My reading inadvertently merged with my writing

My work on Sarabande, a heroine's journey, novel-in-progress, is unfolding much like my work on three previous novels: it sends me to Amazon, my bookshelf and numerous Internet sites for facts and inspiration.

However, sometimes raw synchronicity steps into the picture and brings me well-timed nourishment I didn't count on for on-going research.

During a recent trip to Florida to visit my brother and his family, I finished reading the novel I took with me sooner than expected. So, I stole a copy of Zora Neale Hurston's poetic, heroine's journey novel off his bookshelf. Set in early 20th century Florida, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a strong, beautiful novel. It brought new perspectives about women seeking validation and authenticity into my consciousness.

Before an after the trip, I was busy reading an advance reader copy of Patricia Damery's novel Snakes , due out from il Piccolo editions March 21st. The novel focuses on the story of a woman who leaves the family farm in the Midwest to go to college in California, and then wonders about the choices she's made.


In my review of this book in Literary Afiionado, I write that "Snakes is a poetic meditation about the intertwined cycles of life and farming. It is also an evolving letter of love from Angela to her recently deceased father about life as it was, mundane and unexpected daily events, and, of course, the snakes. Snakes and the cycles of life are constant images throughout the book; snakes in the corn crib, snakes in the garden, snakes in the kitchen. We fear snakes, yet we also see them as protectors of the land and as symbols of the natural stages of everlasting life."

There couldn't have been a better time for me to read and review Snakes because it is very much on point to my needs as an author struggling to tell a story from a woman's point of view. Janie, a black woman living in a long-ago culture of central Florida in Hurston's novel and Angela, a Midwestern-born white farmer's daughter transplanted to California in Damery's novel, are very different people in settings that could hardly be more disparate. Yet, there I found that my work on Sarabande made me a wonderful melting pot for the universal sentiments in two novels that inadvertently merged with my writing.

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The Shadow Knows – Books for the Journey - resources for understanding the concept of the shadow as it applies to the hero's journey.

Portrait of a Writer as a Young Man - I don't like being asked when I decided to become a writer, but that doesn't mean I can't answer the question.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of "Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey"