A Heartwarming Letter

The letter below appeared in my email and filled me with joy. Nothing inspires me more than to learn my work has touched someone. I am not including the sender's name out of respect for privacy, but I'm so grateful for the effort taken to reach out to me. 

"Hi, Arleen!

You might not remember me; it HAS been a while! ... In the meantime, I have purchased and read all your books: the trilogy, "The 39th Victim", and just recently, "Pandemic Baby", and I've enjoyed all of them!!

I'm dropping you this note to tell you how much I've LOVED your 'journaling' about your life, the birth of your grandson, and all the peripheral events around your time with him in the following several years!  

You have entertained me with your activities, relationships with your daughter, your folks, husband, and especially, baby Jack.  I remember those years with my first grandchild and honor all the feelings you expressed about that, as well as the fun of being around him and his family, and especially, the way you loved him -- allowing him to explore, get dirty, express his excitement with new things, and just let him be an active, curious little boy, loved by his family. I appreciate and enjoy your poetry in these regards also.  

The challenges and worrisome times of Covid you shared were appreciated because I had forgotten some of them. I wasn't around a child at that time but your fears (for Jack, his mother--especially during her pregnancy--and the world!), confusion about the vaccinations, and general care for your family, the environment, and for the world touched me, and I wanted to tell you that!  And, I wanted to compliment you for sharing your experiences and thoughts in the way you did, in your 'Letters to My Grandson before He Could Read'!  I love that title too; it says a lot -- and set the stage for your concentrated care for him at such a vulnerable stage.

Good work, Arleen!!  Your books have inspired me to write, and while I DO journal, I've never published anything but YOU inspire me too; I might someday yet."

I also want to take a moment to thank Librarian Zlatina Encheva for sharing the flyer above announcing the reading at Fairwood Library this Sunday. If you're interested in memoir writing and want to hear some passages from Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read, please join me. Books will be available for purchase at a discount. 

Fairwood Library 
17009 140th Avenue SE
Renton, WA 98058
3:00pm Sunday, May 4

For more information, click HERE.

Mark Your Calendars!

 

Growing up on undeveloped woodland in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, my family was high on adventure and love for our few horses but low on cleared pastureland to feed our beloved four-legged friends. From a very young age, one of the chores my siblings and I were given was to lead the animals to the cleared right-of-way running under the Bonneville powerlines and stake them out to graze.

When I opened the bedroom curtains to a beautiful spring morning after being away from home for several days, the first thought that surfaced in my sleep-fogged brain was The horses will love all that lush, overgrown clover and grass. In quick succession came I need a horse.

But no, I do not need a horse though I do love my memories of childhood horses. I also find joy in my little, metal pony who now inhabits my garden.

My latest memoir, Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read, focuses on more recent memories of the birth of my first grandchild during the COVID pandemic and Trump’s first term. The story unfolds in a unique combination of journal entries, letters, and poetry. 

I’m happy to announce two upcoming events. I hope you can join me! For the first, I’ll be returning to the King County Public Libraries. 

Author Event

Fairwood Library 
17009 140th Avenue SE
Renton, WA 98058
3:00pm Sunday, May 4
More Information HERE
Registration recommended but not required

I’m also pleased to invite you to the It’s About Time Reading Series. This month it will be a tribute to longtime Seattle area poet Millie Renfrow. Her daughter, Barb Renfrow-Baker, and poet Miriam Bassuk will read some of Millie's poems. There will also be four featured readers: Griffith H. Williams, Katy E. Ellis, Sybil James and me.

It's About Time Reading Series
Ballard Library
5614 22nd Ave NW
Seattle, WA 98107
6:00pm Thursday, May 8

More Information at the It’s About Time events page on Facebook. 

You may also be interested in this article on HistoryLink.  

Ask Your Librarian

Do you use your public library? In Seattle and the surrounding areas, we are fortunate to have wonderful neighborhood and small-town libraries. As a schoolgirl the Issaquah Library was a common place for parental after-school pickups. Later as a mother with a young daughter, we frequented the West Seattle Library on a regular basis. Now, one of my grandson’s favorite rainy-day outings is a visit to the wonderful children’s room at the Bellingham Public Library, and I continue to visit my local library to pick up to request books or download audio and eBooks from home. These services are privileges I do not underestimate.

As a writer, libraries serve another purpose. My biggest challenge – and I am not alone here – is getting my work into readers’ hands. I am uncomfortable asking people to purchase my books or to write reviews – I do it, but I don’t like doing it. I didn’t become a writer to become rich and famous. I’m too much of a realist for that. Still, having readers is important to me.

I was reading an email from a niece the other day when a thought came to me. I suggested she request my new book – in fact all my books – from her own local library. Libraries exist to serve the reading public, and they want to know what you want to read. Using our libraries and letting our librarians know what we’d like them to shelf helps keep our libraries viable, especially in difficult times. My niece generously offered to take her sons to the library – one of their favorite spots – and make the request.

Would you be willing to do the same? To visit your local library and ask for a copy of Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read? 

Or, there might be an easier way. Perhaps you’d be willing to check your library collection online and see if any of my books are listed. If not, there should be a link on the website to allow patrons to request specific books be added to their collection.

Here are the links in my area:

The Seattle Public Library https://www.spl.org/books-and-media/suggest-a-title 

King County Library System https://kcls.org/faq/interlibrary-loan-suggest-a-purchase/#suggest-a-purchase

Sno-Isle Libraries https://www.sno-isle.org/suggest-a-purchase-ill/#suggest 

Bellingham Public Library https://bellinghampubliclibrary.org/ask/request-an-item

You will likely need an active library card as well as the ISBN and publication date of any book you’d like to request. Below is a list of my books with the required information. For other books you can’t find in your library, you can find ISBN and publication date on Amazon.

Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read (ISBN 979-8304136532, December 19, 2024)

The Ex-Mexican Wives Club: A Memoir (ISBN 978-1701090576, October 19, 2019)

Mom’s Last Move: A Memoir (ISBN 978-1730764233, November 2, 2018)

The Thirty-Ninth Victim: A Memoir (ISBN 978-1717582072, April 29, 2018)

Walking Home (The Alki Trilogy) (ISBN 978-1974165742, April 20, 2015)

Biking Uphill (The Alki Trilogy) (ISBN 978-1974164738, May 6, 2014)

Running Secrets (The Alki Trilogy) (ISBN 978-1974128150, December 30, 2013)

Thank you using your public library and for considering this request. If you decide to give it a try and suggest your library purchase a title, would you please let me know how it goes? 

Coincidence or Cautionary Tale?

Shortly before the recent publication of my latest memoir, I received an interesting email – a series of probing questions really – from a friend. These questions prompted me to dig deep to find some answers.

During the five years of writing, you questioned when to end the book... when the crisis is "over"? At the vaccination release? And here we are - just entering Round 2 of who knows what fresh hell awaits and the book is ready to be released. A key point is the crisis ISN'T over. It seems like it will never be over. So what do we do with that? Is your book a caution? A reminder of how bad it was so we maybe don't repeat the same mistakes? A warning that we can't just check out because we are weary of crises? The timing of the release of PB right after Trump 2.0 begins seems like something to take note of - a significant coincidence? Perfect timing? And to hopefully achieve what?

Needless to say, this friend has become a bit of a muse – a muse I have learned not to ignore. So how do I answer that stream of questions?

First, I write to understand, clarify, remember, create. I write because it calms my soul, allows my brain to stop and sleep. I am not a writer who writes to convince anyone of anything or even to entertain. I do not think of “audience” when I write. And I certainly don’t think I’ll ever clear a cent of profit from my writing. So why publish at all?

I have been journaling off and on for over fifty years. In 2002 I began writing what became my first book, published in 2008 and re-released in 2018. Why did I seek that first publication? Because The Thirty-Ninth Victim gave voice to a silenced past. Without publication, without voice, I believed – and still believe – I would have remained an incomplete woman.

Three memoirs and three novels later, I have written and published Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read. What began as a coping tool of journals and letters during a dreadful pandemic gave voice to my political and social beliefs in a more direct manner than anything I had written prior. A clarifying of my beliefs. To publish was to give voice to those beliefs. And though I am no one famous or important – a retired ESL teacher, a cyclist, reader, gardener, wife, mother (always), and a new grandma – my beliefs matter. Just as yours do. 

So I published. I published on Amazon. I’d prefer my books be in every independent bookstore and library across this country. But I am an elderly white woman of average talent, with a limited writers’ network and minimal means. I have published with three small presses that all went out of business. No major agent or publisher has expressed interest in my work. Publishing on Amazon allows me to hold that work in book format and share my voice with a small audience of devoted readers. For this I am grateful.

Why now? Why publish a story about the tragedies of Trump’s first term just after he’s been re-elected to a second? Pandemic Baby was never intended as a cautionary tale; I wasn’t trying to convince anyone how to vote in the 2024 election. It is, however, an accurate description of the period from early 2020 when COVID hit the Seattle area to summer 2022 when my grandson could finally be vaccinated. The book opens with an overview of the Trump years prior to his birth in June 2020. It was a time unlike any other in the history of our democracy. I wanted to document the world as I saw it, the world into which he was born. 

But Jack was only one of over three million babies born in the United States during the first year of the pandemic. The story I wrote goes beyond him and me. It is a story for all the pandemic babies, their parents and grandparents. It is a book I published to give voice to a unique yet universal story. The publication just after the Trump re-election was a coincidence, and yet if it serves as a reminder of what we have been through and what we need to prepare ourselves to endure once again, the timing may indeed be perfect. I hope you will read it and let me know what you think.