Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column - March 14, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today’s the day to sample this month’s Penguin Classics title, “The Best of Everything” by Rona Jaffe, Introduction by Rachel Syme. Be sure to enter to win a copy of today's Classic for yourself.

Start reading (below) and enter for your chance to win.

(Notes from the publisher)

When Rona Jaffe’s superb page-turner was first published in 1958, it changed contemporary fiction forever. Some readers were shocked, but millions more were electrified when they saw themselves reflected in its story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. Sixty-five years later, The Best of Everything remains touchingly—and sometimes hilariously—true to the personal and professional struggles women face in the city. There’s Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor’s office; naïve country girl April, who within months of hitting town reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; and Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity. Jaffe follows their adventures with intelligence, sympathy, and prose as sharp as a paper cut.

Start reading this month's Penguin Classic, "The Best of Everything” by Rona Jaffe and enter to win your own copy.  Go to: 

http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqB1AFE3F373F3&c=CLASSICS

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Start reading this month's Penguin Classic, "The Best of Everything” by Rona Jaffe and enter to win your own copy.  Go to: 

http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqB1AFE3F373F3&c=CLASSICS

 

 

Dear Reader Column - March 7, 2023

Dear Reader,

This week’s guest author, John Keyse-Walker, has penned five novels and is a winner of the Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. A retired attorney, John loves to write about murder and travel. He and his wife, Irene, divide their time between homes in Ohio and Florida.

John’s newest book, Bert and Mamie Take a Cruise, is a murder mystery set in 1939 on a cruise ship sailing around Africa.

Learn more about John at: johnkeyse-walker.com Authors love to hear from readers, and John is giving away five copies of Bert and Mamie Take a Cruise. To enter send an email to: jkeysewalker@icloud.com Be sure to include your preferred mailing address.

MISS OHIO'S DIAMOND

I am a writer now, but for three decades I practiced law in a small Ohio county. My cases were ordinary, without much entertainment value. Until the case of Miss Ohio's diamond.

This particular Miss Ohio, two years after her reign, was an entrepreneur. She would visit a city, tour entertainment hotspots while being filmed, and produce videos for hotels to run on their room televisions. This sounds quaint in the age of Instagram and Tik-Tok; in the '80s it was cutting edge.

Her first city was Miami. Since there were no smartphones then, she needed a videographer. Enter my client, a guy with a big box camera, who spent a week filming her visiting Miami's dance clubs and restaurants. He recommended another client of mine for the editing.

In the end, the two produced a slick professional tape which Miss Ohio sold to several major Miami hotels for a pretty penny. And she stiffed my two clients.

I sued her on behalf of the videographer and, later, the editor. I tried the videographer's case and obtained a judgment against her. During the trial, I noticed she wore a large diamond engagement ring.

Post-trial, her attorney informed me she couldn't pay the judgment. He also said she couldn't pay the editor whose case was still pending.

I couldn't shake the image of that flashy diamond. If I could get my hands on it, it was certainly worth the amount owed to my clients.

I scheduled Miss Ohio's deposition at the courthouse and arranged to seize the diamond during the deposition.

It went like clockwork. Miss Ohio appeared dressed to the nines, the stone brilliant on her finger. Minutes into the deposition, a deputy entered and said he had a writ to seize her ring. She refused to hand it over, dodged around the deputy and dashed out the door. Two female deputies pursued, caught her on the town square and brought her back inside.

Miss Ohio still refused to hand over the ring. The deputy brought her before the judge, who gave her a choice--surrender the diamond immediately, or the county jail matrons would take it when they fitted her for her orange jumpsuit. The judge also said if she paid what was owed by the next day, the ring would be returned.

Miss Ohio reluctantly pulled off the rock and gave it to the deputy. The next morning, a messenger brought payment to me, in cash, for the full amount owed to my clients. My brush with the semi-famous was over.

-- John Keyse-Walker

To enter John's drawing for one of five copies of Bert and Mamie Take a Cruise, send an email to: jkeysewalker@icloud.com Be sure to include your preferred mailing address.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.

THE SCRAMBLE (Fiction) by Kristen Proby

I've sent my entire Montgomery family to Iceland for a snowy, cold Christmas, and I'm excited for you to join us! Maddie Montgomery, so work driven and dedicated, isn't excited about this trip. Until she meets the more carefree, adventurous Dylan on the plane. What happens next is...not fit for this email, but something that you have to see! You'll get to spend time with the other members of the family while you watch Dylan and Maddie fall in love. I just can't wait for you to read it!

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE SCRAMBLE to read more and to email author Kristen Proby, you'll get a reply.

Dear Reader Column - February 28, 2023

Dear Reader,

Lori Stanley Roeleveld, today’s guest author (who wrote a wonderful column), is a professional coach, author, speaker, and disturber of hobbits. She has a couple degrees, but learned most of what she knows in life's trenches, raising children and working with families in crisis. 

She's authored four award-winning books, co-authored a fifth, and has a sixth in process. In her latest release, Colorful

Connections: 12 Questions about Race that Open Healthy Conversations, she and co-author, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, dialog about being black and white in America. The book explores questions that can facilitate productive conversation and includes practical suggestions for engaging with others around race and ethnicity. 

You can reach out to Lori at lorisroel@gmail.com

I Grew Up Useless

My grandfather used to call me useless.

He was the butcher in our corner store. At ten, I was sent to work the register.

Gramp had a checklist of tasks I finished quickly so that between customers, I could write, or read my newest library book.

That's what made me useless--my love of words.

I understand it now from his perspective. Gramp could do practical things. Cut meat. Manage a business. Mix a drink.

Our small town was full of useful people--carpenters, seamstresses, farmers. Words paled.

It frustrated Gramp that I couldn't see work that could be done instead of reading. It frustrated me that he couldn't see the power of words.

After a time, I couldn't see it either.

That uselessness followed me into adulthood. I kept trying to learn practical skills--to excel at something others would find useful. In my spare moments, I returned to words. Even if they rendered me useless, I couldn't abandon them.

Eventually, I accepted that words were my lot in life. I spotted a library book with the title: Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal:  How to Have a Great Life As a Freelance Writer. It sounded like an ideal calling for someone useless like me.

So, I wrote.

Then, somewhere around my fourth book, I had to grapple with this old tape my grandfather uploaded to my fragile identity. He was long gone, and I was well into midlife. Time to move on.

My book was on hard conversations, and I was invited to speak about it at a conference whose theme was "Less Talk, More Action." The other keynote speaker was a Hollywood actor famous for his work in action films. How was I going to talk about words at a conference designed to inspire action? How could I, a woman of words, hold the stage beside a living, breathing action-figure?

As I wrestled, however, what dawned on me was the damage done to my heart, mind, and soul by what? My grandfather's words. The incredible power of that wound changed my thinking immediately.

If words can be weapons, they can be tools. If they can be poison, they can be the remedy. If they can create life-long destruction, they can inspire lasting change.

And I had the passion and skill to tame them. From that moment, I was no longer useless.

I am a writer. I work with hazardous material so combustible it builds careers, incites revolutions, and changes minds.

Useful work if you know your way around words.

-- Lori Stanley Roeleveld

Email Lori at: lorisroel@gmail.com

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - January 24, 2023

Dear Reader,

Erin Davis is today's guest author. Her new book is Fasting & Feasting, 40 Devotions to Satisfy the Hungry Heart." Thanks for visiting the book club, Erin...

Four decades of living have trained me to look for wisdom among the women who are older than me. Like the piles that stack up when you live in the same house year after year, wisdom seems to accrue in the hearts and minds of women with a lot of candles on their birthday cakes. Here are life lessons I wish I'd learned in high school:

1. The college, major, and career I pick don't define me. I am not my work.
   

2. Marrying someone who treats you well really, really (really!) matters.

3. God's promises are true. If He said it, it is as good as done.

4. Being the prettiest or most popular girl in school matters for about half a second after graduation. In contrast, being the kindest girl in school gets remembered well past your ten-year reunion.

5. You will look back at pictures of you and think you were stunning. Trust me.

6. Insecurity is a massive waste of time and energy.

7. It's okay to have a ten-year plan, but there's a 100% chance it will get interrupted. That's a good thing.

8. The bands you listen to in high school will be your very favorite bands forever. Keep the T-shirts.

9. You are being formed by your habits.

10. Saving money is about freedom, not denial.

11. Don't wait until you're rolling in the dough to be generous.

12. The world doesn't revolve around me. That's a good thing.

13. Champion others often.

14. Normal is a mirage. Embrace your weirdness.

15. Worry less about having the right friends and worry more about being the right friend.

16. Don't be afraid to fail. Stand up in front of the class and give that speech. Try out for the lead role in the play. Start a club. You may fall on your face. You may not. But at least you went for it.

17. Your parents turn into your favorite people.

18. Most of this will make a good bonfire some day. Invest in what lasts.

19. When you do something stupid to impress someone, it's still doing something stupid. Do the smart thing instead.

20. Nothing good happens after curfew. Go home.

21. Since outward beauty cannot last, spend your time growing a beautiful heart.

22. Social media doesn't make you smarter. It doesn't expand your horizons. It's fine, but it's finite.

23. You only get one body. Take care of it.

24. You have time. I had a baby at 38, switched careers at 39, and started grad school at 41. There's more sand in the hourglass than you think.

25. Work hard, rest hard. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

26. Assume the best in people and when they give you their worst--faggehtabout it. That's not about you.

27. Bitterness will eat you alive from the inside out. Forgive those who hurt you, not as a gift to them, but as a gift to you.

28. Life never gets any sweeter than pancakes and children in pajama pants. Learn to linger with the ordinary moments. They are the good stuff.

--Erin Davis

What items would you add to the list? Reach out to Erin at: erin@erindavis.org

More about Erin: 

Erin Davis is a writer and teacher passionately committed to getting women of all ages to the deep well of God's Word. She is the author of more than a dozen books and Bible studies, including Connected, Beyond Bath Time, and 7 Feasts. Her latest book, Fasting & Feasting, 40 Devotions to Satisfy the Hungry Heart has been warmly received by women of every age. Erin hosts The Deep Well podcast and Grounded videocast. When she's not writing, you can find Erin chasing chickens and children on her small farm in the Midwest.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

* This month's Penguin Classics is The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win

Dear Reader Column - January 10, 2023

Dear Reader,

Congratulations to the winners of the 'Getting Ready for 2023' Year-End Giveaway. With your new 2023 calendar, you’re ready for the new year! The winners are…

Davonne R., Deanna S., Ella S., Marelou A., Barbara W., Jason L. S., Linda T., Jenn V. C., Glenda W. J., Merrilee G., Markenna P. and Natasha A.

And the fun keeps going…today I’ve got two more ways for you to win at the book club.

First, the January Chocolate Chip Cookie Giveaway kicks off today. I’m baking my famous chocolate chip cookies for three lucky readers, so if you’re ready to dunk and much, be sure to enter. Go to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/Cookie-Contest-2022.html

And, I can’t think of a better way to ease into the New Year than with a Penguin Classic. Be sure to enter to win a copy of today’s Classic for yourself.

This month's Penguin Classic is, The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, Sarah Blackwood (Introduction) and Sofia Coppola (Foreword).  

Start reading (below) and enter for your chance to win. 

(Notes from the publisher) 

Considered by many to be her masterpiece, Edith Wharton’s second full-length work is a scathing yet personal examination of the exploits and follies of the modern upper class. As she unfolds the story of Undine Spragg, from New York to Europe, Wharton affords us a detailed glimpse of what might be called the interior décor of this America and its nouveau riche fringes. Through a heroine who is as vain, spoiled, and selfish as she is irresistibly fascinating, and through a most intricate and satisfying plot that follows Undine’s marriages and affairs, she conveys a vision of social behavior that is both supremely informed and supremely disenchanted.

Start reading this month’s Penguin Classic and enter to win your own copy.  

Thanks for reading with me. It’s so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

* This month's Penguin Classics is The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win

Dear Reader Column - December 13, 2022

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Janyre Tromp, is one of the three featured authors, along with Deborah Raney and Amanda Wen, in the charming collection of romance novellas, O Little Town...

In the sleepy small town of Mapleview, Michigan, Christmas is always something special. Join three generations of Mapleview residents longing for love--and finding it--on the most wonderful night of the year.

Janyre Tromp writes historicals with a dose of lyrical intrigue. She's the author of Shadows in the Mind's Eye and co-author of It's a Wonderful Christmas and O Little Town. All that creativity happens in her basement when she's not hanging out with her family and fur babies. Come hang out with Janyre on social media (@janyretromp) and grab a free novella on her website: www.janyretromp.com.

Be sure to enter Janyre's book giveaway (details below). 

Welcome to the book club, Janyre, and thanks for visiting...

When my daughter was a two-year-old cherub, she loved touching the "magic" snowflake to turn on the Christmas tree. Every morning, she'd toddle down the steps and light the world. Then every night, she'd "tuck" in the tree before she snuggled into her own bed.

That Christmas Eve, my husband and I stacked presents around the tree. We were sure our girl would love the sparkling gifts.

The next morning, while I was making traditional Christmas donuts, my girl thumped down the steps. Instead of excitement, our girl burst into tears, wailing, "All those things are in my way!"

I couldn't help laughing, and my husband said, "That'll be the last time she ever says that."

He was right, but one fact from that day stands out for me: All the presents were in the way of her Christmas.

And that hits home...especially since we launch our daughter (who's now a teenager) to college this year. Not only do we want to make Christmas special, but we're mindful of the huge financial outlay coming. So I have a list and I'm checking it twice. And it doesn't matter who's naughty or nice, there's just not the same amount to go around.

Honestly I'm struggling with that. Part of Christmastime is finding the perfect present and seeing the joy it brings. But Christmas isn't about gifts. It's about family and joy, forgiveness and reaching out--rather like the very first Christmas. And somehow all the holiday things interfere with that.

I'm not sure what Christmas will look like this year. We'll keep the cookie decorating and game playing and the nativity on the mantle, and I'll still make donuts, but there will be less of  everything else. And who knows? Maybe we'll have the best Christmas.

It's an idea I explored in my novella in O Little Town, where I dug into small town Christmas and some history (did you know the Japanese bombed Michigan during WWII?).

To enter the drawing for one of five copies of O Little Town drop me an email (Janyre@icloud.com) and tell me what you're looking forward to this Christmas.

-- Janyre Tromp

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - December 7, 2022

Dear Reader,

One of my favorite gifts to give at Christmas is books. I bet you're surprised, huh?

But I don't like to just wrap up a book and give it to someone, because it feels too much like I'm giving them a card, with someone else's verse in it and I'm just signing my name. I choose books I've featured at the book club, and I write a personal note in the front of each of them about why I liked the book--sometimes quoting a favorite line or passage.

You can take the simplest gift and make it look so inviting. It's all in the presentation. This year I've wrapped some "towers of books." There's a box of candy at the bottom and five different titles, individually wrapped, stacked on top of the chocolate delights. I'm topping it off with a bow and a gift card from Starbucks. When I'm reading a book, eating chocolate, and drinking coffee, I'm in paradise, so I figure that's one of the best gifts that I can give to someone else.

Don't they look stunning? And I love to open multiple packages. 

In the "tower of books" I start on the bottom with a box of chocolates, but you could start with anything, even something that you baked yourself. Layer it with as many books as you want, including some books that you've started reading at the book clubs, but haven't gotten around to getting for yourself. (Maybe you'll be first in line when your friend passes on the title!) In addition to the books you might include a blank journal. Go ahead and write the first day's entry to your friend. 

The "tower of books" should reflect your tastes. Let me know if you create your own.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - December 6, 2022

Dear Reader,

Please welcome today’s guest author, Allie Pleiter, who has sold over 1.6 million books in her twenty-year career. Allie also coaches on writing productivity and speaks nationally on time management for creatives. 

Allie is an avid knitter, confirmed coffee junkie and firm believer that "pie makes everything better." Her latest release is It Came Upon a Midnight Shear, the third book in the Riverbank Knitting Mysteries. Previous books in the series are Knit or Dye Trying and On Skein of Death.

Allie is giving away four copies of It Came Upon a Midnight Shear, simply drop her a note and include your shipping address, in case you are one of the lucky winners.

Email: allie@alliepleiter.com

Words and Stitches

I am as passionate about my knitting as I am about my writing. Both deeply feed my need to be creative and to put something into the world that wasn't there before.

While I admit both occasionally serve me up a humbling dose of frustration, I mostly take great pleasure in my knitting and writing accomplishments. I show off my shawls with as much shameless pride as I do my books. I look for creativity in my stitches with the same fever I do in my characters. For me, a story unravels itself before me just as a scarf builds stitch by stitch.

I find the two to be a perfect counterbalance. After a long day of staring at, messing with, and pondering words, nothing feels better than yarn running through my fingers. It is a particular pleasure to watch as the instructional words of a pattern transform themselves into a soft scarf--it's magic in my hands. Like many writers, I am a highly sensory person. I'm forever taking in how things feel, look, sound, etc. The varied textures of yarn indulge my senses in the same way a really good slice of lemon meringue pie (my personal favorite!) indulges my taste. And yes, I'm thankful yarn is calorie-free.

I knit everywhere. If you see me at a writing conference or any other of my many speaking engagements, I'm often knitting. I'm known to say "knitting is socially acceptable fidgeting." I'm not the kind of person who can sit still and watch for long periods of time, so knitting helps me pay attention. I'm not knitting because you bore me, I'm knitting so that I pay better attention to you. I'm skilled enough that often I have no need to look down at my fingers and can direct my complete attention to the speaker. I travel to teach writing frequently, and nothing eases the frustrations of travel like knitting in your hands. Flight delay? It's just an opportunity to get in a few more rows. And I love how knitting often opens up conversations with fellow travelers.

Is it any wonder that so many of my characters knit? Why wouldn't I take every chance to share my passion for the craft with the world? Because to me, knitting in books is simply the best of both worlds!

-- Allie Pleiter

Allie is giving away four copies of It Came Upon a Midnight Shear, drop her a note and include your shipping address, in case you are one of the winners. Email: allie@alliepleiter.com

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.

THE THIRD INSTINCT (Fiction) by Kent Lester

My new novel continues the adventures of Dan Clifford and Rachel Sullivan as they face an even bigger threat. While rebuilding their lives after the pandemic, they are thrust into a world of creatives empowered by technology--makers, biohackers, conspiracy theorists, cos-players, and phone hackers. They must decipher the truth in a war of deception that has raged for two thousand years. It will take insight into the third basic human instinct to find the answer.

I'm giving away five copies, to enter the drawing, click on the link to Authorbuzz and the book jacket to enter or email: the.third.instinct@gmail.com with the subject line "The Third Instinct giveaway." 

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE THIRD INSTINCT to read more and to email author Kent Lester, you'll get a reply.

Dear Reader Column - December 5, 2022

Dear Reader,

Every year I am amazed at the quality of the writing entries I receive for the Write a DearReader Contest. It's difficult to choose just three winners, so I choose Honorable Mentions as well. Today's Honorable Mention was written by Carole Knoles. Thank you so much Carole for sharing your story with us.

A Time For Sweet Reflection

I ran across a quote today by a man, unfamiliar to me, named Charlie Kaufman (I will have to look him up). The quote says “Perhaps I am not interesting, but I am all I have to offer, and I want to offer something.” I do not have a conduit to make an offer of myself to the world at large at my advanced age and frankly I do not know what value any offering would have to others. I have given what I had to offer to work and to my loved ones. Now, in retirement, I think perhaps in reflection there is something to offer myself.

In the contemplation, there is such a mixture of emotion. There is gratitude, embarrassment, insecurity, joy, and even shame. The young person that I was had neither the interest, time, or wisdom to be concerned about these things although I clearly remember then feeling embarrassment, insecurity, and an abundance of appetite for material things, love, admiration, and the instant gratification of every desire.

Today, although that grasping, uncertain kid is certainly tucked in a corner of my aged soul, I am concerned with other things than she was. I think so much of people, now gone, who helped me along in life. I do wish that I had had the forethought to voice my appreciation to them in a louder voice at the time. The best that I can do now is to remember them lovingly for all they did for me and be a bit forgiving of myself for the self absorbed days of my youth.

It occurs to me that perhaps the body slows down in old age to give the mind and heart of a human to expand. I can see more clearly how one step after another led me here. If my parents hadn’t been a bad match they wouldn’t have divorced, my mother wouldn’t have married a military man who adopted me, and I wouldn’t have seen the world. If I hadn’t left home and moved to D.C. and worked with my father in law to be, I would not have met a husband who would father the two children who I adore. If I hadn’t left that life and moved the three of us to San Francisco those children would not have been set on the same fulfilling path on which they travel now. And so on and so on.

Certainly part of me wishes that I had the energy and health to do it all over again. The best that I can do is watch the reruns in my mind while I enjoy the good times, contemplate the lessons of the bad ones, blush at the embarrassments, be grateful for those who helped me, and forgive myself for my missteps and shortcomings. It’s been overall a grand life. Thank you Mother Earth for hosting me!

– Carole Knoles, Honorable Mention, 2022 Write a DearReader Contest

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.

THE SISTERS OF SEA VIEW (Fiction) by Julie Klassen

I am eager for you to meet the Summers sisters in book one in my new series--following their struggles, relationships, tested loyalties, and romances. It is set in the British seaside town of Sidmouth, where Jane Austen visited and possibly inspired her unfinished novel, Sanditon. To celebrate the launch of this series, I'm giving away five copies, to enter the drawing, click on the link to Authorbuzz and the book jacket to enter or enter the giveaway.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE SISTERS OF SEA VIEW to read more and to email author Julie Klassen, you'll get a reply.

Dear Reader Column - November 22, 2022

Dear Reader,

A Christmas Deliverance is New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry's twentieth heart-warming Christmas mystery: The festive season is fast approaching, and Dr Crowe and his young apprentice Scuff are busy, as always, tending London's sick and wounded. This year, however, Crowe is increasingly distracted by memories of a former patient, Eliza Hollister, for whom he cared deeply.

I’m pleased to welcome Anne Perry as today’s guest author. She is the bestselling author of nineteen previous holiday novels, as well as the William Monk series, the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, the Daniel Pitt series, and the Elena Standish series. She has also written five World War I novels and a work of historical fiction, The Sheen on the Silk. Anne Perry lives in Los Angeles.

For more from Anne Perry, follow her on Facebook at @AnnePerryAuthor.  Or say “Hello”. Contact her at askanneperry@aol.com

Like almost everyone else, I stayed home during most of COVID. It was little hardship for me because I work at home. Groceries and everything important were delivered to my door. I kept in touch with friends and family by email and telephone.

What I did not realize was what a hermit I had become. Last year, I had made a commitment to travel to a 2022 writers’ conference when I thought this would all be over. And as I had given my word, I had no honorable choice but to go. When the departure day finally arrived, I realized that I had become afraid of being in public. Crowds, Airports. Queues a mile long. Delays. Missing connecting flights. I’ve been in that situation before. I also knew what it meant to be the last one standing in an airport in the middle of the night. As they say: been there, done that. Aching with tension, pulling my one small case, I set out. I was quickly reminded that I have a sore back. Probably from sitting in one position too long. And not enough walking. Envisioning long queues of people waiting to check in, I had asked for a wheelchair, which was provided at every stop. I was treated with care and courtesy. No waiting, no getting lost.

Everything went well, nothing was more than a few minutes late. There was a connection where the second gate was a quarter of a mile away from the first, but I whizzed along in the chair. When I arrived at the other end of my journey, I found a taxi immediately. A most interesting driver, and we had a terrific conversation about all sorts of things.

There were roughly four hundred people at the writers’ conference, mostly from the United States and Canada, and a few from scattered places. I met old friends, and made new ones. We were given very smart black masks in our welcome kit, and wore them everywhere except the dining room, or if we were the lecturer or on a panel. And all the time I was there, I never heard a single complaint or unkind word about the masks, or anything else.

After the years alone, most of us were happy to meet again.

Some familiar faces were deeply missed, but that is inevitable.

What I particularly enjoyed was breaking the imaginary bars that had been imprisoning me.

What else have I missed because it involved stepping into the unknown? I promised myself not to let that happen again. It is up to me!

-- Anne Perry

Follow her on Anne on Facebook at @AnnePerryAuthor. Or contact her at askanneperry@aol.com

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

* This month's Penguin Classics is Metamorphosis by Ovid, a sensuous and witty poem in an accessible translation by David Raeburn. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.