The painting on the cover is by Paul Buxman, the same artist who painted the scene used on my first book, The Gift of Laughter.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1081395028

It is finished. The book about my mother, Agnes Young Willems, is now in print and available on Amazon. If you click on the link above you will not only be able to see the back cover and read the book description, you can go inside the book and turn the pages. Really fun.

I am happy with the book, relieved that it is finished and out in the world–definitely a bucket-list item. But with that being ‘out there’, comes the realization that other people are actually going to read what I wrote. This is an intimate story–nothing shocking, full of humor and fond memories–but I still feel exposed and embarrassed, the way I used to feel in dreams where I found myself naked amidst a bunch of people. My impulse now is to retreat into my writing cave, put Child Bride in the book shelf next to The Gift of Laughter and forget it. But I can’t. Deep down I know I want people to read this tribute to my mother. I want to preserve that time in her life and mine, so I will force myself to let people know about the book. But no big hoopla, no party. This is a small book, a quiet book, and my promotional activities will also be quiet.

So what’s next besides promoting the just-finished book? More writing. I am working on Book 3, which is my story, the story of living with my heritage, the good and the not so good. I will resume regular monthly posts, some of which will be from the new book, but not all. I shall also include material about the family that did not make it into the first two books, some of it things I’ve recently learned, some things that simply didn’t fit the shape of the stories. This will now be an all-purpose blog, not just a place to put next-to-last drafts of books in progress.