Butch is Published!

I'm so happy to report that Butch: A Bent Western has been published! Yes! Butch is absolutely one of my favorite fictional characters EVER! In fact, I'm not convinced she is fictional. So let me tell you this: If you don't like Westerns, it's not that kind of Western. If you like Westerns, you will find this a kind of magical realist Western. If you don't like historicals, don't worry: It ain't that kind of historical. If you do like historicals, the story takes place 100 years ago, so it might have enough feeling of a historical for you. If you don't like mysteries, it ain't that kind of mystery, but Butch has quite a few mysteries on her plate. And come on: Who doesn't like a good mystery? Mostly it's a good story with a fabulous crew of people. It's funny and moving, and I hope you enjoy it!

Here's from the cover blurb:

Santa Tierra, New Mexico, 1918

Anything can happen in the weird and wonderful town of Santa Tierra where Butch McLean protects the residents of Wayward Ranch, finds lovin’ in the arms and up the skirts of her beloved Angel, and keeps one step ahead of the possibly supernatural jaguar who may or may not be stalking her. Come hell or high water, Butch will rescue any dude or damsel in distress with humor and aplomb.

But when Angel dumps her (for a man, no less), a wounded stranger stumbles into town, and the deputy is murdered, Butch may have more mysteries on her hands than even she can solve. Especially since she is suddenly plagued by memories of the terrible childhood years she spent at St. Anne’s Home for Wayward Boys. And to top it all off, she becomes obsessed with finding her prostitute mother’s suicide note.

Butch is not accustomed to being haunted by anything—and she is not interested in ruminating about her life—but now even the animals who cross her path tell her a time of reckoning is near. And when the mystery of the dead deputy leads to revelations about Butch’s own parentage, she might just have a shot at solving the greatest mystery of all: Who is she and why did her mother end up at the end of a rope?

print • kindle • nook • smashwords

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Butch is Here!

After a four year plus wait, my novel Butch is finished and published. Well, it's published in some venues. It's on smashwords for all e-readers except kindle and nook. The kindle version is up, and the nook version will be up soon. The print version will be available next week. We're doing a happy dance here!

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On the Mystic Trail: The Tale of Blue Tails

I have studied. The moon, stars, heavens, hell. I have studied. Plants, blossoms, rocks, rivers. I have studied. People, stories, the wind.

And yet none of this studying brought me any closer to the truth. Or to joy. Truth and joy are the same thing, right? I was not any closer to understanding love. No closer to the divine.

So one day I let it all go. That which I thought I knew. I let go of the studies. The rules. The dos and don’ts.

I asked: What brings me peace and joy?

The feel of my husband’s cheek against my hand. The sound of his laughter. His grin.

What else?

When I was a girl, I ran through the woods, barefoot, singing, loving, climbing trees, in communion with the world. I gave myself over—completely, for moments of time—to Nature. I was in love.

And in grief when it came to harm.

I was in awe of the mystery of it.

I understood it all as I walked sole to soul to sole.

I was an Earth Mystic then.

Of course.

Somehow I had stepped off that fecund path of Earth mysticism, Earth mystery, and onto a concrete path. Or at least onto someone else’s path. Veered off my own in a search for healing. Listened to other wisdoms, other traditions.

Perhaps that was part of it all.

But I am of this place: this land, this water, air, this sun.

Now I am an Earth Mystic. Now and again.

I have been walking the Mystic Trail looking for signs. It’s a busy trail this a trail near my home. Every time I walk it, it is a pilgrimage and a trial. I am accustomed to being in Nature where very few other humans walk. Those who come to the places where I roam are likewise Earth Mystics, for the most part. They are reverential. They understand all of it is sanctified. Sacred.

Human beings are a part of Nature. But they tax me. I listen for wisdom in the Wind. I hug trees and feel love back. I wave to crows, whisper to plants, look for signs in the clouds. I am in love when I am in Nature. I am in church when I am in Nature.

Most people don’t see the world the way I do. Sometimes it is too painful to be around others when I am in the woods. I can hardly bear to see how they treat what I worship.

But something about this busy trail calls to me: daily. I know I can find answers there. Here. On the Mystic Trail.

One day I went looking for signs. Isn’t that what an Earth Mystic would do?

I walked along the riverside, listening to the water, looking at the tall stalks of cow parsnip growing on the east side of the path, away from the creek, in marshy black soil. Their huge Queen Anne’s Lace-like flowers were beginning to dry out.

In some places along the creek, in the tall grass, lunaria annua (honesty) grew. Its pale violet colored four-petaled blossoms looked satiny and glorious, so rich and vibrant. I wanted to stand and gaze at them forever. I didn’t know why the plant was called “honesty,” but its nickname was “money plant” because its seed pods looked like coins. That apparently accounted for the “lunaria” name, too, since the round translucent seed pods looked like small full moons, complete with crater-like pockmarks that were actually seeds.

All I saw on this day were the satiny blossoms. The seed pods would come later.

Small violet-colored butterflies flew around my feet here and there as I walked. I stepped onto the first bridge at the first falls and turned my face toward the milky water as it cascaded down an almost smooth rock face. Near the bottom of the rock face, near the creek, was a hole in the rock. Every time I looked at it I thought of the sipacu in the floor of the Hopi kivas. Apparently the sipacu represented the hole where the Hopi ancestors emerged from the underworld into this world.

I felt like I was either emerging from the underworld here or diving down deep into it.

I continued walking between the moss and fern-covered rock face on my left and the creek on my right. Candy flowers—with white blossoms growing up between two leaves that together looked like exaggerated green lips—seemed to grow everywhere on the moss covered ground, looking like tiny stars that had fallen to earth.

This trail was so fecund—there was so much to see and experience, that it was almost overwhelming. I kept on the path, climbing up. The creek got farther and farther below me.

I stopped at the bottom of twenty-six wooden steps, next to a tiny cave--the grotto we called it—and listened to it echoing back the sound of the creek to me.

I whispered prayers.

Then I climbed again.

I gazed up at water falling down the canyon walls as I walked. I hugged Douglas firs that were hundreds of years old. I took the right path at the fork of the road and went down again, following the switchback to another bridge, as the world opened up and I could see the beautiful blue sky of the canyon. I crossed over the bridge and over the creek, stopping to gaze into the sea-foam colored water churned up as it fell over rocks and down, down.

There be Old Mermaids here.

I climbed down over slippery downed trees and around boulders until I was under the trees, some yards from the water. I sat on a rock.

I was flooded with so many thoughts of so many distressing things in my life and in the world. I wanted answers and I wanted them now. What could I do to be well, to be at peace, to be in joy?

Shhhh.

I’m so tired of struggling.

Shhhh.

I needed to close my eyes. Just rest. Meditate. When I opened my eyes, I would have an answer.

I breathed deeply and closed my eyes.

After a bit, I felt something. Something had changed.

I opened my eyes. A huge black dog was sniffing around the ground near me. I jumped up, startled and afraid. The dog didn’t seem to notice me. What would it do when it did? I looked around for the owner. I saw a man with three very young boys crossing the bridge.

The dog picked up something. A stick.

I was furious.

How dare that man let his dog off leash. I had been bitten by dogs twice. Been lunged at innumerable times. I didn’t blame the dogs. But I did blame the owners. They were always either completely clueless or else they’d get angry that I dared to say anything.

I was so angry now that I wanted to hurt someone.

The dog eagerly brought me over a stick. She wanted me to play fetch.

“No!” I said. And I pointed up the hill. I yelled at the man, “You’re supposed to have your dog on a leash.”

He mumbled something.

The dog ran up the hill again, leaving behind the stick, like some kind of offering.

My heartbeat started to go back to normal. After the dog and the man were gone, I looked at the stick. Maybe the cosmos had brought me an answer in the form of the stick.

It was just a stick with moss on it. And dog spit.

I remembered once years ago going to Bandon, Oregon, where we used to live. I was desperately sick and miserable. I cried out to the Universe for help. As I walked the deserted beaches, I came across the biggest pile of seaweed I had ever seen. I started laughing almost uncontrollably, and I yelled, “I said I needed help, not kelp!”

Maybe this was the same thing. Dog was god backward. Should I look for god in every dog I saw? And the stick. Talk softly and carry a big stick?

I sighed. I wanted people to be more responsible about their animals. But I couldn’t change their behavior, and despite years of trying, I hadn’t been able to change my response to their behavior. It was a safety thing. When I felt my safety threatened, I went for the jugular.

I got up and moved closer to the river, climbing carefully around boulders until I found a rock in the river, in the sun. I curled up on the rock. I felt like I was one of those iconic sunbathing mermaids. Only I was wearing clothes and no one could see my tails. Even me.

I sometimes wondered what color my tails would be. Probably New Mexico sky blue. Just like in my novel, The Blue Tail.

I needed to relax, to stop thinking.

I began singing the old Celtic chant, “Under the earth I go. On an oak leaf I stand. I ride a filly that was never foaled. I carry the dead in my hands. I carry the dead in my hands.”

I sang it over and over. The sound of the cascading water became my drum, my rattle, my accompanying music. I sang it loud. I sang it long.

It drowned out my thoughts.

It was just me and this place.

I breathed deeply. Across the river was a patch of coltsfoot, growing in the relative darkness created by the trees. The coltsfoot looked so present—or something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. They looked so alive with their huge green leaves overlapping with other huge green leaves.

As I watched their stillness, a hummingbird flew out into the middle of the creek. Then she flew to the coltsfoot patch and then out to the creek again. I couldn’t tell what she was looking for or doing, but as always, I felt buoyed just to see a hummingbird. When she disappeared from my sight, I watched dragonflies diving now and again for insects flying above the water. A vulture flew overhead. A dipper stood on one of the many rocks in the creek. The dipper was so close to the water that it was almost in the water. Every once in a while it would dip its head into the creek, quickly, then come up again.

A tiny luna moth-like insect flew past me. It seemed to glow white. I was transfixed. It looked so otherworldly, and I wondered if the fairies had decided to visit me in this odd and lovely form.

At one point I saw a shadow on the water—a bird was flying overhead. I looked up and saw a huge bird. At first glance, it felt dinosaur-sized—and I only got a first glance. It flapped its wings like a great blue heron, but it was golden brown and its head was more like an eagle’s—although not quite. I only saw it for about three seconds before it flew behind a rock. I thought I knew all the big birds in our area, but I didn’t know what I had just seen.

I sat quietly for a time. I noticed spider webbing or some kind of filament seemed to be everywhere, streaming in the wind from some unknown place, connecting everything to everything. I watched these filaments and felt comforted by the idea of everything being connected.

Be still.

And understand your mermaid nature.

That’s what I heard, once my mind had quieted down. Those seemed to be opposing instructions. I didn’t imagine a mermaid was ever still. Weren’t they more like fish, always on the move?

I was often too literal, even when I was delving into myth and fairy tales.

Know thyself.

That was what was written at the Pythia’s oracle in Delphi: Know thyself. That was the way to magic. The way to power (power with not power over). The way to truth.

I was hearing this as I sat by the river in the canyon, just off the Mystic Trail.

Sometimes “know thyself” seemed impossible.

Be still and know thyself.

Oh, so I was getting instructions on how to know myself.

I looked at the white water coming down through two huge boulders in the creek.

Find your siren song.

Ahhh. So that was what it meant to understand my mermaid nature.

Wasn’t writing my siren song?

And something else. Maybe something not quite so concrete and literal?

After a while, I climbed back up to the path. I walked past the cave and went up and across another bridge. The waterfalls crashed down into the pool below—a dark green pool that looked like it held all kinds of mysteries.

I watched the falls for a time and then I headed north, away from the falls and up the trail. I crossed another bridge. I was walking by a sun-drenched patch of grass and rock when I saw a flash of blue. I looked over and saw what looked like a small snake’s tail moving on the incline, through the grass.

The tail was the color of the New Mexico sky.

I stopped and watched. The creature stopped. I could see it was slightly hidden under the shadow of a rock. And I could see its head and body. It looked like a small black and brown striped garter snake with a blue tail.

I somehow got out my camera. Because the sun was so bright I couldn’t tell if I was even pointing in the right place. I whispered, “Could you be still just for a moment so I could take your picture?”

The blue-tailed creature was still. I took photos. Suddenly, another of these creatures burst out of the grass and began chasing the first one. Now I could see they had legs. They were lizards! A lizard with a dull blue tail chased the lizard with the bright blue tail.

I was a witness to a blue-tailed lizard chase!

Later I learned that what I had seen were two Western skinks, an indigenous lizard of our area. As far as I could tell, the lizard with the bright blue tail was younger and the one chasing it was older. Or it could have been the other way around. The information was confusing. Scientists believed the skinks used their blue tail as a way to distract predators. The predators would grab onto the tail, then the lizard would detach the tail and keep going. They could only do this once, though. After they detached the tail the first time, a new tail grew back and it was not detachable.

The lizards disappeared from my view. I thanked the Universe for letting me see the blue-tailed creatures.

I went down the rest of the trail in bliss.

I kept wondering what it all meant, if anything. I was not obsessing or distressing. I felt like I was in a dream and marveling at the dream all at the same time.

I felt like I was surrounded by signs and metaphor. I felt like I was walking into and out of story. Into and out of dreaming and mythmaking.

Dog and god. Kelp and help.

Blue tails and blue tales.

What was the difference between a woman and a mermaid?

Her tail.

Her tale.

Something so profound and beautiful about seeing the blue tail on the lizard. That bright blue in the wild.

The lizard was wild. The mermaid is wild. She dives into the great ocean of herself and finds her siren song.

Be still.

Know thyself.

Find your siren song.

“Under the earth I go. On an oak leaf I stand...”

It had to be about the wild.

Be wilder.

Bewilder.

Perhaps that was how we found our tales—our stories. Perhaps that was how we could see our own tails, how we could know our true selves.

Be wilder

It was all bewildering.

And that was how it should be on the Mystic Trail.

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Raccoon Medicine: Crumbs into Cake

This thought came into my head this morning: "I am tired of crumbs. I want the whole cake." My next thought was that I can't have cake because it's got sugar and flour (which I don’t eat) but I laughed at myself: My thought process was an example of settling for crumbs. 

I met Mario on his break (he is definitely the whole cake and not crumbs), and I told him this thought. How do I embrace life when not all of it is what you want, like, or need? That is the question. I need to shift attitudes, priorities, outlook. Mario said, “But we are eating the whole cake. Look at what we’re doing with our writing.” I didn’t say, “Yes, but when will we make a living at it?”

I kissed Mario under the great old oak by the library and we went our separate ways. As I walked away, I thought about my job and what I would do if they tried to force me to work in a building I believe is toxic to me. Why after 18 years were they fussing about this? I started anticipating another battle, one I didn’t want to wage but would. I do my job, I do it well. Why wasn't that enough? I started imagining how we would survive if I lost my job. I heard a dog bark once. I looked up. I heard a strange animal noise I sometimes heard in the middle of the night. I looked across the street and saw two raccoons coming down the driveway of the house across the street and running toward me. 

I was startled. I don't know if I've ever seen raccoons out in the bright sunshine. When I realized they weren’t actually running toward me, I stopped and watched them. They were clearly involved in their own drama. One of the raccoons stopped, looked at me and then immediately ducked back into a thicket of Oregon grape and disappeared. Then the other one looked my way, seemed to sigh, then disappeared, too. I laughed. I had dreamed last night of a pen full of all kinds of animals: wild and domesticated. It was a mess--in the dream--and I needed to do something about it. Was this my dream leaking into daytime? 

Raccoons are part of our neighborhood, although I only see them at dusk or at night. They regularly eat from our compost and leave droppings on our yard. (I much prefer their pellets to cat and dog feces.) They have also made a path over our land--well, it’s their land, too.  

I welcome them, and I understand they are wild animals best left to their own devices. They are indigenous to this continent. In legend and myth, they were considered tricksters. In the stories, Raccoon is sometimes a thief who is punished for thievery; sometimes Raccoon is a medicine person bringing spiritual teachings. In most of the stories, Raccoon is considered sacred and is renowned for her/his dexterity. The various Native American names for raccoons almost always mean “one who picks things up” or “they handle things.” But Raccoon’s other names are more spiritual in nature. The Aztec name means “she who talks to spirits (or gods)” and “little one who knows things.” The Dakota Sioux name means “magic one with painted face.” In other tribes their names mean “one with magic” or “one who makes magic.” 

Raccoons are survivors. They pick up crumbs or scraps of food--treasures to them, no doubt--wherever they find them and they make feasts. I suppose that’s what writers and storytellers do, only our crumbs are words and we put them together to tell a story, to create a world. Raccoons and writers and artists--maybe we’re all cooks. (Or bakers?) We find the crumbs, the scraps, and we create the meal, the dish, the feast. Afterward, maybe we write down the recipe. You need a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and don’t forget a sprinkle of the other.   

I don’t imagine Raccoon ever sits around wondering why things aren’t easier or why things aren’t different from what they are.

The other day I was on a trail and I was a little out of breath as I trudged up, up, up. I reached the bottom of last ascent, an actual stairway in the woods made up of 26 steps. Two women were coming down the stairs. I said to one, “Someday I’m actually going to like a trail that isn’t always going up.”

One of the women said, “Honey, that’s called a sidewalk.”

She had a point. 

I chose this path in the wilderness, even if I didn't choose all the obstacles I've encountered on the way.

Straw into gold. Crumbs into cake. Scraps into a feast. 

That’s what we do. That’s what I’ve always done, although I often wonder if I’m missing an ingredient or two. 

Today I feel related to Raccoon, or at least akin to her. I can “handle things” and “make magic.” I know I can.

Maybe it’s time to go paint my face, raccoon-style, and get started.

(The quoted material is from Animal Wisdom by Jessica Dawn Palmer and Wildlife Folklore by Laura C. Martin.)

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What's New?

Just posted a new "What's new?"

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My new collection, Tales Fabulous and Fairy, is now available in print and for e-readers. This is from the cover: Enter the enchanting and exotic world of Kim Antieau’s imagination in these eight stories inspired by classic folk and fairy tales. This collection includes the following stories: The Foundling, Seeing Pink, Briar Rose, Dragon Pearl, Rose Red and Snow White, The Señorita and the Cactus Thorn, The Raven Sisters, and A Strange Attractor.

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Related to Bears

(This actually happened a few years ago, but I updated it to be part of the book tour.)

Last night in the rain and the near dark, my husband Mario and I went out into the forest with our tracker friend, Linda, and a friend of hers. We went deep into the wild. We were looking for wild things, and we were hoping to find bears.

We walked until Linda pointed to a dark place under some Douglas fir trees and said to her friend, "You sit there. Click your tongue if you see something."

Then the three of us walked until Linda said to me, "You're small. Crawl in through there." She showed me a rip in the metal fence. The tear in the fence was rather alarming since it looked as though some comic book character had come and pulled apart the fence to create an entrance or exit into or out of another world.

I went through the rip and sat under an evergreen tree. By or upon elk poop. It was raining, and I was dressed in a plastic bag and three layers of coats, a shirt, a camisole, and two pairs of slacks.

Mario and Linda walked on, but I didn't see where they went. I sat in the falling darkness, alone, still, quiet, watching and listening to the forest, the meadow, and the sky. I looked out at the forest and the giant hemlock trees that towered over all the other trees, slightly bent at their tops, as though they were bowing in prayer.

It grew dark. The rain began earnestly, drifting down from the clouds like a veil, a veil that fell again and again, gorgeously, sensually. I had never heard anything quite as wonderful as this rain falling on the forest. I watched the hemlocks take the rain and breathe it in, and I did the same.

I wondered if we would see any bears. The thought of a bear encounter made me a little nervous. I had dreamed about bears for years, until I wrote my novel Her Frozen Wild where bears and bear-people were central to the story. Once I finished the novel, the bear dreams nearly stopped. In researching the novel, I had learned that many indigenous people believed humans and bears were related. Before they hunted bears, Siberians and Native Americans followed elaborate rituals to honor the bear.

I’d also discovered stories about humans giving birth to bears in European, Native American, and Asian folk tales. In many different cultures, people often believed that humans could shape-shift into bears and vice versa. The great warrior berserkers were thought to shape-shift into bears when they put on a bearskin. (The word berserkers means “bear shirt.”) People believed this accounted for the berserkers fierceness and bravery in battle.

On some of my hikes in the forest, I had encountered signs of bears. I’d seen two short horizontal lines on tree trunks which I knew were teeth marks of a bear trying to get to the tree cambium. On other hikes we’d taken, Linda had pointed out claw marks on trees that were either bear or cougar. I had also seen a black bear in these forests once. I was in a car at the time, and the bear ran away faster than I’d ever seen anything that big run.

When I was a child growing up in Michigan, I heard about grizzly bears eating people in Yellowstone. All grown up and at the beginning of our married life, Mario and I stayed at Yellowstone Park one night. There were “beware of the bears” signs everywhere. I was terrified. We decided not to pitch a tent. Instead, we slept in the car. I had a very realistic dream of a bear trying to get into the car. I woke up gasping for air, my heart racing. That may have been my first bear dream.

The idea of encountering a bear in the woods did not fill me with happiness. In fact, it frightened me. I wanted bears living in the forest, of course, just like I wanted cougars in the forest. But I didn’t want to run into either of them during my treks. I imagined they wouldn’t be that thrilled to run into me either.

Once I dreamed I was a grizzly bear; I looked down and saw bear claws instead of hands. It seemed quite natural and right that I was a grizzly bear. In another dream, a bear was rampaging my neighborhood. When he roared into my house, I faced him, despite my terror. I told him I would make love with him--I would become his bear wife--if he would leave everyone else alone. He agreed to this bargain.

When I was writing Her Frozen Wild, Mario and I learned the bear dance from a Siberian shaman. At the end of the training, she said we were part of the Bear Clan.

This day, as it grew dark outside, I sat on the Earth amongst the wild things. I hadn’t heard anyone click their tongue to let us know they had seen something. I wondered where my husband was, but I figured he was safe with Linda. She was powerful enough to scare off any bear. Or at least she’d be able to get the bears to engage in a conversation with her until everyone understood we were all related. She had told us that when bear and human encounters went wrong it was usually because humans miscommunicated their intentions. We no longer understood the language of bear.

Somewhere in these woods, bears wandered. At least I hoped they did. Maybe they sat underneath trees to get out of the rain. Just like me. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep with my body next to the Earth, just like the bears. If I did that, maybe when I awakened, I would have bear claws again.

Too soon, Linda came and got me. As we all walked back to our cars, Linda told us that bears had ripped the hole in the fence I had climbed through. "The forest service comes out and fixes it,” she said, “and the bears keep ripping it open."

I shivered as I listened to her. Had I known who had created the rip in the fence, would I have sat so near to it, right on the path of the bears?

Yes, I decided, yes, yes, yes. And I was ready to do it again and again. Eventually I might run into a relative of mine. By then, perhaps, I would remember how to speak with bears.

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Entangled Realities

Green Snake Publishing has published a short story collection of ours called Entangled Realities. In it, you'll find some favorite stories of Mario's and of mine. It was a lot of fun collaborating in this way.

Where did we get the title? Mario's blog is called Conditional Realities, plus his short story imprint on Green Snake Publishing is "Conditional Realities." My imprint on GSP is "Entanglements." We put the two together to come up with Entangled Realities, which is also a good title for our life together!

From the cover of Entangled Realities: Short story masters Kim Antieau and Mario Milosevic combine their talents in this extraordinary collection of fantastic tales. These stories originally appeared in Asimov’s SF, Twilight Zone Magazine, Shadows, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Interzone, and The Clarion Awards. Included are: “Hauntings,” “Sanctuary,” and “Listening for the General” by Kim, and “Up Above the World So High,” “Winding Broomcorn,” and “The Untied States of America,” by Mario.

print • kindle • nook • smashwords

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Joanna Interviews Me!

The virtual blog tour for Her Frozen Wild continues this month. Here's one of my favorite interviews with one of my favorite people, Joanna Powell Colbert. She's the creator of the Gaian Tarot, one of my favorite tarots. It's one of the two tarot decks I use nearly every day. Plus her lovely blog, Gaian Soul, is one of my favorites, too. (Favorite is the operative word in this post!) Something wonderful is always happening around Joanna, so be sure to check out her place. Here's a list of my other stops.

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My Virtual Book Tour

Don't forget my virtual book tour for Her Frozen Wild this month and next. Every weekday I'll have a new interview or blogpost or someone will review Her Frozen Wild. Here's the link to the schedule. Once something is posted, the date goes from black to red and then the link will go directly to the piece that's about Her Frozen Wild. Today Pump Up Your Book interviewed me.

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Mario's Short Story Collection: Miniatures

Mario Milosevic, who also happens to be my husband, has a new short-short story collection out. This is his first short story collection, and it is amazing! The stories are quirky, weird, wonderful, moving, and funny. As you can see, I really like it. Check it out for yourself! Here's the Amazon link. It's available at all your favorite e-book stores for all your e-readers, too.

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Her Frozen Wild Book Tour Begins!

We're starting the virtual book tour for Her Frozen Wild. This link will take you to the list of where I'll be when. Hope to see some of you there! First stop is at The Character Connection.

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Swans in Winter is Published!

I'm pleased to announce that Green Snake Publishing has published Swans in Winter. Here's the cover blurb:

India Lake loves the wild and she will do anything to protect it—including taking off her clothes.

India Lake is in the middle of a full blown mid-life crisis. Her love life is stalled, to say the least. And her boss forces her to take a two-month vacation after she loses her temper with a library patron at work. A few days later, while observing the swans who have migrated from Alaska to a pond near her home, India meets photographer extraordinaire Benjamin Swan. India and Benjamin are immediately attracted to one another. India wonders if he might be what her friend Rhonda calls a “sole mate,” someone India can walk through life with. But the mysterious photographer and nature lover has many secrets. When the swans and Turtle Pond are threatened by pesticides and a shadowy lumber company, India and her friends from POOL (Pissed Off Old Ladies) decide to pose in the buff for a lunar calendar they can sell to raise enough money to hire an environmental lawyer to protect the land and the swans. As India talks to each woman and Benjamin takes their photographs, India comes to realize her place in this community of Swan Maidens. Once Benjamin’s secrets are revealed, can she forgive her Swan Knight? And can she save the wild and learn who her true “sole” mate is? print • kindle • nook • smashwords

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Short Stories

Every week we are making more and more of my short stories available for your e-readers. Most of them are old favorites, but I throw in a new one every once in a while. You can go to any of your favorite e-bookstores to get them. We're also going to begin putting our stories into collections and these will be made available for e-readers and in print editions. You can check out my stories at Entanglements on Green Snake Publishing, too. Mario has been making his stories available for some time, and now he's publishing a brand new story a week. You can find his at your favorite e-bookstore, too, and check them out here.

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Thorny Palace

Today is our last day on the Sanctuary. We're nearly all packed. Tomorrow we'll leave before the sun is up. Mario is inside the casita preparing dinner. I am in the Quail House where I have as company a huge spider. She clings to an old blanket in the chair behind me. Perhaps she is waiting to hear stories from me, or else she's come to share some of her own.

Outside the wind blows, stirring up dust and memories of winters past.

I lean my head out the top half of the Dutch door and listen. Does the wind bring me more stories? Coyote serenades? Bobcat purrs? Mesquite wisdom? The secrets of the paloverde?

I came here a month ago still recovering from the flu. For the first few weeks, I felt a bit battered. A rough year had taken its toll. I felt unmoored by dynamics in relationships I didn't understand. And when I felt I did understand, I didn't understand. Why was it that some people felt lifted up when they were trying to bring someone down? I had encountered this throughout my life. Because I often appeared confident, people saw this as an opening to try to degrade me—knock me down a few pegs.

Confidence was not a characteristic often valued, especially in women.

It often seemed that some of the people in my life--friends, family, acquaintances--liked me better when I was ill or not myself, when I was failing rather than succeeding.

Mario believes this is often true with many people, especially those who leave their familial environs. "The tribe doesn't want us to change," he says. "That's why people who go away are often teased or belittled when they return for a visit."

Often if we know something, we're accused of being know-it-alls. And if we're good at something, we're accused of not working hard enough or not deserving what we have.

I don't understand this attitude.

I like to be around people who are smarter than I am. I like it when people know more than I do. I like it when people I know and love are successful. I love it when they are hale and healthy. I love it when they are full of themselves and having a great and joyful life. I am cheering them on, always.

I realized this month that many people like it when the people around them are small.

That must be an awful feeling, to wish people ill, to want them to fail, to want them to be less than who they can be.

So this month, I had an opportunity to observe and contemplate the world of people. During this same time, I sat down and started to write my novel Whackadoodle Times.

I had a tough time at first. I had written the first chapter a few years earlier. I had really liked it, and I was afraid I couldn't keep going and have it be as good. In it, a homeless woman comes to live with a very rich family (at least that's what we think is going on); in exchange for room and board, the homeless woman promises to do one great thing a day.

Besides worrying about whether I could make the entire book good, I was stymied about the "one great thing a day" idea. I thought I needed to figure each "great thing" a head of time, and I couldn't. That was my first concern.

My second concern was that the main character was not exactly admirable. She was a foul-mouthed adulterer. And she was rich. I didn't really want to be in her head space.

But she really wanted me to write her story. I balked, figured I'd write something else, but there she was. Ideas kept popping into my head like little word balloons from her saying, "See, wouldn't this be fun?"

She was funny, I'll give her that.

So I told myself I'd try it for 10,000 words.

I began writing.

All the emotional crap I'd been struggling with dropped away almost as soon as I began writing. And I wasn't aware of any of my physical stuff. If I felt crappy, I didn't notice while I wrote.

It turned out I didn't have to worry about the one "great thing." Each day (in the book) something happened that became the "one great thing." And I fell in love with the main character, Brooke McMurphy. I felt liberated as I wrote because she says pretty much anything and does pretty much anything. That was wonderful!

Of course, she was screwed up. She had so many problems, but I sympathized with her. She was surrounded by people who did not live up to her expectations, but mostly, she didn't live up to her own expectations.

I wrote this book more quickly than I'd ever written any other book. I never laughed as hard while writing a book as I did writing this one. In the end, I never cried so hard during the writing of a novel.

Each night I'd read a section to Mario, and he'd laugh. This gave me the confidence to keep going.

I finished writing it in about ten days, give or take. Then I went up to Sedona with my oldest and youngest sisters. We had such a good time. We didn't fight; we didn't have awkward silences. We talked and laughed and hiked and grossed each other out. It was fabulous.

When we came back to Scottsdale, I stayed overnight with my father and got to spend time with my dad, three of my sisters, and three of my brothers-in-law. It was a good visit. Once again, everyone seemed kind and funny and just nice to be arouond.

Back at the Sanctuary, I took a day off. But I had decided that I wanted to try and write another book. I had about ten days left before we were heading home. I could do it.

At first, I didn't know what I wanted to write. About twenty years ago, I wrote a mystery novel with the character Jane Deere. In that version, Jane had run away from her family when she was young, changed her name, and was living in a small town in Washington. Even though I loved her character (and the character of Dragon, her main squeeze), I didn't like the novel so I put it away. During this last summer, Jane had come knocking on my imagination again, only this time, she was living in Portland, Oregon.

Now while I was sitting in the Quail House figuring out what I'd write, Jane Deere came out of the woodwork: She was here in Tucson and her entire family thought she had died in a fire-bombed cottage twenty-years earlier.

So I began writing her story. When the events of the novel were going to take place Portland, the novel was called Doe. But here in Tucson, the novel became Pricked. The title kept me thinking about the fairy tale, Briar Rose, which happened to be one of my touchstone fairy tales. Years ago I had written a short story called "Briar Rose," and it was one of my most reprinted stories.

During the time I was working on Pricked, I read several versions of Sleeping Beauty and Briar Rose. Even though my novel was not a retelling of Briar Rose or anything close to that, I felt like the essence of that tale was at the heart of this book.

I also came to believe that the essence of this tale was at the heart of my life.

For years, I have had this theory--unprovable thus far--that Western fairy tales may be coded instructions left by our ancestors. They were a way of preserving the Old Ways, but they were encoded so that the conquerors, the church, or the new dominant culture wouldn't know the truth of them; those who could figure out the key or code would. They were liked pages of a Book of Shadows hidden in plain sight.

Even if this isn't true--and there's no research that indicates it is--I like thinking about it, and I like reading fairy tales with this in mind. (One day, perhaps, I'll do more with this idea.)

In any case, one night Mario and I went out to dinner and we read a version of Briar Rose. He had never heard the Grimm's version before. We tried to look for hidden meaning in the tale. But we kept coming up with what seemed obvious: Don't disrespect the women, especially the old wise women. (Good advice.) Don't try to subvert fate because it's useless. (I'm all for trying to subvert fate or anything else.) Your prince will come. (I don't think so.)

I said let's look at the fairy tale the way some people look at dreams: Imagine that everything and everyone in it is the dreamer.

This made me contemplate the prince, which I hadn't done before because he seemed incidental. I hadn't cared about him. But now, I was thinking of him as the dreamer. The thorns were the dreamer. The spindle, Briar Rose, the king, queen, the prince: They were all the dreamer.

I realized that the prince didn't fight his way through the thorns. He happened to come along when the 100 year curse was over. He approached, the thorny hedge moved out of the way for him, and he stepped through. He walked into the palace where everything and everyone was asleep until he found Briar Rose's room. She was just waking up.

In the version Mario and I read, she was waking up when he entered the room. He didn't kiss her. He wasn't the hero. He just had great timing.

I kept thinking about this over the days that followed. I imagined that thorny hedge growing up to cover the palace and everyone inside. They were protected from the outside world during that 100 years. No one could come and hurt them, rob them, destroy anything.

But when the time was right, the thorny hedge moved aside and let the prince enter the palace grounds.

When the time was right, the princess woke up.

I walked the Sonora Desert and looked at the thorny bushes and trees all around me. In most places, it looked impenetrable.

Often I felt covered in the thorns of my suffering. Out here in the desert, surrounded by thorns, I became more aware of who I was and what my life had become. Was I inside my own thorny palace? Only I wasn't asleep, I was coming awake.

One day I wrote 7,000 plus words on Pricked. The next day I wrote 10,000 or thereabouts. It didn't feel like work. It felt like how it always feels when I'm in the flow: Like I was writing down what I saw.

Each morning I did what I had done every day here. I'd step outside of the Quail House with my rattle, the one I had made last spring out of elk hide, a rosemary branch, and rabbit fur. I acknowledged the Mysteries, asked if they would co-create this day, this novel, and my good health with me. After my song, after my prayer to the elementals, I'd go in and write.

I was feeling more and more free.

How can I explain? It felt physical. It felt soulful.

For a year or more I'd been trying this indie writing path. I didn't worry about finding a publisher for my work. I didn't worry about the length of my books. I just let the stories come to me, and I wrote them down.

My true creativity was returning.

When I was a girl, I had written for the pure joy of it.

I'm not saying I wrote for myself, but it was joyful. I always wanted an audience. My mother introduced me to Emily Dickinson when I was a girl, and I loved her poetry. But I knew her story was not my story: I wanted my work to be read.

I used to say, "I'm not writing for my dresser drawers."

Now, in the Quail House, I felt as though I was writing for an audience, but it was not an audience of publishers, editors, or agents. I wasn't writing for the marketplace. I was writing for an audience of readers.

Writing Whackadoodle Times was one of the most joyful writing times I've ever had. And writing Pricked was equally as joyous for a different reason. It felt physically joyful. It's hard to explain. I was being transformed by these novels.

On the last day that I wrote on Pricked, I stood under the sun with my rattle in hand. I sang to the directions. I sang to the desert. I sang to the sun. As I did so, I saw in my mind's eye that thorny hedge covering the palace, that thorny hedge that staved off all intruders and visitors. Staved off all saviors, had there been one. I saw the thorny hedge move away, saw flowers blossom, saw the path leading into the palace. Into my heart? My healing? My own happiness.

Timing is everything.

I felt as though joy was bubbling up from the desert ground. I raised the rattle up high and sang. Now was my time. Now was the time for healing. Now was the time for success. My slumber was over; my suffering was over.

Timing is everything.

Time for healing.

I went into the Quail House and continued writing on Pricked. That evening, Mario came and sat with me as I wrote. I was completely in my imaginal world. For years I had thought it strange that I was the most comfortable in my stories. Wasn't that a sign of some societal deficiency?

No, no!

I have often said that I'm a stenographer to the imaginal worlds.

Now as I finished this book--my second completed novel in less than a month--I realized I wasn't just a stenographer: I was a mediator between this world and the imaginal worlds. I brought these stories out of there and into here.

The thorny hedge was moving. I looked out into the Sonora Desert, the desert that had pricked me awake for the last eight winters, and I brought Jane Deere's story into the here and now.

When I wrote the last sentence, I stood up and cheered.

Wow. I had written a novel in five days.

Now it is our last night here at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary. (We call it this; the owners have a different name, but we respect their privacy.)

I first came here eight winters ago. This place has been a sanctuary for me. It has saved my life. I am a different person from the one who first came here. I was struggling inside my thorny palace, not comfortable with my thorns. Or anyone else's. Today many of the same issues haunt me that haunted me eight winters ago.

And yet, the stories are freer now.

I am freer now. I feel my true self rising again after a long painful slumber. It can't matter that anyone wants me to be small or wants me to be less than I can be. It can't matter. It's too high a price for companionship.

I'll tell the stories.

The rest will follow. Healing will follow.

That is my wish. My desire.

I wonder if I should redecorate the thorny palace or leave it all together?

I suppose if we imagine that Briar Rose was on a pilgrimage (albeit a sleepy pilgrimage) and now the pilgrimage is over, she must leave the palace.

I must leave this thorny palace, this refuge.

So that I may be healed.

May I be healed, may I be healed, may it be so.

It is so.

I wish the same for you.

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Claypot Dreamstance

Mario Milosevic's marvelous new novel, Claypot Dreamstance, is now available as an e-book and in print. Mario talks about his novel here.

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Her Frozen Wild is Here!

My newest novel Her Frozen Wild is published. Here's a preview. The e-reader versions are all available, and the print version is available now, too.

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Walking in Prickly Beauty

Once again I am at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary. It is named something else by other people, but that's what we call it. It is here where I first learned about the Old Mermaids when they came up out of the wash and told me their stories.

We've been here for nearly two weeks. It's been blue skies most of the time, and yesterday, it finally got warm. We take long walks in the desert; we take short walks in the wash. In the evening, coyotes serenade us. (OK, they're probably serenading each other, but you get the idea.)

At dusk, we often see javelinas. One night when I was taking out the trash (down the long dirt drive to the road) a javelina followed me. She was either looking for love in all the wrong places or she wanted my garbage.

You pick.

I've also seen two road runners, once at the Catholic church near here where Mario and I went to walk the labyrinth. The second time was when I was in the wash. The one at the church seemed a bit thin and too interested in us. The one in the wash took one look at me, raised her tail, and sauntered away.

I believe that was the healthier response.

And of course, the Sanctuary is filled with rabbits and birds and cacti and my beloved agave, and mesquite and palo verde trees.

In the mornings, Mario goes out and writes in the Quail House. When he's finished he returns to the casita. I feed him breakfast. Then I go out to the Quail House and work. When I'm finished, he feeds me lunch. Then we go for a walk.

It is an idyllic life in many ways, these weeks we're here.

The first day I wrote here, on Solstice, I wrote a Old Mermaids Healing Tale. The second day, I wrote 10,000 words on a novel to finish it.

On Christmas, we drove to Scottsdale to be with two of my sisters and their significant others and my father and my aunt Alice. We had a good time, but I was wired the whole day and didn't relax, as is often the case when I see my family for the first time on a visit. Once when I went home to Michigan, I lay curled up in a fetal position for two days. I have no idea why. My family members are good people. We each have our own difficulties, like most people, although we rarely talk about them with each other. There is a tacit agreement, as there is in many families, to keep it light when we're together.

I've never been a keepin' it light kind of person. When I was younger, I always wanted to talk about things, get them out in the open, solve problems. But I've gotten over that. Spilling your guts at a family gathering never does anyone any good as far as I can tell. So mostly I just try to get along and still be myself when I'm with family. I want them all to be healthy and happy, and since I was a kid, I felt responsible for their health and happiness.

I'm not certain if I was born that way or if I was created that way. I remember when it started. It was in first or second grade and one of my teachers took me aside and told me that the other kids looked up to me. I was a natural leader. And if I was nice to Billy (the kid who pooped his pants in class, who always stunk, and who lived with the other poor people in Saxony subdivision), everyone else would follow my lead.

Now I was a naturally shy kid, so I'm not sure if anyone was looking to me for anything, but I listened to my teacher and I was kind to Billy. In fact, I became the little kid (because I was quite small) who was always standing toe to toe with the bullies trying to protect other kids, most especially one of my little sisters who was always getting picked on.

And I was the one who noticed things were wrong long before anyone else did and I'd try to get help. Tried to get help for my pony who was sick (she died). Tried to get help for one of my sisters who was starving herself. Tried to save the killdeer on school property that the boys were always trying to kill.

I was always trying to fix or save something or someone.

In any case, Christmas was wonderful this year and it was difficult. On the way home, in the dark, I heard Judy Garland singing, "Have yourself a very merry Christmas," on the radio, and suddenly I was remembering being a kid singing, "yesterday," while I was on a swing, wishing my life was easier and I was happier. I was about ten years old! As I sat in the car next to Mario, I looked back at my life and I couldn't find one memory where I was happy. I was always so sad. And that realization made me sad. My whole life was just one big pile of unhappiness. Every memory I had was rife with illness and sadness.

When we got back to Tucson and the Sanctuary, I couldn't sleep. My mind raced. I could not turn it off or down. I kept thinking about the day. I should have said this to so and so. I should have said that to so and so. I should have made a better effort. I should have tried to have a conversation with so and so.

Oh. My. Gawd.

I knew it was ridiculous, but I couldn't shut it off.

I got a few hours of sleep and woke up miserable. And I still had a stupid cough from the flu I'd had two weeks earlier. I felt sick and depressed.

I looked at the photos I'd taken Christmas day. As we were leaving Scottsdale, Mario and I had stopped at the Franciscan Renewal Center to walk the labyrinth there. Mario had taken some photos of me. In one I'm on a swing and I'm smiling.

It was the first photo I had seen of myself in probably twenty years where I thought I looked like myself. Where I looked as though I was full of myself--which has always been my goal. I looked at the photo and thought, "Well, I don't look sad there. I look happy. I must be happy." I realized I had been catastrophizing my life, something I was prone to do and something many people with chronic depression and anxiety do. It's all or nothing. I was always sad or I was always happy. It was always bad or it was always good.

For me, it was always bad. And even though I knew it wasn't always bad, since I was often depressed, sad, and/or anxious, it all seemed bad.

I thought about this year. It was a difficult year for me. I felt like I was slip-sliding backwards. I was sick or depressed or anxious the whole year.

At least that's what I thought.

I knew it had been a bad year for many many people. Friends of mine had lost family members. So many other people had lost homes and jobs and life savings. We'd all witnessed the horror of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

I'd finished school but at the end of it, I couldn't find a job. Any jobs in my field were shit jobs. The pay was awful, the hours were awful, and most of jobs were in hovels. I refuse to work for the good of society by having a shit job in a shit building. So that sent me into paroxysms of guilt. I'd just spent a very stressful year going to school. I'd spent our money, plus I'd gotten a loan from one family member and another family member had gifted me with money so that I could go. What had I done? Mario said it would come to something. It would have some meaning and value in our lives eventually.

But I didn't want to end up in the poor house or in the streets, panhandling. (Granted, we don't have poor houses any more.) Ever since I had gotten ill and had to quit my regular day job, I had tried to figure out a way to make a living in this ol' world. I had to do SOMETHING to be of value.

It had been a tough year in other ways, too. But I don't want to list all the crappy things that happened. Then I would have to remember them and relive them. Let's just say the whole year seemed like I was just dragging one foot forward and then jumping two steps back.

But as school ended, I realized two things. One, I realized again (again, again) that I am a storyteller and that's what I'm good at and it's what I want to do. Two, connection with Nature, particularly with plants, was where it was at for me. (Not in a botanical way, per se, but in that 'let's talk to the plants and get groovy' kind of way.)

Mario and I had launched Green Snake Publishing in the fall of 2010. We started out slow, but then after I got out of school this summer, we went crazy full speed ahead.

In the winter, we had published a new edition of Coyote Cowgirl. The cover design for that was a nightmare, at first. I knew what I wanted, but it wasn't coming out right. I was the concept person and then Mario had to bring my concept into reality. He didn't like doing it, and it wasn't fun for either of us. We wondered how we were going to proceed if every book was going to be this labor intensive.

Fortunately I have a friend who is a brilliant artist and we asked her to design a couple of our covers. She created a cover for Deathmark that we loved. This was a relief, to know we had someone to call on should we need it. She also did the cover art for The Gaia Websters.

But I also started playing with cover art. I love textures on book covers. I also like simple covers. We struggled with a concept for the cover of the reprint of The Jigsaw Woman. And then one day I took a clay statue I had made of Eriskegal (who is in Jigsaw Woman) and some indigo colored cloth and I put them together and took some photos. To us, they were stunning, and one of the photos became the cover art for The Jigsaw Woman.

The same thing happened with The Blue Tail. I knew what I wanted, but I wasn't able to convey my ideas very successfully to Mario or our cover artist, so I wasn't getting the cover art I wanted. I decided to start taking some photographs of mermaid tails and see what I could come up with. I had a green mermaid ornament. I put her on a green Fiesta plate. I took many shots. I found a couple I liked and then I changed their color to blue. Once again I loved the cover.

This happened again and again. I'd come up with a cover idea, and I was able to create the art myself and then Mario was able to design the cover. This was so freeing, especially since I had had some covers I was quite displeased with on books that had been published by major publishers.

We also found some proofreaders to help us with production. I loved being able to pay people to work with us. I have always wanted to have a business where I could help support my community members. Unfortunately, we just weren't making enough money (yet) to continue to pay for cover art or proofreading. Fortunately, someone who does proofreading at her work offered to help us (for free!), plus Mario and I continued to proofread. Since I've found typos and copyediting mistakes in all of my previously published books, I figured the three of us proofing each novel couldn't do any worse.

As I wrote in "The Making of an Indie Writer," I began to love writing and publishing again. I stopped worrying about the length of my novels. I tend to write shorter novels. Since Green Snake Publishing doesn't care about length, I could write a long or a short novel, depending on what the story merited.

I read the novel I had written last winter, The Desert Siren, and loved it. I wrote Butch, a novel I had been wanting to write to years.

My writing life was blossoming again.

And yet in other parts of my life, I was still struggling. I started a permaculture guild in my community, but there was trouble in paradise right away. At first people wanted to be involved, but then hardly anyone was involved. And then when the Occupy movement came to the gorge, some people in the guild got offended by any mention of it and wanted gone, gone, gone from the permaculture guild.

I was thrilled by the Occupy movement. After years of activism, I was exhausted. I didn't feel as though I had ever accomplished much. Seeing a new generation--and all generations--stand up for themselves and the environment was invigorating. I went down to Occupy Portland a few times.

I was also shocked by the invective directed at the Occupy movement. Here we were trying to make our country more democratic, more fair, more equitable for everyone, and so many people were just hateful towards us. I had someone in my own family write, "Let them come down here and we'll put them six feet under." When I pointed out that he was threatening my life, he continued to rant about how "they" should leave and go to another country.

What?

I was appalled by the ignorance. Our country is based in revolution, and pointing out what is wrong has always been a part of who were are as a nation.

Paradigm shifts are never easy.

Where was I going with all of this?

Was it a terrible year?

Yes.

Was it a wonderful year?

Yes.

I'm in the desert now. It's been a tough couple of weeks. I apparently somatize absolutely every feeling I have. Since I've been here I've had a cough, my feet have hurt, my hip has hurt, my back has hurt, and I've had insomnia.

I really think it would be easier on everyone if I just felt my feelings, whatever they are.

I am in the desert.

I love the desert.

I used to loathe it.

I love where I live in the Pacific Northwest. When I walk the great old forests, I feel as though anything is possible. I feel dwarfed by the bigness, by the awesomeness of the woods or the ocean or the rivers. I am a child or a bug or a puff of air. Small and probably insignificant.

When I am in the Southwest, I feel loved and accepted. I walk amongst prickly plants here. They all have prickles. I rubbed mesquite leaves across my cheek yesterday. They were nearly as soft as mullein leaves. And right there by the leaves was a thorn. Could have cut my cheek deep if I'd rubbed my face a little differently.

Everything is prickly here with a soft center.

I can relate.

Just call me Briar Rose. Not because I fell to sleep for a hundred years, but because I am covered in thorns.

When I lived in Tucson twenty-five years ago, I did not like it here. I hated it. I always liked the desert, but it scared me. That was the proper attitude. I love the desert. I feel at home in the desert. I feel welcomed in the desert. But I don't romanticize it. I know I could be dead in minutes should I get bitten by a snake. I could be dead in hours if I got lost on a hot summer day. I have to be alert. You can't let your mind wander in the desert. It is a constant teaching about being in the present.

The desert is a place for old warriors. A place for edge dwellers and crazy people. A place for peace mongers. A place for old dogs and new tricks.

I feel loved in the desert. Did I say that? Accepted.

I am battered and beaten up. My broken nose makes me look like one of those punch-drunk fighters. The white hair marks me as a desert dweller.

I fit in here.

The desert is where people throw trash, dead bodies, and beer bottles.

The desert is where some of us go to learn the language of our souls again.

For this coming year, I want to learn how not to be buffeted so much by the storms of my life. I want to be more Zen, in touch with the Tao, a more 'be in the now, baby' kind of person.

Really, I just want to be more myself. I can't believe myself was destined for such a life of sadness and illness. But whatever happens to me, I'd like to get my mind right.

What I've tried over the years hasn't worked.

Or maybe it has. I've gotten here. I'm sitting across from the man I love. I am surrounded by beauty. Prickly beauty.

My kind of beauty?

This next year, I hope to walk, dance, play, and write in beauty. I hope it's an easier year for everyone.

This next year, I'm not going to try to save the world. I'm not going to try to save anyone.

Perhaps I will save myself?

This next year, I don't want to just survive: I want to thrive.

I wish the same for you.

May it be so.

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First Book of Old Mermaids Tales

Green Snake Publishing has published another book in the Old Mermaids' universe. This beautiful little book is perfect to take with you anywhere to look at and read when you need some words of wisdom from the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. This is from the cover copy:

The Old Mermaids left the disappearing Old Sea and stepped onto the New Desert where they exchanged their finware for skinware. With barely a backward glance, the mysterious and mystical Old Mermaids began building their sanctuary from earth, water, straw, and their own breath.

These standalone tales, many excerpts from the novels Church of the Old Mermaids and An Old Mermaid Sanctuary, remind us of the beauty all around us, even on those days when we wonder how we’ll survive, let alone thrive. Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid brews a magical storytelling soup to bring peace. A mysterious stranger brings the Old Mermaids an elixir which is supposed to heal all. And then there’s the Tea Shell where the Old Mermaids serve the most marvelous teas, and Sister Sophia Mermaid dispenses bits of wisdom like, “Never try to stop a wave,” “A watched pot eventually boils,” and “This is not the end of the world, it just feels like it.” Despite having lost their home and community, the Old Mermaids support one another, love their new world, and build community with all their new human and nonhuman neighbors. You can be assured when you stop by the Tea Shell for a cup of Essence of Coyote Laughter Tea that no coyotes were harmed in the making of your brew. print . kindle . nook . smashwords

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Terri Windling Benefit

Check out this amazing benefit for writer, artist, and editor Terri Windling. Terri has had an influence on many writing careers, including my own. She has been incredibly supportive of my work and generous with her talent. There's a drawing of hers in my Counting on Wildflowers collection. She bought a story of mine for the Coyote Road anthology, and it's her mural (doctored by photography magic) which will be the cover art for my story collection Tales Fairy and Fabulous. She is the artist and designer behind the wonderful (and original) Old Mermaids Sanctuary where I go for a writing retreat every winter. (It goes by another name, but I call it the OMS.) It's a place that has saved my life and my sanity; in large part, this is due to Terri and her ability to create beauty wherever she goes.

And that's just what she's done for me. I'm a tiny grain of sand on a wonderful beach of writers and artists who have been touched by Terri and her talents. I've made an offering of my own for the auction which ends December 15. You can go here to find out more, but part of my offering is that I will write a short Old Mermaids tale for you.

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