Susan E. Greisen's Blog, page 12
June 9, 2020
Virtual Book Launch – Sign Up
Village Books in Bellingham, WA is pleased to include Susan E. Greisen as part of our Virtual Lit Live Event series! Event will be live nationwide in your timezone.
In Search of Pink Flamingos is a story of a young woman who defies her parents’ demands to become a farmer’s wife. At age nineteen, with a suitcase full of farm-smarts and a license to be a practical nurse, Susan joins the Peace Corps in Africa. She meets multiple challenges in her remote Liberian village and falls short of her unrealistic goals. An interracial romance further aggravates her parents who eventually disown her. When Susan finds the pink flamingos, she discovers what she had been searching for all along. Her journey is one of passion, strength and finding forgiveness and unconditional love.
Susan E. Greisen, raised on a remote farm in Nebraska, searched for adventure and a broader understanding of life. Her work as a nurse took her to remote parts of the world with Peace Corps and CARE. She has journeyed to over forty countries on six continents and is a Whatcom published poet and author. Susan’s travel photographs have been published online by the BBC News.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT WILL GO LIVE AT 4PM PST, 7PM EST.
Adjust the time for your timezone.
Can’t make it to the event? No problem! You can pre-pay and receive a signed, personalized copy of the book you want. We ship!
In Search of Pink Flamingos: A Woman’s Quest for Forgiveness and Unconditional Love (Paperback)
By Susan E. Greisen $15.95 ISBN: 9780999804841 Availability: On Our Shelves Now Published: Penchant Press International – April 2nd, 2020
Note from the author: I look forward to all of my friends and family across the US from the East Coast, Midwest, West Coast and Hawaii. Even if you’ve read book, there will be new slides, readings, and Q&A. See you there.
Virtual Book Launch – Sign Up
Village Books in Bellingham, WA is pleased to include Susan E. Greisen as part of our Virtual Lit Live Event series! Event will be live nationwide in your timezone.
In Search of Pink Flamingos is a story of a young woman who defies her parents’ demands to become a farmer’s wife. At age nineteen, with a suitcase full of farm-smarts and a license to be a practical nurse, Susan joins the Peace Corps in Africa. She meets multiple challenges in her remote Liberian village and falls short of her unrealistic goals. An interracial romance further aggravates her parents who eventually disown her. When Susan finds the pink flamingos, she discovers what she had been searching for all along. Her journey is one of passion, strength and finding forgiveness and unconditional love.
Susan E. Greisen, raised on a remote farm in Nebraska, searched for adventure and a broader understanding of life. Her work as a nurse took her to remote parts of the world with Peace Corps and CARE. She has journeyed to over forty countries on six continents and is a Whatcom published poet and author. Susan’s travel photographs have been published online by the BBC News.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT WILL GO LIVE AT 4PM PST, 7PM EST.
Adjust the time for your timezone.
Can’t make it to the event? No problem! You can pre-pay and receive a signed, personalized copy of the book you want. We ship!
In Search of Pink Flamingos: A Woman’s Quest for Forgiveness and Unconditional Love (Paperback)
By Susan E. Greisen $15.95 ISBN: 9780999804841 Availability: On Our Shelves Now Published: Penchant Press International – April 2nd, 2020
Note from the author: I look forward to all of my friends and family across the US from the East Coast, Midwest, West Coast and Hawaii. Even if you’ve read book, there will be new slides, readings, and Q&A. See you there.
June 6, 2020
Outdoor Book Club
On June 1st, Susan Cushing organized her monthly book club, hosted by Ginny Davidson. I attended as guest author of In Search of Pink Flamingos. We practiced social distancing outdoors (masks as needed) on Ginny’s gorgeous deck surrounded by towering firs and cedars with birds abound. I could have been in Africa. The sun drenched my pale winter skin. I wore an African print top and brought a couple of artifacts and photos. I talked about the book, read an excerpt and the group of women joined in the Q&A session. We spent a lovely afternoon together, yet distanced.
I am available to attend your book club either in person or via video chat. Enjoy, as we in Bellingham, WA move into Phase 2 of our Covid-19 protocol.
May 31, 2020
Daisy
It is with ambivalence that I write this next blog. The tragic death of George Floyd and the events that followed have saddened and concerned me. Our global pandemic has no clear answer or end with millions suffering. So my blog today sends a message of resilience and courage which we could all use right now. Yet there are still some questions unanswered.
[image error]
Many of us had pets during our childhood. But how many had a pet pig? Don’t laugh, pigs are very intelligent. Have you seen the movie Babe? My nursing aspirations began with this little pet pig. I can’t forget that sweet face and disposition. Here is an excerpt from In Search of Pink Flamingos, Part I, Chapter, Teen Angst:
“The true test of my nursing instincts and the building of my skills began the day Dad asked me to be the nurse and caretaker to a newborn runt from a litter of pigs. This little guy, much smaller and underweight than his aggressive siblings, would never have survived the competition to nurse at the teat. In the past, Dad terminated any small weakling, especially from a large litter. That time, Dad told me to raise him by hand—a great honor and challenge for an eight-year-old.“
[image error]
“The runt was a boy when he was born, but Dad castrated him after a week and so he became a girl. I called her Daisy. A pure white Yorkshire with a little pink nose, big pink ears, dark eyes, and a curly-q tail became the cutest pig on the farm—maybe because she was mine.
…..When Daisy became too big for the porch she slept outside under the granary; she never seemed to mind being separated from the others, she had free rein of the farmyard. In the mornings I’d head outside to call her. ‘Daisy, Daisy, where are you?’ Down the hill she came, half asleep and ran into my arms. I hugged and may have even kissed her—she was that special. Daisy nuzzled me like a dog while I bathed her with the hose. She followed me everywhere while I played and worked in the farmyard all summer. We were bonded like family.”
Sadly as you may have learned or will learn from my book, Daisy was taken from me. The life of hard knocks on the farm was for those who were resilient and courageous. The building of my character began the day Daisy left. I have never and will never forget her.
My mom, a transplant from Florida, never loved the farm as Dad and I had. No one ever found her in the farmyard slopping the pigs with Dad and me. She thought the pigpen smell was disgusting. But after she passed away my sister-in-law, Joan, boxed up some of her memorabilia and I found this:
[image error]
a ceramic sow with a litter of pigs and a runt that Mom had chosen, painted and fired many years after leaving the farm. She may have remembered me and Daisy. Did she have a hidden love or fondness for our farm life? Maybe it is not uncommon to vacillate between loving something and hating it. In Part VII, Chapter, Difficult Choices, I spoke these words as I left Liberia, “For the times my diary held the words ‘I hate Africa, I hate Liberia, I hate African Men,’ those words seemed alien to me now. My deepest pain also held my deepest love; of course, Africa will always be my first love.” I have only a glimmer understanding of what my mom was feeling during and after her days on the farm. And now that she is gone, I will never know.
More blogs containing inside stories about my book coming soon.
You may order my memoir directly from my website by clicking the BOOK link above. Or if you prefer an autographed copy please contact me directly and/or check out my previous blogs containing photos and companion stories about In Search of Pink Flamingos.
May 26, 2020
The Beatles and Mrs. Bartley
My Nebraska friends and family responded with vigor to the one-room school house blog, so I decided to do one more.
The demise of our school, District 20, in the 90s saddened many of us in our local farming community. Life was changing and good farmland was more valuable then an abandoned school building, and so it was torn down.
[image error]Christmas Program & the Beatles, I’m second from the left, George Harrison
I attended District 20 from first to eighth grade with just twenty students total in the whole school. One fond eighth-grade memory in 1964 came when the Beatles hit the US. With two of my classmates and one younger schoolmate we pantomimed The Fab Four for our annual Christmas program. Everything was homemade except the wigs that we purchased at the dime store. The microphones were reeds of dried sunflower stalks with aluminum foil balls at the top. We constructed the guitars out of salvaged plywood from my dad’s shop. Ringo’s drums were made out of empty gallon ice cream containers and a washtub, and the symbols were tin foil pie pans. Ringo proudly banged on the drum set atop our teacher’s desk with the blackboard as our backdrop.
[image error]
After High School I lost touch with Mrs. Bartley, my first grade school teacher (name changed for confidentiality). Then in 2016, through her sister-in-law, I discovered her alive and well and retired in Arizona. I called Mrs. Bartley to tell her I wrote about her in my book and how special she was. We both choked up recalling that important bond – student and teacher. A couple years later I visited her and captured this treasured moment. She is still sharp as a tack at age 86.
I discovered she actually became a grade school teacher at age seventeen with a teaching certificate from a local college. She came to District 20 when she was twenty years old, her second teaching assignment.
Here is one excerpt from my book, In Search of Pink Flamingos, Part I, Chapter, Stuck in the Middle:
As the only left-handed member in my family or in my school, I felt even more different. Fortunately, Mrs. Bartley, my grade school teacher, was the first person outside my family to have such a profound influence over my life. During my first grade penmanship class, she took note of my left hand cranked nearly upside down over my paper. Never once did she slap my hand or try to make me change, as so many other parents and teachers had done. Mrs. Bartley gently guided my hand downward as she turned my paper to my left so I didn’t have to crank my hand over to write. With her guidance and encouragement, my penmanship transformed from an awkward backhand to a lovely print. She accepted my uniqueness and didn’t try to change me. I will never forget her.
…And I never did!
Nebraska has a special place in my heart and set the foundation for the rest of my life. More about scenes from my book and the Nebraska life will be featured in my next blog.
You may order my book directly from my website by clicking the BOOK link above. Please comment or contact me and check out more blogs containing photos and companion stories about In Search of Pink Flamingos.
May 12, 2020
One-room School House
By all rights, I should be 105 years old. Not many of us who have aged into our 60s have attended a one-room school house. My memoir In Search of Pink Flamingos tells of my experience in such a school in a remote part of Nebraska. For those who have read or about to read my book, here are some priceless photos of that place that was larger than life to me when I began my education – grade first through eighth.
[image error]Me in the second row, second from the left. Brother Bob top right back row. Teacher, Mrs. Bartley middle back row. (Credit to Karen Gleeson for finding this photo). Mrs. Bartley in photo below.
[image error]
An excerpt from In Search of Pink Flamingos, chapter, Country and Catholic to the Core.
“My formal education began in a one-room schoolhouse, grades one through eight, called District 20. The schoolhouse was three miles from our farm…. My class was the largest with five students. A young woman of twenty, Mrs. Bartley, the sole teacher of our entire school of about twenty children, called each grade, one by one, to the front of the classroom to teach while the rest of us did our homework. I have many fond memories of grade school except for my struggle to count [to 100]…Education took a backseat in our farming community. In our pioneering tradition, all that was required to succeed, according to my dad, was how to read the newspaper, write a check, and get the correct change at the cash register. Finally mastering the count to 100 in grade school, I was well on my way to being a successful farmer’s daughter.“
[image error]
I revisited District 20 in the mid 1990s and found the school closed. Our farm and the community were changing. Here is an excerpt in chapter, Reconciliation:
“On my last visit to the farm, after it had been sold, I drove through our community. Not only did I find District 20, my one-room grade school, shuttered, but also Morgan High had closed. These small schools that held my fond childhood memories had locked their doors to consolidate for school district rezoning.“
Next week, May 20th, 2020, I was to board a plane for Nebraska for my 50th High School reunion. Two of my classmates who followed me from first grade to our senior year in high school would have been there. But Covid-19 ended our reunion banquet. We hope to celebrate within the next year.
I will return to not only visit my friends but to interview my grade school classmates about the day in the life in a one-room school house, a companion memoir. Mrs. Bartley, now retired in Arizona, is alive and well at 86. She will certainly have stories to share about our rowdy class of five.
Following me on my website for more blogs containing photos and companion stories about my book.
May 3, 2020
Country and Catholic to the Core
My mom was a high fashion transplant from Florida. Dad brought her from the warm tropical breezes of Tampa to a remote farm in Nebraska after they married. Mom proudly dressed up my brother (6) and me (2) every Sunday for church. Here we are on Easter sporting our finest. Catholicism was in my blood. So much that at age nine I wanted to become a nun. When I turned eleven that all changed.
Here is an excerpt from my memoir In Search of Pink Flamingos from the chapter entitled “Birds and the Bees”:
Tall, thin, blond, blue-eyed, and athletic, he wound up his arm to throw the pitch from the mound, and I temporarily lost my bearings. An unfamiliar tingling rushed down from my head to my feet as I laid eyes upon the most incredible fourteen-year-old boy named Shane. I wanted to marry him… eventually. In the summer of my eleventh year, my desire to become a nun waned, and my focus on baby Jesus and God diminished, while my interest in boys increased. I abandoned my convent dream when I realized getting married and having children were more in my future.
A question for my readers: How did religion impact you in your early years? I would love to hear from you.
NOTE: Amazon, Village Books, Barnes and Noble and other booksellers are now carrying my book. Amazon and Goodreads hosts my author page and I welcome your book review on either or both sites. Thank you.
I have autographed books to sell in my local area or can mail a copy to those living out of area/state. Reading is a great pastime for us sheltered-in-place. Feel free to contact me on my website. Stay safe and healthy.
April 23, 2020
“Make Something Out of Nothing.”
My dad was a master when I often watched him “make something out of nothing.” I learned many skills being raised on a rural farm in Nebraska, mastered other competencies as a nurse, and honed them together while working in Liberia.
So when 150 copies of my memoir arrived at the same time as Covid-19, the books had nowhere to go. All my planned events were cancelled. So I put dad’s theory to work. I made something out of nothing. After a month’s delay, Amazon and Village Books were finally able to sell my book online. But with time on my hands and six boxes of books in the house, I contacted my base. They reached out to others and before I knew it, I sold 100 books. My reviews have all been what I had hoped for and more. But the wonderful feedback from individuals who didn’t know me, who had nothing to lose, impressed me greatly. Yes, my surrogate daughter Kat does have something to be happy about. All that praise has carried me through this tough time which could have been a big black hole.
The momentum has grown. I have two video book club chats coming up in the future. Two more club events in Bellingham, promoting local authors, are on the horizon.
There is another audience I hadn’t anticipated — teens who have lost their way. They have dropped out of school and believe they don’t belong. A counselor of these kids in southern California has shown interest in my book to help them find themselves, just as I had to do.
“Release it to the world” was the gift my brother gave to me after reading my draft manuscript. He gave me the permission I needed to share my story. So with his message I discovered the true gift of writing – to release it to the world, to see where it lands, and to help others.
My future blogs will have images and photos that connect to excerpts in my memoir and will take you deeper into my experience. Feel free to share my blog/website with others.
If any of you can’t wait for Village Books to open to buy your autographed copy, feel free to contact me on my website and I will make it happen.
Happy reading.
April 13, 2020
So Pleased!
My soft-launch has begun. With my book events cancelled, Village Books closed and Amazon not fully operational due to Covid-19, I took the route of selling my memoir on my own. The response has been incredible. I have sold 70 books so far by sanitary hand delivery or mail. Several have bought 4 books each to give as gifts. Some have been so kind to keep me abreast of their their reactions while reading it. As an extrovert, this is something I badly need while I shelter-in-place. Some of the positive feedback has reduced me to tears.
Here are just a few of the short comments I collected: fantastic, lovely, amazing, unbelievable, simple elegance, relevant, and moving.
Today, one woman who hardly knows me wrote this: “You made a difference. You have fought the darkness of prejudice and superstition and brought light where it was needed. …a book that will become a beacon of hope to many who have greatly suffered the tribal parochialism of their parents. You can look back over all your humanitarian achievements with great satisfaction and say ‘I lived my dreams and improved the lives of my fellow man.'”
I often wondered if my words and experiences were just for my family or fellow Peace Corps volunteers. I can now put that notion to rest knowing my seven years of toil were not just for a few, but for many.
As I continue my memoir blogs I will add photos and images not included in my website that will give the reader a deeper understanding of my journey.
Thank you to my readers.
If you don’t want to wait for your bookstore to open or Amazon’s ability to mail my book, I’d be glad to deliver or mail you a copy. Just contact me on my website. If you know of others interested in my memoir feel free to share my blog.
Stay safe and healthy.
March 28, 2020
New Flamingos Arrived
Suddenly there was a flurry of beaks pecking on my door. When I opened it these beautiful pink birds flew away. But low and behold they left six boxes.
[image error][image error][image error]
Inside were 150 books of In Search of the Pink Flamingos – five weeks early. This memoir is my baby that incubated for seven years. Finally here, alive and well.
It is unknown at this point if my launch event will be held on May 9th at Village Books in Bellingham due to Covid-19. Several other events that I had planned in March and April and even one in July have been cancelled or postponed. I am strategizing how the book roll out will occur. In the meantime I’m calling my retooled efforts a “Soft Launch.” I am selling and delivering my books in the local area of Bellingham. If you are interested in securing a book now to read during our shelter-in-place mode, I’d be glad to deliver a signed, sanitized one to you. Just message me on my website and I will make it happen. They are $15.95.
Stay healthy and sane as we cope with our global pandemic. My book could help you escape, at least temporarily, and take you on a virtual journey through Nebraska to Africa and back.
Check my website at the top of this link and click on BOOK for photos and more details about my memoir.
