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Muffins and Mayhem, Recipes for a Happy (if disorderly) Life
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Dear Reader,
My long distance, long-time, friend and author, Thomas Sullivan offered to fill in for me today. (I'm on vacation.)
--Suzanne Beecher
Thomas (Sully) is a Pulitzer Prize nominee, has been a gambler, a "RubeGoldberg" innovator, a coach, teacher, a city commissioner, and an All-American athlete. Having lived in a dozen countries by the time he was six, Sully feels right at home in many cultures and across the literary spectrum. Over eighty publishing credits in all fiction categories, his work includes seven novels in sixteen domestic and foreign editions, journalism, non-fiction and active film options.
Send Sully an email and you'll get an unforgettable reply. (His emails are gems--each one a literary delight.) You can reach him at: [email protected] or visit his website at: http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com/
Did you know that you are a very young reader? Never mind what your birth certificate says. If you read these columns, the spark of youth is in you. That's because the thing about Suzanne--and I love this--is that she never grew up. She never will! She is a perfect child in all the perfect ways, including feeling very imperfect sometimes. Read along with her, and you will never grow old. Climb aboard the bus (a yellow bus, of course), and she will drive you to revisit the past, explore the present, and anticipate the future--oh, a very strong sense of future. I got on that bus some years back and found that it perfectly matched my itinerary. That may be because my own driver's license reads "Peter Pan." Like Suzanne, I've traveled a lot--enough to know that if you can't find the universe in your own backyard, you won't find it anywhere. Scenery varies, cultures vary, but people--their needs, their wants, their fears, and the passions that bring all three together--are the same everywhere.
I use to introduce myself somewhat apologetically as "well-ranged if not deranged," because my first novel was dubbed literary and my last novel an "intelligent thriller" and I had not yet recognized the Suzanne Beecher credo in my own writing that the uniting thing about life/writing is the underlying passion. A plot is just a wrapper. Good writing captures life with insight and sensitivity along the way to any story. My monthly newsletters (Sullygrams) are inspirational celebrations of nature; my columns are motivational; my fiction is reprinted across genres, underscoring that settings and plots are simply the rooms and furnishings of what happens to people in their relationships across a broad range of events.
The past year's travels seem to emphasize the universality of my life and writing. There were endless hours of solitary recreation (biking, hiking, CC skiing, canoeing, roller skiing), and also hours putting my soul through brass playing tenor sax in picnic shelters. Then there was a week in an impoverished Dominican Republic village to build a church school, and speaking at the House of Literature in Oslo, and a visit from an Australian interviewer and his wife, who have become close friends. The interviewer is himself an inspirational speaker, and after they treated me to a trip to a resort in northern Minnesota, the three of us made plans for ocean kayaking in Tonga and taking a yak Safari across the Genghis Khan route in the Gobi desert. Immediately after they flew home, I drove to Idaho to ski with a most exceptional friend above his mountain ranch. And then it was on to Oregon to meet my grandson for the first time, and--surprise--to meet the woman my daughter has become in risking her life to carry this child to term. We had a memorable 8 mile climb on Mt. Hood, and now I'm home again, remembering another phrase I use to describe myself: "When you don't belong anywhere, in a sense you belong everywhere."
So, please don't be a stranger. I'm delighted to meet you.--Thomas Sullivan
Write Sully at: [email protected]
Thomas Sullivan currently lives on a lake in Maple Grove, Minnesota, writing full-time and lecturing internationally. His inspirational monthly newsletter (Sullygram) is available for free on request.
* This month's Penguin Classics book is THE REAL STORY OF AH-Q AND OTHER TALES OF CHINA by Lu Xun. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/September11Classics
AUTHORBUZZ: THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPE by Melody Carlson
A small town. An eccentric newcomer. And an unusual store that is more than meets the eye. In this charming story full of sweet surprises, find out what happens when curiosity gets the best of people and they enter the Christmas Shoppe.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader Click on THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPE to read more. Author Melody Carlson would love to hear from you.
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