Arleen Williams's Blog, page 24

Wide Open Spaces

The past two weekends I've headed out of Seattle and crossed the Cascade range to Eastern Washington. Last weekend I was in Ellensburg, this weekend in Spokane.
Ellensburg My four sisters and I were once all country girls, raised on an Issaquah Valley farm. Now only one of us  lives the farm life with sheep, chickens and a donkey, with wide open spaces, a night sky bright with stars and silence so deep your own breathing can awaken you in the night. It's a life I could not now live, but one I love to dip into every now and again to remember my roots.

We gathered to celebrate a birthday. This is something we've begun doing every few months: five middle-aged women coming together, still learning the changing meaning of life, love and sisterhood.
Spokane Friend and writing partner, Pamela Hobart Carter, and I drove to the far side of Washington state to present at the Spokane Regional ESL Conference. Another sun-filled, snow-free, gorgeous drive reminded me to get out of the city more often.  We arrived early enough Friday evening for some exploring around Riverfront Park in downtown Spokane. Saturday morning we went to Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute where I once visited one of my sisters while she completing her degree. We spoke to a room full of ESL faculty interested in what we have to offer: short books in easy English for adults.
In the late afternoon, I did a signing at the fabulous Auntie's Bookstore. I look forward to returning on May 23rd to do a reading of Walking Home, scheduled for release next month. The fun thing about signings is the folks you meet. Among others, Pam and I met Nathaniel Banks. When he mentioned he runs a non-profit to fight obesity, Pam pointed out my book titles (Running Secrets, Biking Uphill and Walking Home) and the activities of each of the protagonists. In doing so, she established a link between emotional and physical health in my work I held only on a subconscious level. Wonderful! Our return to Seattle was as glorious as the drive over: the perfect end to two weekends on the road.

The Birth of No Talking Dogs Press

South Seattle College is an urban community college with a large English as a Second Language program. It's my work home where I've taught  immigrants and refugees for almost thirty years. Unlike my former students in Venezuela and Mexico, these students are living in an English-speaking country. As a result, their speaking skills develop while their reading and writing skills tend to lag.
As a language teacher, I am unwilling to contribute to functional illiteracy in America. I focus on reading and writing instruction, but I’ve never been a big fan of the ESL reading textbooks full of exercises. Worse yet are the abridged classics. Can you imagine falling in love with a 48
“I’ll write one for you,” Pam said.

I decided I could do the same. We completed a dozen short books over a two-year period. I used photocopies of the manuscripts in my classes, and my students enjoyed them. They wanted their own copies to take home.

That’s when Pam and I decided to publish. Keeping the books as inexpensive as possible and free of instructional activities were musts. We decided the best way to get what we wanted was to self-publish. No Talking Dogs Press was born.
We will launch our work at the Spokane ESL Regional Conference in late February. Our first two titles, James and Barry Study Black History and The Old House on South Sixteenth Street , are available on Amazon.

We invite you to follow our website for updates as we release more titles. We hope you will share our work with new readers and the folks who work with them.

A Great Start!

Winter Quarter 2015 began with ESL students from twelve different countries in my first class and two scheduled readings. 


 Many thanks to Rebecca Crichton of the Northwest Center for Creative Aging for inviting me to share my work at Horizon House and to the lovely audience of readers! A special shout out to the wonderful gentleman who pushed a podium my direction so I didn't have to juggle the mic and a book at the same time!

I also want to thank Peggy Sturdivant for the opportunity to participate in It'sAbout Time Writers Reading Series at the Ballard library. It was a pleasure to share the podium with K. Michael Overa as well as the Hugo House guys, Robert P. Kaye and Ian Denning. A great way to start a new year!

A Truly Humiliating Experience

I'm grateful to author, Mary Rowen for including my guest post in her Music Tuesday blog series yesterday.

I am not a music person. My office is silent when I plan classes or grade papers. I don’t plug my ears with earbuds when I walk. NPR plays on my car radio. When I write, I prefer to hear the words in my head. Should I write in a public place, the music must be loud enough to drown ambient conversations. And though there are musicians I appreciate and enjoy – Dylan and Cohen, Marley and Cliff, Muddy Waters and Louis Armstrong – when I listen, I want to listen. I’m not fond of background music. Our home is a quiet place.
In my teen years, I attempted to teach myself folk guitar. Didn’t we all? Wasn’t that the thing in the 1970s? I didn’t get far. I lacked both patience and a singing voice to accompany the guitar. “My bags are packed, I’m ready to go …” was such a disappointment to my own ears, I gave up.

Still, when my daughter began kindergarten, I was convinced of the importance of a music education, and Erin started piano lessons. Read more . . .

Dog Hair in the Refrigerator

Many thanks to Heather Huffman for including my guest post in her "Writer Wednesday" blog series.
My husband and I operated a very exclusive doggie day care for the past year. We had only one client: our daughter and her boyfriend's exuberant German Shepherd mix named Toby. Either Erin or Elliot dropped him off at six each work day and picked him up about twelve hours later. They lived in an apartment. We have a yard and a doggie door, a doggie door my husband had permanently sealed (or so he thought) after the death of our last dog. We had no intention of getting another.

Don't get me wrong. I don't dislike dogs. I grew up on a farm. I rode horses, milked cows, fed chickens and pigs. We also had several dogs through the years, but they were "outside" animals. My mother would never consider allowing them indoors anymore than she'd invite the pigs or chickens into the family room. Read more . . .
Tom, Erin and Mozart in 2000

2014 - What a Year!

I've never written one of those holiday letters some send in lieu of Christmas cards. But 2014 was quite a year, and sometimes you just need to share (or brag) a little.
The year began with a bang, and I'm not referring to the fireworks at midnight. Tom and I were with a sister and her husband at their island get-away. We were settling for dinner, but I couldn't relax. For some reason, I checked my phone. That's when I learned that my first novel, Running Secrets, had just been released. There were more fireworks in February when Tom and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. Because my life is dictated by an academic calendar, our real celebration had to wait until quarter break in late March when we flew to Paris for the first time. A week in the City of Lights and another exploring the hills of Provence was a second dream come true. Erin's 25th birthday, Ride-to-Work and the beginning of bike training as well as the publication of my second novel, Biking Uphill, marked the month of May. I had a busy summer of promotional readings, intense bike riding and long hours of writing while Erin flourished at her new job at Harborview Sexual Assault and Trauma Center, and Tom continued laying business plans for a new venture into the world of legal recreational cannabis. In July, my third dream came true when I stood at the podium of Seattle's premier book store, Elliott Bay Book Company, and celebrated the publication of Biking Uphill. The same month I rode my first century, and then August arrived and I completed RSVP, the 2-day, 200-mile bike ride from Seattle to Vancouver, Canada. Throughout the summer, Tom struggled with weakness associated with a rupture hiatal hernia and the frustration of trying to find a home for his new business. For a normally healthy, can-do man, it was a tough time. In October, we celebrated my 60th birthday at a cabin in the San Juan Islands. A few days later Tom was in surgery at the UW Medical Center. I took a week off work to be his Nurse Ratched. I'm certain he was relieved when his mother flew out for a visit, and I returned to teaching. By November he was slimmer, stronger and sexier than ever! And, he signed a contract on a new production facility for the business, fondly referred to as The Shack given the work needed to get it up to production speed. With a 15-minute commute in a city that seems to be exploding at the seams, he's not complaining.  Thanksgiving was a quiet affair at our house. Tom still needed to be careful of consumption, and Erin and her boyfriend, Elliot, were traveling in Spain. Now Christmas has arrived. I'm busy with the final edits of my third novel, Walking Home. Tom's working like a madman at The Shack with plans of having Prohibition Gold edibles on the market by summer 2015. Erin, Elliot and Toby, the dog, just moved in with us - an austerity measure designed to save for a down payment on their first home.
The tree finally stands in the front window, the monster sofa moved in with the kids, and for the first time ever there's a television and a dog in my living room. It all goes to show that people can change. Even when we're old and gray!
Happy Holidays and Here's to All Your Dreams Coming True in 2015!

Book Clubs Rock!

Many authors claim there's not much better than a good review. I certainly agree about the importance and pleasure of receiving juicy book reviews, but I'd also argue that an evening in the company of thoughtful readers eager to discuss my work beats all!
I enjoyed such an evening this week. Nine women, members of a long-standing book club, had read Running Secrets and invited me to join them. The conversation around issues of race and immigration I shared with these intelligent, well-informed women was deep. Their willingness to share their thoughts, experiences and values with a stranger touched me. And the food and drink were delicious, too!
I am grateful to Sue for inviting me into her lovely home and to the women of her book club for making me feel so welcome. Thank you for choosing Running Secrets and for you interest in my other books. Maybe we can do it again some time!
My apologies to the two members who'd left before I thought to ask for a photo and to the gal stuck behind the camera!

Obstacles

Many thanks to Lisa Stull for inviting me to participate in her blog series, The Struggling Artist. Lisa Stull? Lisa M. Gott? You'll have to ask her to clarify that one! But I can assure you, she's one and the same. In any case, check out her blog.
Piece of cake, I thought, when Lisa Stull offered the opportunity to write a guest post on the obstacles faced by writers for her “Struggling Artist” series. My obstacle is obvious to me … I never have enough time. Twenty four hours each day just doesn’t cut it. Not for a full-time job, a writing career, a family and a life that includes time for friends, exercise and reading.

But as I began to formulate my thoughts for this short piece, I had to admit I was often more productive on a daily basis during the academic year when I’m teaching a full load than come June when the long unstructured days of summer stretch before me. Read more ...

The Final Third

Many thanks to Meredith Schorr for including my guest post in her blog series "Age is Just a Number."

Dad 1979“It’s time to start buying bananas one at a time.”

I can hear Dad’s voice in my ears. If he were here, he’d be teasing me now as I enter the sixth decade of life. But Dad passed a dozen years ago, and I’m giving myself at least another decade or two before following that particular piece of his advice.

“The older you get, the faster it goes.”

This too, Dad was apt to repeat in a voice filled with an odd mix of frustration, bewilderment and warning. Reluctantly, I’m beginning the see the truth in those words.

But mostly, as I enter this final third of life, I realize I’ve begun to count backwards. If I live to 90, that gives me 30 years. 85 gives me 25. So what am I going to do with those remaining years? Read more... Dad's 80th Birthday 2001

Antiques?

"In purist terms, and according to the U.S. Customs Service, an antique is an item with at least 100 years of age under its belt." *** I enjoy wandering antique shops, guessing at the age and purpose of objects, imagining the stories they could share if only they possessed the gift of speech. We have a few old things in our home, but I hesitate to call them antiques because the 100-year definition above seems to fluctuate depending on the source, and because I don't necessarily know the age of everything in my house. *** My mother once told me when she and my father married in 1947 her telephone desk was one of their first purchases. At just under seventy years old, it is likely not an antique, but that is of no importance to me. I see my mother sitting at that desk each time I walk passed it. I see the heavy rotary phone with its tangled cord and the tooled leather notepad holder she brought back from Mexico beside it. And I hear the shattering ring throughout the large house of my childhood. My mother's telephone desk with its sideways seat and deep slot for a fat phone book is useless in this age of mobile phones and the internet, but it has a permanent place in our home.***My husband and I bought our West Seattle "war box" almost a quarter of a century ago from the estate of the original owners. The basement was full of junk, most of which we carted to the dump. But a few items we held onto: the small bookcase I still use in my writing room, the old wall cabinet that now holds my jewelry and a small item I thought was a pipe holder. The "pipe holder" remained stashed in the basement for years. During one of many remodeling projects we've done on this "starter home" we never left, my artist husband pulled it out and set me straight.
"It's an inkwell," he told me and stuck it on a bookshelf in the basement.
Years passed and the so-called inkwell remained forgotten. Yesterday I was moving things around as I tend to do with each change of season. I came across the old inkwell, dusted it clean, and set it on the fireplace mantel.
"That belongs on your desk," my husband told me when he saw it.
"If it's really an inkwell, I wonder if I can find ink bottles for it," I said.
"Maybe I'm wrong," he said. "I mean, square ink bottles?" I got curious and googled antique inkwells. To my surprise, I found two items very similar to the inkwell on our mantel. One on eBay was labeled "Antique Civil War Victorian Wood Portable Inkwell" and another on Pinterest was dated 1906. I also saw loads of little square ink bottles. So maybe this thing on our fireplace mantel is an inkwell. And maybe it is an antique. But what I find intriguing is this writer's inkwell was in our home when we bought it twenty-three years ago. It was stashed away somewhere a dozen years ago when I began writing. And now as I begin revisions on my fourth book, I understand its secrets.***When my daughter was a little girl, we read aloud every evening. The Secret Garden was one of our favorite books. On one afternoon of antique store explorations, we came across a wicker wheelchair.

"That's just like Colin's wheelchair!" my daughter exclaimed.
"It would make a fun chair for the living room," I said without thinking. 
To this day my husband enjoys telling the story of pushing our daughter home from the antique store in that wheelchair. As he hit the hill, he realized it had no brakes.
Banned from the living room, the wicker wheelchair has held court in every room of our small house through the years. It's too big and it just doesn't belong, but I can't seem to get rid it. ***Whether an antique or not, whether worthless junk or hidden treasure, I really don't care. I hold tight to the stories the telephone desk and inkwell and wheelchair hold. My mother will be with me each time I pass her telephone desk or seat down to put on a pair of shoes. I will search for ink vessels and pens for the inkwell and wonder about the stories or letters prior owners may have written. And despite the space it occupies, I remain unable to part with my wicker wheelchair.