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Great book launch at Copperfish Books featuring my star, Naomi Pringle. It was SRO. She discussed her 25-year journey of writing her family trilogy--two volumes are novels and the third, VOICE, is a collection of essays that read like an articulated novel.
i miss you so much
During World War II and the Korean War, seven brothers from a black Punta Gorda family served overseas. Yet, the family received no acclaim for over fifty years for their exploits. From a high-flying Tuskegee airman to a grunt in the Red Ball Express, the Bailey brothers' struggles speak to the hidd...
Reading the headlines about the abortion debate, I'm reminded of a profound section of one of my authors' Naomi Pringle and her latest work, VOICE. Here's a section from her book that speaks to a fraught issue with grace, insight, and wisdom. The book's available at https://www.copperfishbooks.com/
***
I watched in quiet celebration as a married woman with a new haircut her husband didn’t especially like danced in public. She moved to the beat of her own natural rhythm, expressing gratitude for her sexuality without a care for her husband or men who gawked at how fine she was. Other women at the market dreamed. I smiled in recognition of her presence as a metaphor for the confidence women had gained within my lifetime, for the power to do their thing.
I once participated in a hot pants contest at WABC. I was crushed when I read one woman’s letter following the promotion. She held me in contempt, wondering what message I had sent to girls and young women by “dressing so ridiculously.” She advised me to get involved in the feminist movement.
“It will do you well,” she wrote, “And you will set an example.”
At work one day I saw an event on the wire service calendar—a feminist meeting at Gloria Steinem’s apartment. My visit to that meeting helped to shape my character and define who I am as a woman.
There was an overflow of young women in that small apartment. We sat spellbound as Ms. Steinem spoke with quiet ease of all that we could be as liberated women.
We were enlivened by the Bronx congress-woman, Bella Abzug, who challenged us to make changes in our lives and other women’s lives.
We were shocked by the sardonic dynamo activist-attorney, Flo Kennedy who dared us to take what was ours. Although we never agreed completely on all issues and how they were ex-pressed, we understood what was at stake. So time after time, we spoke with one loud voice from the same page when we marched for women’s rights.
I became an activist, joining NOW. I worked with scores of women who fought for equal opportunities. We dealt with all sorts of issues in education, housing, health and employment, things many take for granted today.
Over the years, rethinking the hot pants letter, I often thought I looked good in those hot pants. I had been a runner growing up, so my legs were attractive and fit. But had I really be-trayed the cause by showing them off?
I remember when MS magazine was first published. One of the radio guys at WABC grabbed MS and flipped the pages.
“Look at this girlie trash,” he shouted. “My wife would never read this.”
Girlie trash? What about Hustler?
That’s the way it was when I began my career. I had to put up with my share of clucking or cackling animal sounds pumped into my headphones as I delivered my newscasts. I had to fend off unwanted approaches from men who judged me by my looks—and felt free to comment on them.
* * *
Years ago in a different place, I sat under the sun on a gorgeous California day. The metal on our lounge chairs burned as the sun crept across our naked bodies. We were sunning our-selves on the roof of my friend’s beach-front home on the Pacific Coast.
Even the tiniest cover-up had been too hot so we had tossed our bikinis aside. I was at ease unharnessed from a tight suit. The sun bronzed my skin and tinted her pale body harvest gold, as she called it. A pitcher of lemonade rested on a tray between us. I reached inside for ice cubes, so did she. We cooled ourselves.
In the calm of the moment, we hummed the Drifters tune, “Up on the Roof” as the ice melt-ed.
In time we turned to a favorite subject, men, the ones we’d been involved with and the ones who let us go. We talked of ways to please and keep them.
“You have to put your mouth on him,” she said.
“I kiss,” I said, “I like to kiss.”
“No, silly, wait right there. Be right back.” In minutes she returned with two bananas.
I got it right away. “Oh no,” I laughed. “Practice equipment?”
“The only things handy,” she joked, giving me a banana.
“Peel it. Grip it like a racket, now do this.” She pursed her lips at me. “It’s all about marrying your head and your mouth to your man.”
Moments later we were back on our lounge chairs, looking out at the water from our perch on the roof.
* * *
I once walked through a mob of anti-abortionists in conservative Orange County, California who threw ketchup on my clothes and yelled, “Stay away from that clinic.” I was accompanying a friend who made up her own mind to have an abortion.
And I remember the time a friend of mine lay in a hospital bed waiting as I went to the nursery to tell her what the baby she had given up for adoption looked like. She could not do that herself.
Then it was my turn.
An ob/gyn doctor confirmed that yes, I was pregnant. I was going to have a baby in about seven months. Oh no I wasn’t, not me. Was I?
I decided not to tell anyone, not even moth-er nor Joan. Sure, they would be non-judgmental and offer only help. But I was ashamed at my carelessness.
I got into bed, followed doctor’s orders, and considered my options. I would do this on my own. What if this was my last chance at motherhood? But I had no money to raise a child and my career was still progressing.
I called the doctor’s office. The nurse asked if I were sure. Tears streamed down my face as I replied. They set up a date and time for me. Don’t eat, the kind nurse said. Who could eat, I wondered, with the thought of what lay ahead?
It was over in a couple of hours, I had some cramping but that was nothing to worry about, I was told. An aide pushed me by wheelchair to a hack stand.
“Nobody come for you?” the cabbie asked
“No.”
“Where to?”
“60 Riverside Drive,” I replied.
Hours later I had visitors.
My boyfriend from my younger days and his present girlfriend stepped into my apartment.
“What’s going on, Nay?” he asked.
“I just had an abortion.”
I got up and headed to the alcove where I slept. He followed me. I lay down on my bed. He stretched out alongside of me. In a few minutes the girlfriend rummaged in my kitchen, then brought me a cup of tea.
I drank some of it, then lay back down. She lay down on the other side of me. They each put an arm around me.
The year before I had marched to pass Roe v Wade, the legislation that allowed freedom of reproduction rights for all American women.
Fifty years later, the Supreme Court kicked Roe to the curb. So I laced up my marching boots in 2022 and carried a sign. I rallied with others at the Punta Gorda Court house in op-position to the court’s ruling, handing the question of abortion over to the states.
When I needed help I wasn’t worried about New York, my home state, where feminists like me had worked so hard. But I now I live in conservative Florida. What about young women here who, for whatever reason, have to terminate their pregnancies and cannot travel to an-other state?
What happens to them?
The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
met up with two of my favorite people,. nancy staub and naomi pringle at the right to read festival in venice today
An aspiring writer's dream.
😂😂
in my other life i run a community marketplace
an overview of my latest work
a good interview, the book can be purchased on Amazon or at Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda
As Charlotte County prepares to celebrate its centennial this Friday, April 23 we meet publisher and historian, James Abraham, to talk about his new book “Century: A People’s History of Charlotte County” that expands upon existing historical accounts by providing a narrative and historical ove...
turns out i'm below market
https://blog.reedsy.com/cost-to-self-publish-a-book/
How much does it cost to self-publish a book? This guide includes all the data you need on publishing costs, plus tips for saving thousands of dollars.
My stories are adventure stories about people empowered by God and heaven to gain redemption through service. I am not trying to get anyone to believe in Christianity or hell. I am telling an adventure story loosely derived from St Catherine of Siena's idea that God doesn't send anyone to hell. They...
With a history of only 100 years, Charlotte County still has people with first- or second-hand knowledge of those early days.
https://blog.bookbaby.com/2020/08/the-reading-habits-of-five-generations-infographic/?utm_campaign=BB2035&utm_source=BBeNews&utm_medium=Email =MA1-6778044c367664d015d722bd31b0e781&cs=MA1-fd2abffcca6398a7269b582fe00d8a8e
Author Brit Bennett follows up her highly successful debut 'The Mothers' with a nuanced contemporary take on the concept of a Black person passing as white in 'The Vanishing Half,' as twin sisters take two different paths.
The blockbuster nonfiction author returns with an utterly gripping account of WWII-era family life and heroic leadership during one of history’s most anxious eras.
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