Next Big Book Thing: Author Interview

Tell us one positive thing that has happened to you since you published your book(s). To be able to hold that book in my hand. I am also playwright and screenwriter, but you know, once the play is finished—it’s gone—poof! And to get a screenplay actually produced—well, that’s another story altogether. But I have four books published now. This past Christmas, my sister in law bought five copies of my first book, The Women Debrowska, which is very loosely based on my family and is intertwined with the history of Poland. She is also Polish. She gave the copies as Christmas presents for her sisters, and they will read it together as a book club. That is very special to me. Extremely rewarding.

Tell us one negative thing that has happened to you since you published your book(s). Not enough sales! Isn’t that always the truth!

Family. My mother died when I was 17 years old, and that event has had an enormous influence not only on me personally, but also on me as a writer.Growing up “motherless” as a teenager taught me a large degree of indpendence, but brought with it a deep well of loneliness. I became a life-long seeker, and many of my characters follow suit. It makes sense that I would be drawn to the metaphysical and to mystery.

Favorite Quality. Genorisity of spirit. I love to share– happiness, experience, goodness, light, love, knowledge, even sadness. We are, truly, all in this together.It is when we forget that, when we grow selfish and greedy that we as a whole get into trouble.

Least Favorite Quality. Fear. Fear will destroy you. Fear will cripple you; it will make you small, it will take away your ability to risk and thus your ability to shine.

Favorite Quote. Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the true beauty of their canyons– Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross

I interviewed Dr. Ross in Dec of 1985 for a one act play I wrote about her that I entitled WINDSTORM. It was in fact Dr. Ross’s book ON DEATH AND DYING that a friend had given me that began my healing from my mother’s death. I was 21 years old, four years after my mother’s death, before that healing could even begin, and it began because of Dr. Ross’s book. Imagine how monumental it was for me to meet her in person 15 years later.

Elisabeth Kubler Ross certainly endured her share of “windstorms” — and left the world a far better place because of her knowledge and work with dying patients.