand of God, Amazon), Dawn Kamoche (Sharp Objects, HBO), Dee Harris-Lawrence (Star, FOX), Valerie Woods (Soul Food, Showtime)

The Writers Guild Foundation event, co-sponsored by Stephens College MFA in Television and Screenwriting on January 13, 2017, was a great success. The panel, moderated by writer and BooksEndependent publisher, Valerie C. Woods, engaged the participants with their wisdom, humor and real-world advice on the evening’s topic – “Writing Outside the Color Lines: Women Writers of Color or Storytelling and Perspective”. A lively Q&A following the discussion extended the evening past its scheduled ending time.

Thanks to Chris Kartje and Enid Portuguez at the WGF, and Ken LaZebnik and Khanisha Foster of Stephens College for a wonderful evening!

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Sneak Peek
Chet Baker: The Later Years

Chet Baker: The Later Years
Here is a SNEAK PEEK from the 2nd volume in memoirist, Artt Frank’s book: “Chet Baker: The Later Years.” In this excerpt, Artt describes playing a gig with Chet (Trumpet), Drew Salperto (Piano), Mike Formanek (Bass) Artt Frank (Drums) at the Backstreet Club (New Haven, CT) in February 1980.

Burnin’ at Backstreet

“Drew announced Chet’s name and when we hit the stand, the entire room fell completely and totally silent. Without a word, Chet lifted the trumpet to his lips and began to play a Miles Davis composition called Tune up. The tempo he called was exquisitely perfect. I used brushes throughout the tune. As soon as we started playing together, the old magic we had on the stand at the Melody Room back in 1969 returned.

As far as Chet’s playing was concerned, it was definitely not of this earth. He played in the now, in the moment. For him, it was “the now” that was truly important. Nothing else seemed to matter. He wasn’t the kind to look ahead. For him, there was no future beyond the moment he was living and playing in. No permanency. Yet, the way he was playing this night filled my heart with both fear and exhilaration over the way he was attacking the tunes … Milestones, Blue ‘N’ Boogie, Stella by Starlight, Four. It was as though he wanted to prove to the critics that though they had often times given his sometimes frail body up for dead, he still had a lot of fire left in his heart and horn.

Was this the reason he was ripping off both long and short strings of sixteenth and thirty-second notes, creating necklaces of sheer melodic beauty, taking three, four and five choruses on each tune? Or was it because, as Chet had confessed to me on several occasions, that he had an uneasy feeling that each time he played, it could very well be his last night of playing, and he wanted to express it all? Whatever the reason, he was burnin!! I was burnin’! Drew and Mike Formanek were burnin’ and every other person in that club was burnin’ right along with us. Thank God Drew and I had the sense to record the first set, which has since been made into a CD, entitled, The Chet Baker Quartet – Burnin’ at Backstreet.”

Listen to the full track recorded at Backstreet:

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The RoughWriter

There it is. The blank page. Or screen. It’s perfect, pristine, shimmering with possibilities. You want the words you impart on this perfect canvas to be worthy. To flow with lyrical, righteous, and passionate… stuff. No, scratch that, not ‘stuff’ – it must be classic Oscar, Emmy, Tony award winning scriptness. Wait. What? ‘Scriptness?’ Ok, perfect prose, poignantly profound… stop! Scratch that, too. And now it’s ruined. The blank page, which was once so full of hope, is now ruined. Crumple paper, or delete, delete, delete. Time for coffee.

Such pressure, the blank page. Why is it so hard to allow for imperfection? It’s not called a rough draft because it’s perfect. So go ahead and be a RoughWriter!

In his book,”Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting” Syd Field put it very bluntly, “Let yourself write sh*tty pages, with stilted, direct, dumb, and obvious dialogue. Don’t worry about it. Just keep writing. Dialogue can always be cleaned up during the rewrite. ‘Writing is rewriting’ is the ancient adage.”

This advice applies to ALL writers, not just screenwriters. It is the only way to get through a novel, a play, short story, or novella. I know, because I’ve written at least one of each in that prior list, and Syd Field’s advice got me through each project.

Currently, I am a Mentor for a group of very talented MFA screenwriters. In the first semester, each student selected the topic of their screenplays, wrote beat sheets, and narrative outlines. At this point, two writers decided they no longer wanted to write the stories they’d chosen, and switched – went through the earlier process again and then began writing script pages. Then a third writer decided her pages were awful, her story was stupid and it was boring. One of the first two writers, worried that well, maybe the new idea wasn’t good either.

To clarify, none of the stories were boring. What I was hearing from these students was doubt, resistance… you know, fear of failure. They had each done great work. But the Inner Critic had moved to the foreground and was doing its best to get them to give up.

What to do? It was time for the talk, as follows:

First drafts are never perfect. This is where inspiration meets the craft of writing – putting in the work, no matter if it sucks at first. Do not listen to the Inner Critic in the rough draft, or you’ll never get to the final draft.

As you begin, often the I.C. will tell you it’s boring, it’s not working, change the opening, drop this project, what the hell were you thinking, you have nothing to say…

Do. Not. Listen.

You were excited about your story for a reason. Self-doubt, masquerading as the Inner Critic, disguises itself with making you feel bored, or that you don’t like it anymore. This is where the work of your Outline is absolutely vital.

Just follow the Outline. Even if you think it’s terrible.

It’s amazing how objective we can be once the rough draft – the ugly draft – is completed. You can then see where to improve, edit, bolster, etc. When you start writing, your creative mind is still muddling through and the worst thing to do is to stop. So keep going.

And yes, you’ll make some adjustments as you write – but keep writing and don’t throw out or disparage your Outline. It is your road map. Let it guide you.

Please do not let your Inner Critic slow you down!!!

So, the good news is, each student responded with flying colors. They wrote through the doubt and came through on the other side. Writing through the pain of not-quite-inspired work solved story problems. By completing what might be a lousy scene, it became clear what wasn’t working, because it was no longer a vague jumble in the brain. It was right there in all its ugly glory, ready for the writer to apply the craft of revising and polishing. It’s truly a relief. And some of what was thought to be bad looked pretty good!

Staying true to what inspired you in the beginning, even when it didn’t feel like it was working, is how wonderful screenplays get written, and how they get made.

In “Selling a Screenplay: The Screenwriter’s Guide to Hollywood” Syd wrote: “What intrigues anyone in Hollywood, what propels someone into an active mode …is something that strikes them emotionally.”

And that starts with the screenwriter, television writer, playwright or author. Stick with what struck you emotionally when the storytelling process began. It will shine through in the end.

As this year draws to a close, and we are poised for new adventures in storytelling as a new year begins, remember: When the writing gets rough, the RoughWriter keeps going.

Happy writing!

posted by Valerie C. Woods
on December, 29

The post The RoughWriter appeared first on Valerie C. Woods.

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Where Does It All End?

In a previous post, I wrote about what indie authors could learn from indie filmmakers. As my writing often alternates between writing novels and screenplays, there are also screenwriting tools that can assist novelists.

One of the most valuable “oh, I get it!” moments studying with screenwriting mentor, Syd Field (1935-2013), was the first time Syd spoke about his groundbreaking Paradigm. More specifically – Syd stated that the first thing needed to begin was to know the end. As a young writer, this was a bit of a surprise.

At the time, my writing process was something like “wow, this is a good idea! The character would be this, they would do this and there would be a love interest, and they work at something amazing, etc. etc.” Dialogue and scenes would sprout and I’d write them down and generally let the story tell me what it was. Which is not such a terrible thing… at first. Getting the first flush of inspiration out and onto the page as quickly as possible is important, because I am so easily distracted.

However, there always came the time when I’d have to stop and ask, “so where does it all end?” Where am I going with this story? What is the resolution? And that’s when I go back to the Syd Field Paradigm and the four things the writer needs to know to begin writing:

The End
The Beginning
Plot Point I
Plot Point II

As Syd also explained in the seminar I first attended, writing a screenplay is a lot like planning a vacation. Rarely does anyone just show up at the airport and take whatever flight is next. If they do, I bet there’s a really good story in there somewhere! However, in order to know what to pack, how much money you’ll need, where you’ll sleep, etc. you need to know your destination. You’ll want to pack sandals, perhaps when going to India rather than, say ski boots.

The Paradigm is a road map to get you started. And, like any great adventure, there’s no telling if everything will go according to plan. It’s like that old proverb: “If you want to make God laugh, go ahead and make plans.” Just as unexpected excursions and detours make for really good road trips, the writer is free to go on an interesting tangent and not lose sight of the main plot because the Paradigm is a fluid guide that allows for inspiration and imagination, with landmarks to get you back on track.

For instance, just because you said Plot Point One was when the character woke up from a coma, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. As you write toward the plot point, you might find that maybe the character stays in the coma and someone who was supposed to be a minor character has to step up and fulfill a great destiny. But I believe you wouldn’t have come to that point had there been no destination in which you were heading.

For me, having a story point to write toward gets the process going, even if it turns out I don’t end up there.

Using the Paradigm has saved me from writer’s block and out-of-control subplots. And, the bonus to this screenwriting Paradigm is that it has also worked when I write novels and television shows.

It’s ok to write down inspiration even if you don’t have a clear vision of where it’s going. But once the flash of inspiration has expended its fire, it’s time to invoke the craft of writing. It is the craft of story structure that provides the foundation through which inspiration is woven.

In Syd’s book The Screenwriter’s Workbook he states: “You must know what the resolution of your story line is. I don’t necessarily mean the specific scene or sequence at the end of the screenplay but what happens to resolve the dramatic conflict. If you don’t know the ending of your story, who does?”

You are the guide on this journey and in order to reach the destination, the first thing to know as you anchor those flashes of inspiration and begin the trek home is… where does it all end?

posted by Valerie C. Woods
on January, 15

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Pursuing a “Singular Art”

Valerie C. Woods – Author, Publisher/Editor, Writing Coach, Writer/Producer

“Adaptation is both a skill and a challenge.” These are the words of legendary author and screenwriter, Syd Field (1935-2013), acclaimed as “the guru of all screenwriters” (CNN). Syd goes on to say, in his seminal book, Screenplay – The Foundations of Screenwriting: “The verb to adapt means ‘to transpose from one medium to another.’ Adaptation is defined as the ability ‘to make fit or suitable by changing, or adjusting’ – modifying something to create a change in structure, function, and form… It is a singular art.”

The pursuit of this “singular art” is the mission of Staged/Lit – to celebrate and examine the creative synthesis of adapting literary works from prose to script to performance in a series of staged readings. Developed through my indie press, BooksEndependent, Staged/Lit was designed to present and promote script adaptations, primarily from our book list.

Once I pitched the idea to Aviva Field, Executive Director of Syd Field – The Art of Visual Storytelling, things rapidly fell into place. I had worked with Syd for many years, both studying with him, and coaching writers using the Syd Field screenwriting method. The first time I attended one of Syd’s weekend seminars, (back in the last century!) I was in the process of adapting a stage play to a screenplay. Syd’s book, Screenplay, was the backbone of my process. The resulting script won me a Disney Screenwriting Fellowship. So, trust me, it works!

For the past two years, I have continued working with Aviva, and it was she who recommended that I contact Natalia Lazarus, fellow screenwriting teacher, talented actress and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Performing Arts Conservatory (LAPAC) in Santa Monica. Natalia also runs The Promenade Playhouse on the famed 3rd Street Promenade. Thanks to these two dynamic women, Staged/Lit had two great sponsors and a stage on which to perform!

Our premiere event was a television pilot co-written by Scottie Jeanette Madden and myself, entitled “The Other Woman” adapted from the memoir “Getting Back to Me” from girl to boy to woman in just fifty years, written by Ms. Madden and published by Zuzubean Press. The script explores the world of Mike and Samantha, a married couple, trying to make room for ‘the other woman’ in their lives when Mike comes out as transgender.

When I first began working with Scottie on the adaptation, it was important to keep in mind what I had learned from Syd’s books – structure, theme, key plot points, what drives character, and to authentically “transpose from one medium to another.” And, what is most important, to remember the art of visual storytelling.

With a book, be it novel or memoir, there is the space to explore the narrator’s mind with lyrical passages, or describe an emotional, sensual or explosive event with expansive, tender or energetic prose. In a script, the goal is to translate a page or a chapter to a scene, or a series of evocative scenes, that may have little or no dialogue, yet conveys the essence of that same page or chapter. It may also require creating a new scene that doesn’t exist in the original text. When this is necessary, it is critical that the new scene, though not in the canon, nevertheless reveals the truth of the original story. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t belong.

It is all about storytelling. The art and craft required in telling the same story in a different medium is the inspiration for Staged/Lit.

What also proved incredibly revealing was when the actors read the script aloud. Skilled and talented performers definitely support writers in refining, editing and sometimes discovering newfound clarity in a script. Invaluable. Casting was a joy, which included actors from LAPAC. Natalia was one of our talented co-leads, alongside two different leads, Kelly Mantle in the matinee and Jay Disney in the evening performance. We had an amazing cast!

The result? Our Saturday matinee was booked solid within three days. We added an evening performance which was also full. The Q&A’s following the events were lively, enlightening and fun. And three lucky writers won the lottery to receive a copy of one of three Syd Field books: Screenplay – The Foundations of Screenwriting, The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver or Four Screenplays.

Now, we are preparing for the next Staged/Lit performance, based on the novel The Fabliss Life of Bella Mellman written by Shirley Sacks. Stay tuned! Follow us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/stagedlit/

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World Storytelling Day 2016 – Strong Women

A strong woman, Mrs. Mary E. Jones Parrish, wrote the book on the following event. This is my summary of those events.

Once upon a time, a group of black protesters who were against mob rule, set out to support their local sheriff in protecting a young prisoner from being lynched. It was a time when open carry of firearms was legal. Many of the black protesters were veterans of The Great War. They were proud citizens who felt it was their right to step forward and maintain the peace and the rule of law.

They were rightfully concerned, because just nine months earlier, a white mob had taken a white prisoner from custody and lynched him. The crowd of white citizens was so large the police directed traffic to allow the extra-legal execution to take place without interference. However, once mob “justice” had been served, the crowd surged forward to rip souvenirs from the corpse.

This was the mentality facing the protesters of this time and place – 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma. If the authorities chose not to protect one of its white citizens from a lynch mob, what hope was there for a black citizen without support from his community?

However, the white mob surrounding the courthouse was incensed that these black citizens would question their actions. Who were they to stand and voice an opinion? By noon the following day, this white mob organized and executed the largest riot against a black community in the history of our nation. With guns, fire and bombs, the once prosperous community known as Greenwood, the Black Wall Street, was pillaged and burned until it resembled a bombed-out village from the recent war in Europe.

Those black citizens who survived, including Mrs. Jones Parrish and her daughter, were rounded up and placed into detention camps. Martial law was declared. These black citizens could only be released through the authority of a white citizen. Men, women, children.

No one from that white mob ever served time for these crimes. In fact, the official grand jury blamed the destruction on the black protesters for daring to come forward, stating that propaganda had been: “accumulative in the minds of the negro which led them as a people to believe in equal rights, social equality and their ability to demand the same” – Tulsa World, June 26, 1921, p. 8. A message had been sent and the grand jury condoned it.

I was drawn to tell this story now in light of current events.

When a (white) front runner in the 2016 presidential campaign says to his supporters, in response to (primarily black) protesters, “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out in a stretcher, folks.” we need to talk about the “old days” to which he refers. Further, this same front runner now predicts that if he does not get the GOP nomination, there will be riots.

There is a well-known cautionary statement: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (Charles Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905).

Here we are in the 21st century, and it seems there is an existing segment of our country who do remember the past and are really eager to repeat it.

This year, Memorial Day weekend 2016, marks the 95th anniversary of “the old days.” A survivor and strong woman of that period, Mrs. Mary E. Jones Parrish, wrote the first book to detail the tragedy, based on her experience and the testimony of other survivors.
Race riot 1921 Events of the Tulsa disaster by Mary E. Jones Parrish #WorldStory16 http://tulsahistory.org/learn/online-…

posted by Valerie C. Woods
on March, 20

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War On Christmas?

Valerie C. Woods – Author, Publisher/Editor, Writing Coach, Writer/Producer

Have you heard? Apparently there’s a “War On Christmas” – who knew? Don’t say Happy Holidays! This is Christmas time, we celebrate Christ, see his name is right there in the name of the holiday, so stop trying to take Christ out of Christmas. Stop being oppressive about our Christian holy day!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a big fan of Christmas. Of course, especially when I was a child. No school, pretty lights, presents under the tree, midnight candlelight services… I can even sing ‘O come all ye faithful’ in Latin (thanks to Nat King Cole’s essential Christmas album and 2 years of Latin in high school).

The story of Mary and Joseph, the Three Kings, the star visible by day and by night – all of it sparked a delicious wonder, mystery and beauty into urban life on the south side of Chicago. And don’t get me started on the movies! The list is long.

But even as a child back in the 20th century there was talk of the commercialization of the holiday, just watch Miracle on 34th Street, released in 1947. And then when retailers started abbreviating Christmas with ‘Xmas’, the rumbling began.

Nowadays, as many people around the world, and most especially in the United States, acknowledge that there are other religious and cultural celebrations at this same time, all of a sudden it’s being interpreted by some Christians as a “war.” By simply daring to recognize that there are also non-Christian celebrations happening in December, (you know being inclusive) it’s a war against Christmas – as if others are infringing on an imagined Christian trademark on this particular time of year.

But let’s take a step back for a minute. The general opinion is that the United States was founded as a Christian country. You know Pilgrims, right? We celebrate in November; the first Thanksgiving and all. But have you ever noticed we never see anything about the first Pilgrim Christmas?

Well, there’s a funny thing about those grateful Pilgrims who settled in America. They BANNED CHRISTMAS!!!

Yes, the Pilgrims actually outlawed the holiday! Celebrating Christmas was illegal and those caught making merry were fined or jailed! Now that was a real war on Christmas. A simple check of Wikipedia can start your research: “The Puritan community found no Scriptural justification for celebrating Christmas, and associated such celebrations with paganism and idolatry.“

They’re not the only ones. Early Christians, and I’m speaking of the first few hundred years of Christianity, did not celebrate birthdays. Catholic theologian Origen of Alexandria wrote:

“…of all the holy people in the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday. It is only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod) who make great rejoicings over the day on which they were born into this world.”

(Go ahead, thank Wikipedia with a small donation. It’s the holidays! And it’s tax-deductible.)

In fact, it is ironic in the extreme that any contemporary Christian complains about a so-called war on Christmas, considering that Christmas itself is theorized to have been a “war” against paganism. A fascinating book to read is The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum.

In my novella, I Believe: A Ghost Story for the Holidays, Ramsay, a cynical and bitter widower, rants at his co-workers in the faculty lounge:

“Don’t talk to me about Christmas. If you’re interested in winter solstice debauchery, let me know. Otherwise don’t involve me in this fantasy world created by the church.”

His fellow teachers admonished him as a Scrooge, which only set him off.

“See, see, there you go. Dickens is the main culprit, him and Washington Irving practically invented Christmas as you know it today. Irving invented “ancient traditions” and Dickens wrote a quick story to pay some bills.”

“Come on, Ram. 2,000 years of tradition can’t be all wrong.”

“No, no…not 2,000 years. The first 300 years after his death nobody, nobody celebrated his birth. The early church focused on Passover and Easter. No, it wasn’t until Pope Julius had the bright idea to claim the winter solstice festival from the pagans to distract them from celebrating Saturnalia and the birth of Mithra… I mean, even the Puritans knew better than to get sucked into celebrating Christmas. It was outlawed in Boston! But then the marketers got hold of the idea and boom – Christmas shopping season ads were born, Christmas cards, designed so people would use the new postal service, by the way – and get this – Jesus wasn’t even born in December!”

A small, timid woman puffed up the nerve to respond. “Are you saying Christ was never born?”

“No, of course not. But he was probably born in the spring or maybe the fall, otherwise, shepherds, the first to witness this birth, wouldn’t be out with their sheep in mid-winter! That’s when they killed them for fresh meat. The 25th was celebrated long before Christ was born. With drinking, feasting, sex and rock and roll. Now that’s what I call a party! You have something like that, count me in.”

And on that note, he stalked out with his coffee. As an afterthought, he poked his head back in…

“And don’t get me started on Kwanzaa. Just do your research. You’re teachers, do the research… Ron Everett – re-named himself Karenga. Go on. Look it up. Invented. Made up. Just like Christmas. All this stuff invented to make you obediently spend money and feel guilty.”

Of course, like any holiday (including Christmas) story worth its salt, Ramsay has a change of heart, thanks to a spiritual intervention from his deceased wife. But that’s not my point.

There is no current war on Christmas! No one is trying to ban it, outlaw it, or eradicate it. What’s happening is a shift of awareness that recognizes this period of celebration as a universal human expression. And to be blunt, no one religion or culture “owns” this time of year. And anyone ranting about a “war on Christmas” might want to extend that most Christmassy of tenets and share the joy of human kindness and goodwill toward all.
I Believe…A Ghost Story for the Holidays

posted by Valerie C. Woods
on December, 08

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Publisher’s Spotlight – Fall 2015

The first time I met Bella Mellman, I knew she would become one of my best fictional friends. Bella, much like her creator, Shirley Sacks, is a transplanted South African artist, writer and savvy woman of the world, living a ‘fabliss’ life (according to her 8-year-old granddaughter) in the flats of Beverly Hills.

It has been a very entertaining journey bringing her story to the world. The Fabliss Life of Bella Mellman is to be released on November 17, 2015. Enjoy this sneak peek. (Drawings by Shirley Sacks)

Envy Bella

“By the time we learn life’s lessons, there isn’t time to practice.”

“I don’t really want to get married again,” Shelly told Bella.

“That’s progress,” Bella said.

Then Shelly added, “But I do want to meet someone.”

Bella always thought that “someone” was a strange term: It denoted a lack of specificity, as if anyone would do.

In her quest to find a third husband, or that “someone,” Shelly took the contemporary route. She joined Match.com and JDate, hoping that, being Jewish, she’d find more sensible choices. Shelly had – though she didn’t tell Bella until much later – paid three thousand dollars to join a personalized matchmaking service.

“If you told me before you wasted your money,” Bella informed Shelly, “I would have told you that’s a con. There was a woman here, Dotty Marriot, who became a good friend of mine. She was from Dallas and moved here thinking she’d have more fun. So, this very exclusive, personalized matchmaker promised a certain amount of highly compatible contacts. Eventually they came up with just one, and that one wasn’t even a genuine member of the service. He was merely a friend helping out.” Bella added, “I also told Dotty, though she didn’t believe me, that if you want to find a man, Los Angeles is not the place. You’d be better off in Alaska.”

“But I really do want someone, I’m not like you. I’m not happy on my own.”

“You also weren’t happy when you were with someone,” Bella pointed out.

“That’s true,” Shelly conceded.

“Look how lucky you are,” Bella said. “You own your own condo, with hardly any mortgage. Your parents will leave you enough so you don’t have to worry when you’re really old. You have three grown children.”

Shelly added, “Two of them give me nothing but trouble.”

“Yes, and what kind of man wants to deal with that? You’ll also have to deal with his kids, whom you will find as spoiled and indulged as he will find yours. Then, you have to listen – as though it was all interesting – to him and his old friends tell stories over and over again about their misspent youth – which is funny only to them. You will not like his family, nor him yours. And his children will be furious that you might get some of his money, which I can assure you, you won’t.”

Shelly said, as she said so often it became a refrain, “I like the feeling of being married.”

“Have you ever thought that there’s a predicable trajectory to marriage? It’s not simply straightforward for people who have been divorced, as in your case, twice.”

“What do you mean?”

“You date, marry, move into a first apartment, get pregnant, buy your first house, have another child, move again. The kids go to school, they go to college, they get married. You become grandparents. There’s a blueprint for a successful marriage and women like you simply have not followed the plan.”

“You sound like there is no hope.”

“Hope. It’s not about hope. More like a reality check. Take growing old; you do it together. Both of you slowly acclimatize to the ravages of age as they occur, in tiny increments. The breasts and testicles gently fall, the skin stretches, hair thins and greys. The steps become unsteady, the hands less sure. But it’s a whole other thing to be suddenly faced with some man’s old body, or have him face yours. And that’s even if you’re in good shape for your age. God I hate that term, ‘for your age.’ I hate it, and I can’t help using the words myself.”

“Oh Bella, you are just too cynical.”

“I am.” Bella grinned. She took this as a compliment.

Womans face with mole v02b

There she is – Bella Mellman! Fabliss, funny and real! How could I resist?

-VCW

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An Indie Voice for Change

Guest Blog by DeeAnn Veeder

At a “Writing for Social Justice Workshop,” I met Eden-Renee Hayes, Board Chair for Multicultural BRIDGE, an organization whose mission is to “promote mutual understanding and acceptance among diverse groups.” When I expressed my goal of  writing about white privilege in a way that white people will truly understand, she arranged for me to meet Multicultural BRIDGE Co-Founder and CEO Gwendolyn Hampton Vansant.

Gwendolyn is a “diversity leader and trainer, bilingual certified interpreter, and community activist/organizer, [who] designs curriculum for workplace language classes as well as highly customizable cultural competency, literacy and proficiency training.”

And so, on a sun-dappled spring day that felt buoyant with promise, I almost skipped down the sidewalks of the handsome village of Lee, Massachusetts, and into the Multicultural BRIDGE offices.

I happened to arrive on the very day Gwendolyn received the proofs of her anthology, Berkshire Mosaic: A Multicultural BRIDGE Living History.  The story of how the book came into being is a perfect example of how the tenacity of an independent voice can be a force to create change.

In 2012, Gwendolyn had the goal “of portraying a gentle, inviting, celebratory yet powerful form of social justice.” She partnered with the local newspaper and found nine diverse writers to collect and write the stories of people in their community.

“The premise of our anthology,” says Gwendolyn, “supported by psychological research, is that stories are authentic human experiences and timeless links.  Stories can connect us to ourselves and to a larger sense of belonging, history and existence.” The stories were first published in the BRIDGE blog and in the newspaper.

Gwendolyn then created a compilation of the profiles into book form. It introduces us to people who live in Berkshire County; from youth to the elderly to the disabled, new residents to veterans, Polish, Italian, Indian, Jewish, Irish, Latino, and African Americans, rabbis and reverends and Muslims, professors, anthropologists and police chiefs.  There are 64 profiles in the volume.  “My dream,” says Gwendolyn, “is for our Berkshire community to be a model for other communities, honoring that we each have a story to be told and we each have a place to claim.”

An ingenious element of the book’s story is that Gwendolyn envisioned the full-color, hardcover anthology as an innovative fundraising tool for Multicultural BRIDGE, which is a 501(c)3 non-profit.  Children’s book author, Nik Davies, who is also BRIDGE Board Treasurer, stepped up to be the book’s Editor-in-Chief.

At my initial meeting with Gwendolyn on that spring day of promise, learning the story of this book and seeing the fresh proofs, I was immediately enthralled – with Gwendolyn and the book – and very excited. When Gwendolyn said she needed a proofreader/editor, I almost jumped with joy, “I can do that!  I can do it!”  As an editor and marketing associate with BooksEndependent LLC, I respected and admired the spirit of Gwendolyn’s publishing endeavor. I really wanted to be a part of her magnificent social justice work and this beautiful book.  I am immensely honored that she let me.

The completely independent, self-published Berkshire Mosaic  was launched in June 2015 and has already raised over $6000 for Multicultural BRIDGE.  This is a comprehensively inclusive creation, and it creates a shared humanity that is powerful.

Gwendolyn is a brave fusion of quiet intelligence, hard work, resilience, compassion and creativity, all perfectly mixed with a strong streak of stubborn independence.

BooksEndependent applauds the indie spirit and voice of Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant.

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