What’s In A Name?

In front of Fortitude, one of NYC Bryant Park Library’s iconic stone lions, just after donating a copy of Two Over Easy All Day Long. Check it out (literally)!

(Pardon me while I go a little author-dorky on you, for a moment. The rest of this newsletter returns you to your regularly scheduled programming: Two Over Easy All Day Long news, a book review, and a celebration of Women’s History Month.)

Writers like to obsess over things like
story arc, character development, and genre.

Readers just like to read good books.

Image by Bowie15 from Getty Images (text added)

I am both writer and reader, so I get to obsess, and then be annoyed with myself for the obsession. Not nearly as much fun as having your cake and eating it too, but what’re you gonna do?

Apologies to those of you who are readers but not writers—this newsletter takes a short dive into the somewhat neurotic preoccupation with genre.

The title of this newsletter, What’s in a Name?, is part of a famous quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.

Having spent a little time in the rarefied air of authors, publishers, librarians, and booksellers, living and breathing conversations about titles and genres,
I have to ask: Would it? Would it smell as sweet?

More specifically for my purposes, is a book only as appealing to you as its genre-label? Did you buy (or borrow from the library, or from a friend) Two Over Easy All Day Long because it was labelled a mystery? Would you have picked it up if it was simply labelled “contemporary” or something equally generic? What if it had been labelled, courageously, “genre-bending” or “defies conventional genres”?

I am by no means the only writer grappling with these issues.

At the end of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred, a Critical Essay by Robert Crossley (University of Massachusetts at Boston) contrasts Kindred with stereotypical science fiction. “Butler herself has repeatedly insisted that Kindred should be read as a ‘grim fantasy,’ not as science fiction, since there is ‘absolutely no science in it.’ She has also remarked that such generic labels are more useful as marketing categories than as reading protocols.”

In her March 2025 newsletter, Louise Penny makes a similar statement about her Three Pines series. “I think part of the challenge with STILL LIFE [the first book in the series], and all subsequent Three Pines books, was that the series defies convention. While proudly a crime novel, Still Life is not really about the crime. That is the vehicle to explore all sorts of issues. . . . [T]he books are about decency.  About honour and the courage to be kind. To stand up. They are about integrity, and friendship, and goodness, and belonging, and community. They're about terror and they are, in the end, about love in all its forms.”[i]

I am no Octavia E. Butler or Louise Penny—though as they say in the movie City Slickers, “Day ain’t over yet.” But I struggled with the same issues when sending out queries for Two Over Easy All Day Long (thank you, Golden Antelope Press, for loving the story in spite of its genre-ambivalence!), when sending out queries for the Looser Island Dogs series, and most recently when sending out queries for Jaysus, MooMoo, and The Immortal Woos. And the issue pops up when someone finds out I have a published novel and asks, innocently, “Oh? What kind of book is it?”

If only they knew what soul-searching I go through every time that question is posed!

Labels like “mystery” seem inapt. I intentionally did not use the traditional format of a mystery, with red herrings and clues, and of course there’s the fact that the dead body doesn’t even show up until Chapter 5.

Whodunnit? is not the central theme of the book.

“Cozy mystery” is even less appropriate, given Walt’s (and Nancy’s) foul mouth, and the occasional references to sex, some of which are somewhat explicit.

Two Over Easy was described by one well-known reviewer (who shall remain nameless, such is my frustration with their assigned genre) as “a comic novel.” Though they did add “with heart.”

Say what? It starts with the death of a child.

There are parts of Barbara Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven and The Bean Trees, and Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry that are hilarious, but I’d never describe them as “comic.” Similarly, Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles (review below) is wickedly funny, but it is not a “comic novel.”

The central message of Two Over Easy is redemption, the transformation possible through created community and learning to see the world from another’s perspective. The “point” of the book is that people can change for the better, and sometimes, miraculously, against all odds, they do.

So I can’t help but bristle at calling my book “a comic novel,” though perhaps my feelings are much ado about nothing (thank you again, Bill). I leave it in your hands, sweet reader. If you feel so inclined, drop me a note in the comments or by email and let me know what genre – what “name” – you’d ascribe to Two Over Easy All Day Long, or any of the other novels mentioned above, whether there are other books you’ve loved that seemed mislabeled, or any other thoughts you’d like to share.

And now, back to your regularly-scheduled programming . . . .

Two Over Easy All Day Long News

• NYC Library: The photo for this newsletter is me standing in front of Fortitude, one of the iconic stone lions in front of New York City’s Bryant Park Library, shortly after donating a signed copy of Two Over Easy All Day Long. If you live in the area, or know someone who does, check it out (literally)!

• Reader’s House Interview coming soon! Check out their issues here.

• Playing with audio books: Spoken Press recently launched a program to make audiobook versions more widely available to authors and readers. Check out Chapter Two (read by “Eric”) and an excerpt of Chapter Three (read by “Sarah”) here. Vote with stars or comments if you have a preference. You can also let me know if you prefer to hear the author read his/her/their own work – and you can hear me read an excerpt on my YouTube channel, for comparison.

• Goodreads Giveaway: Signed copies of Two Over Easy All Day Long will be sent to ten winners. Open until 3/30/2025. Enter here - entry is free!
  
  Already have a copy? Why not enter anyway? If you win, share with a friend, or donate a copy to your local library. If you donate, be sure to tell the librarian what you loved about the book, and why you think it should be included in their collection.

• Book Clubs: I’ve now had the pleasure of appearing, virtually or in person, at a handful of book clubs. I absolutely love participating in those discussions, so please feel free to reach out to me if you’d like me to join your conversations, in person, remotely, or by email. As I’ve mentioned in previous newsletters, Golden Antelope Press is a small (but mighty!) independent publisher, and there is no army of PR folks between me and my readers, which means you can email requests to me directly at sharilaneauthor@gmail.com.

Book Review

I know I tend to gush over every book that makes it into my newsletter, and Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles (William Morrow 2024) is no exception. It’s also an excellent example of the queries posed earlier in this newsletter.

The novel follows a nineteen-year-old whose college professor seduces her but disavows all connection when she gets pregnant. Margo, our protagonist, decides against abortion without any inkling what parenthood entails or any plan for financial stability (or resources to develop a plan).

[SPOILER ALERTS - skip the next sentence if you like!] Margo loses her job, then her roommates (who share the rent), navigates her father’s heroine addiction and her mother’s legacy of poverty and dependence on men, starts an OnlyFans[ii] account to support herself and her baby, and because of that endures a legal custody battle and public “doxxing.”

The story is about female empowerment and smashing the societal taboos placed only on women. It includes explicit descriptions of pornography, and viscerally painful descriptions of parenthood and childhood trauma. That it also manages to be wickedly funny is a triumph. So it was almost shocking to see it described on Amazon as “heartwarming,” “laugh-out-loud,” “feel-good,” and “lovable.”

Not until I got to the end of the Amazon blurb did I find a more accurate description, and even then I had to meander through “fluff” descriptors to get to this:

“ . . . filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale [about] . . . struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. [An] . . . honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off. A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.”

 I heartily, highly, and enthusiastically recommend Margo’s Got Money Troubles. And if you read it, write and tell me what you thought, how you’d describe the book, or any other little thing you’d like to share.

Women’s History Month

Image by imaginaryparty (text added).

In honor of Women’s History Month, I’d love it if you’d share your favorite female author/author who identifies or identified as female.

I’ll start, and since my obsession with—I mean passion for—reading started as a child, I’m going for children’s authors first: Madeleine L'Engle, E.  Nesbit, J.K. Rowling. Next up, authors of adult books: Barbara Kingsolver (of course), Emily Dickinson, Ruth Ozeki, Emily St. John Mandel, and Louise Penny.[iii]

Your turn!

Footnotes

[i] I just have to wax enthusiastic about the fact that, when I wrote to Louise Penny to ask for permission to use this quote, she, or rather her executive assistant, actually wrote back! Granting permission! What a thrill! (Okay, done with the excessive use of exclamation points. For now.). Her marvelous newsletter is available here: https://www.louisepenny.com/newsletters.htm

[ii] This dinosaur had to research the term. According to Wikipedia, “OnlyFans is mainly used by pornographic creators . . . . As of May 2023, OnlyFans had 3 million registered creators and 220 million registered consumers. In 2023, creators earned a mean average of nearly $1,300 per year. A study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that ‘OnlyFans users were predominantly white, married, males who identified as heterosexual, bisexual, or pansexual.’” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyFans

[iii] There are so, so many others! Also, in case you followed the events related to J.K. Rowling’s comments about trans rights, I want to say this: I will neither defend those comments nor apologize for including her in this list. The Harry Potter series brought joy to so many, and her books championed diversity and inclusivity, acceptance of each person on his/her/their own terms, forgiveness, and taking a stand against evil. Her contributions on those issues should not be cancelled, even as I acknowledge that I share concerns about her statements and actions related to trans people.

How to Have an Argument

I’ve been re-reading the Lane Winslow series by Iona Whishaw. It’s a delightful series about a former British spy who settles in a tiny community in British Columbia to escape her wartime memories. As in every small town mystery series, the idyllic peace is regularly disturbed by the appearance of a dead body.

There are quirky characters, exuberant children, interesting back stories and, eventually, a cheerful puppy. There’s a romance that takes several books to begin to flourish. And, of course, in each book there is a mystery to solve, almost always relating back to some event or events from WWII.

Like all well-written books, the stories make important points: war is devastating, even to those who survive it; suspicion and hatred of a person or people because of the color of their skin or nation of origin is poisonous to the hater as well as the hated; no person should be relegated to a specific role based on gender; blaming groups of people for our troubles because of their                                        (fill in the blank with appearance, faith, political beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.) is a waste of time—bad things happen due bad luck, bad politics, bad personal decisions (our own or another’s) or some combination thereof, and fixating on blame just keeps us from focusing on potential solutions.

But mostly the stories are a pleasant escape.

Normally, I read a chapter or two of whatever book I’m enjoying at the time, before nodding off. If it’s a really, really good book that I’m reading for the first time, I may stay up late because I just can’t wait to find out what happens next. For my re-reads, however, I already know “what happens next,” and reading is just a way to slow down in preparation for sleeping.

(By the way, if you’re looking for your next good read, check out the recommendations on my newly refurbished goodreads Author Page.)

But lately I’m staying up late and then waking at 3:00 am wondering if it’s too early to get my first cup of coffee and dive back into whichever book I’m currently re-reading.

This is not healthy.

So why do I find myself obsessing over the process of marching through the Iona Whishaw series?

The answer, I think, is clear from my description a few paragraphs ago: these books are a pleasant escape.

I’m hiding out, escaping from the headlines and social media that scream fear and vitriol.

Fair warning: this newsletter is long, and about to get political. The political arena feels all consuming in 2025, and I’m trying, like everyone else, to figure out how to navigate this brave new world. The uncertainty is exhausting: tariffs are on, then they’re off; the federal workforce is being drastically downsized, or not; courts have stopped the spending freeze, but the government is ignoring the court order . . . . You’re living in the same world, so you know whereof I speak. If you’d prefer to just enjoy my recommendation of the Iona Whishaw series and leave it at that, you can stop reading here. Next month’s newsletter will be back to news about Two Over Easy All Day Long, including an upcoming giveaway, and more lighthearted ponderings.

I think it’s okay, for a while, to escape into the little pleasures life offers (at least, if you can, if you haven’t just lost your job, been deported, lost funding for your research, etc.). To simply be.

But for me at least, eventually I’ll have to re-engage. This is life, and I have a responsibility to be part of it.

If you are a person of my political proclivities, that means seeking out those in my community who are being hurt by current political actions, and doing what I can to alleviate their pain. And reaching out to my elected representatives to voice my opinions about new and proposed policies. I know I will find others walking that path beside me, including some who are, surprisingly, not of my “political proclivities” on all issues.

But here’s the part I’m assiduously hiding from: “engaging” sometimes means having an argument.

I don’t shy away from arguments in my fiction; good writing demands conflict. If you’ve read Two Over Easy All Day Long, you know the characters grapple with internal conflict and conflict with each other.

But in real life, I hate even mild disagreements.

So it is with some trepidation that I offer thoughts on . . .

How to Have an Argument

• Listen as much as you speak

•  Do NOT have arguments online

• Focus on common ground

Most of all:

• Don’t believe the rhetoric.

Yes, these are pretty darn self-evident. And yes, focusing on common ground
may feel like an insurmountable task. Our divisions are so significant, we’re told. We’ll never overcome our differences, we’re told.

Don’t believe the rhetoric.

Here’s an example. The headlines say recent polls showed a majority of Americans approve of the current president’s actions so far. But if you unpack it, you’ll see these numbers: 37% strongly approve of his performance, while 40% strongly disapprove. That leaves 23% who have more nuanced opinions. And then there’s the fact that 74% of the Americans polled disapprove of the pardon of the January 6 rioters who committed violence. 74% must of course include some of those who said they strongly approve overall, which means they don’t “strongly approve” of all the actions since taking office. And after the pollsters dug further and asked about specific actions (tariffs, immigration, inflation, etc.), the nuances were even more
pronounced.[i]

We are not, and have never been, a homogenous nation or even a nation where half of us think in lockstep with one party’s dogma and half hews to the other party line.

So I think there is hope for us after all, hope that we can forge community out of what we are being told is hopeless division.

But only if we’re willing to talk to each other, to have an argument or at least a frank conversation.

I'll start.

In the remainder of this newsletter, I’m going to bring up three contentious subjects, tell you what I think our "common ground" might be, and then, if you feel differently, invite you to tell me your perspective and what you think I might be missing. 

(But please please please and for good measure pretty please don't post angry comments on this newsletter or on social media—though I always appreciate an Attagirl! Send me an email, and let's have a conversation. Better yet, if you know me personally, let's get a cup of coffee and talk.)

Immigration

I assume I’m stating the obvious when I say that there is no common ground between myself and a person who asserts all Mexicans are                                                             
(I won’t dignify the slurs by repeating them). On the other hand, I don’t have much use for people who suggest all immigrants are virtuous victims of circumstance.

But I don’t believe most of us espouse either extreme, at least if we think about what we have personally observed and experienced, rather than allowing ourselves to be reduced to talking points pre-selected by politicians and amplified by social media.

Which means there is common ground, for most of us, on the topic of immigration law and border enforcement.

For example, I agree with those calling for greater border control that: there are people trafficking in drugs and humans over our borders, and that must be stopped; and there are gangs that have been “imported” from other countries that are responsible for some horrific crimes, and that must be stopped, too.[ii] (Let us not forget, however, that we have plenty of homegrown gangs, and plenty of horrific crimes committed by people born and raised here).

And it is my hope that many of the people calling for tougher enforcement of our borders would agree with me that most immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are ordinary people who came to America to make a better life for themselves and their families, and that most immigrants are a hard-working and critical component of our economy.

And lest we get too caught up in the characterization of immigrants only according to the color of their skin or whether they arrived from south of the US border, remember that, as envisioned in the movie The Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family were undocumented immigrants seeking asylum in Switzerland and then the US.

(The true story is a bit different, but the idea remains: fleeing to the United States to escape violence or natural disasters or poverty, with or without the often years-long wait for authorizing documents, is quintessentially American.)

In other words, there is a common foundation from which we can discuss the issues surrounding immigration law and border control, if we ignore the rhetoric that tells us Republicans believe all immigrants are monsters and Democrats believe all immigrants are saints.

Environmental Stewardship

Switching to another topic, there can be little common ground between someone like me who believes the 97% of climate scientists who say drastic action is needed to prevent irreversible and devastating climate change,[iii] and someone who believes the idea of climate change is a hoax dreamed up by “radical leftists.”

But, again, I don’t think most of us reside in either extreme.

I can agree that sweeping environmental protections should take into account the individuals affected by those changes. Individuals and communities that rely on coal mining should not summarily have their livelihoods ripped away, for example; public and private partnerships should ensure a transition to more sustainable industries.[iv] And I believe that if EVs provide any hope for reducing carbon emissions, we need to make them truly affordable for average people, with charging stations as ubiquitous as gas stations, and we need to address the carbon footprint of manufacturing EVs.

And it is my hope that those opposed to some parts of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act would nevertheless agree that we should continue to develop fossil fuel energy alternatives.

And I hope we can all agree that we need to reduce single-use plastic, that it is not acceptable to find in the ocean an island of plastic that is twice the size of Texas (and growing).[v]

In short, I think tree-huggers and conservatives should be able to have a productive argument about environmental stewardship and the government’s role in ensuring protections for the earth on which we all depend, a conversation that that starts with our shared beliefs.

As long as we set aside the rhetoric.

Federal Spending and Separation of Powers

Last but definitely not least, I think most of us have long suspected that the federal government is bloated and overdue for a serious overhaul, that the feds tend to hand out money willy nilly to whatever pet project each congressional representative wants or whichever project has the most generous lobbyists.

And I think (I hope) very few of us believe freezing all government spending, with no notice, was an acceptable way to start that process, or that it was reasonable to hand over the process to an unelected, unvetted individual with absolutely no expertise in “right-sizing.”

At this point, it is likely we all know someone hurt by the spending freeze, because that action didn’t just hurt “special interests” (but aren’t we all special in our own way?); the freeze was devastating to small farmers on contracts with the federal government, Head Start providing childcare to the children of low-income working parents, Meals on Wheels meeting essential needs for seniors, and so many more ordinary Americans who rely on federal funding just to survive.[vi]

And funding remains frozen for some service providers, even after the Executive Order was rescinded (maybe?) and judges blocked the order.[vii]

Just as importantly, unless you truly believe our country would be better off run by a single person with no restrictions on his power (i.e. a dictatorship), the spending freeze and other recent government actions were in violation of the constitutional checks and balances that are designed to prevent any one branch of government from seizing all power.

On this, more than any other topic, I think it is vitally important that we talk to each other.

This newsletter is already too long and too political, but since I’ve started, I’m going to finish. Senator Angus King, an Independent from Maine, opposed the confirmation of Russell Vought to the OMB on the basis that Vought was a principal author of Project 2025, the tome that envisions, among other things, eliminating or ignoring the constitutional separation of powers, and granting absolute power to the president.

Senator King gave a nod to the almost universal frustration with the federal government, and then explained his opposition to the unified power proposals in Project 2025:

The cumbersomeness, the slowness, the clumsiness is built into our system. The framers were so fearful of concentrated power that they designed a system that would be hard to operate. And the heart of it was the separation of power between various parts of the government. The whole idea . . . was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power. 

Why? Because it's dangerous. History and human nature tells us that. This division of power as annoying and inefficient as it can be . . . is an essential feature of the system, not a bug. It's an essential, basic feature of the system, designed to protect our freedoms.

The speech in its entirety is worth a read (and I was so taken by its eloquence I included an even longer excerpt below).[viii]

But that isn’t the main reason I’ve included such a lengthy quote from Senator King.

I believe this speech is useful to the idea of having productive arguments
because Senator King is an Independent.
Not a Democrat, not a Republican.
Senator King’s very existence as an elected official
points to what is still possible—
independent thinking, not party dogma;
independent ideas, not screaming memes.

With that in mind, I encourage myself and anyone else who has made it this far in the newsletter to go out and Have an Argument. By all means, let us first rest our hearts in good books and good food and whatever else soothes our hearts. And then, so fortified, let us respectfully engage with our fellow citizens.

I want to be clear: I am not simply advocating Kumbaya, why can't we all just get along, kindness matters, etc. (though Kumbaya is a lovely, healing song, and we should try to get along, and kindness does matter, of course). There is widespread agreement, outside the current administration and its immediate supporters, that we are facing a direct assault on the checks and balances the founders built into our democracy. We must find a way to work together to protect the form of governance that in turn protects our right to, among other things, argue with each other about how best to run the country. I think that begins with us laying down the verbal swords currently aimed at each other, finding common ground, and then turning our joint efforts toward protecting this glorious but surprisingly fragile experiment we call democracy.

Ultimately, I think the extent of our divisions are or may be largely manufactured. I don’t think most Republicans are crowing over vanquishing evil libs who are out to destroy us with some combination of communism, environmentalism, and DEI, and I don’t think most Democrats are convinced all Republicans are racists, misogynists, and homophobes.

Don’t believe the rhetoric.

I think we are all hurting from the divisions,
and in our woundedness we are blind
to the real problems we face,
and the potential solutions
that can grow out of our shared beliefs,
our common ground.

We’ll never know unless we try. 

[i] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/02/07/trumps-second-term-early-ratings-and-expectations/

[ii] The Pope, in his recent rebuke of the US’s mass deportation plans, agreed that “nations have the right to defend themselves and keep their communities safe from criminals.” https://apnews.com/article/pope-trump-migration-09a89091f8e7dc3270099f0947d04e90. That opinion is shared by many immigrants living in border towns, as well. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5289254/arizonas-new-democratic-senator-is-latino-but-backs-tough-action-on-immigration. The common ground ends, though, with the new law that doesn’t require conviction of a crime for deportation, but rather allows government agents to deport people based solely on an allegation of criminal activity. https://www.opb.org/article/2025/01/29/what-is-the-laken-riley-act-a-look-at-the-first-bill-trump-just-signed/#:~:text=The%20Laken%20Riley%20Act%20will,signing%20at%20the%20White%20House. (““In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they would be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and sent out for deportation without a day in court.”) The freedom from government agents swooping in and making you disappear in the middle of the night, without any chance to prove your innocence, is or should be a basic human right afforded by democracy, as is the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”—regardless of citizenship or immigration status.

[iii] https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20the%20vast%20majority%20of,global%20warming%20and%20climate%20change.

[iv] I am aware that “transition to more sustainable industries” is not as simple as it sounds, as discussed in this article about the problems with free trade with China: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/g-s1-47352/why-economists-got-free-trade-with-china-so-wrong

[v] https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAwaG9BhAREiwAdhv6Y77oX0enMkI-pLKFfaonV8QWljBS5wLtDSrmwxRAkTY9LnXZQE_spRoC5_gQAvD_BwE

[vi] https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/release-unlawful-federal-funding-freeze-causing-confusion-and-harm-on-farms-and-in-communities-nationwide/; https://www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org/learn-more/national/press-room/news/2025/01/28/meals-on-wheels-america-issues-statement-on-potential-impact-on-meals-on-wheels-programs-from-freeze-on-federal-grants-and-loans-outlined-in-omb-memo

[vii] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/politics/grant-funding-freeze-nonprofits.html

[viii] https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/king-to-senate-colleagues-now-is-the-time-to-establish-a-redlinethe-constitution-itself#:~:text=Our%20oath%20was%20not%20to,assault%20in%20our%20nation's%20history 

*****

A bit more of Senator King’s speech:

“Madison put it this way . . . , ‘if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither internal nor external controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this -- you must first enable the government to control the governed.’ That's the function. And in the next place, oblige it to control itself. 

Our framers understood this. They were deep students of history and also human nature. And they had just won a lengthy and brutal war against the abuses inherent in concentrated governmental power, George III. The universal principle of human nature they understood was this -- power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's a universal principle, all over the world throughout history. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

So how did they answer the question? How did they answer the question who will guard the guardians? They answered it by building into the basic structure of our government two essential safeguards. One was regular elections. In other words, returning the control of the government to the people on regular scheduled elections . . .  [And] the other essential safeguard is the deliberate division of power between the branches and levels of government.

This is important, Mr. President. The cumbersomeness, the slowness, the clumsiness is built into our system. The framers were so fearful of concentrated power that they designed a system that would be hard to operate. And the heart of it was the separation of power between various parts of the government. The whole idea, the whole idea was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power. 

Why? Because it's dangerous. History and human nature tells us that. This division of power as annoying and inefficient as it can be, particularly to the executive, I know because I used to be a governor, is an essential feature of the system, not a bug. It's an essential, basic feature of the system, designed to protect our freedoms. 

Now, this contrasts with the normal structure of a private business, where authority is purposefully concentrated, allowing swift and sometimes arbitrary action. But a private business does not have the army, and the President of the United States is not the CEO of America. 

Power is shared, principally between the President and this body, this Congress, both houses. In fact, this herky-jerkiness, the two houses, the war power divided between the President and Congress, this unwieldy structure is the whole idea. No one has or should ever have all the power. 

So the concern I'm raising today isn't some academic exercise or manifestation of political jealousy or abstract institutional loyalty. It's the guts of the system, designed to protect us from the inevitable. And I mean inevitable abuse of an authoritarian state . . .
It's the guts of our protection. In fact, this clumsy system is the main spring of our freedom. By the way, it's worked so far, so far . . .”

Images by: paulacobleigh from Getty Images Pro (arguing tortoises); arifarca from Pixabay (coffee); We the People by Unsplash.

Optimism - Take 2

For the writers and the dreamers.

For all of us.

The Atlantic recently included an article called “Be Like Sisyphus,” written by Gal Beckerman.*

I was a student of Classics (M.A. 1989 University of Washington, thank you very much), and I was intrigued by the idea that anyone would ever exhort us to emulate the miserable character who, in Greek mythology, was doomed to roll an immense boulder up a hill, whereupon the boulder would roll back down again.

Forever and ever.

As Wikipedia notes, “tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean.” **

The article purports to be about “hopeful pessimism,” which surely sounds like an oxymoron. Hear me out (or rather, hear Gal Beckerman out).

Beckerman shares this quote by Mara van der Lugt: ***

“’If hope can’t emerge from any concrete belief that you will actually achieve your hoped-for outcomes, then what can sustain it? Values . . . The simplest way to put this is to ask yourself whether the cause or the change you are fighting for would still feel worth fighting for if you knew you’d never see it realized. [This kind of hope is] . . . driven by principles such as justice, duty, solidarity with your fellow human, and  . . . your sense of goodness. You act because you feel you must.’”

[Hopeful pessimism is] . . . driven by principles such as justice, duty, solidarity with your fellow human, and  . . . your sense of goodness. You act because you feel you must.

Beckerman goes on to say:

 “Václav Havel, the Czech dissident who would become the president of his country . . . [says of hope] that it is not a ‘prognostication’ but rather ‘an orientation of the spirit’: Hope is ‘not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.’”

For February I will share a full newsletter - complete with Two Over Easy All Day Long news and upcoming promotional campaigns, and reviews of a couple of lovely books I’ve read.

For now, I wish you strength and perseverance and a dose of hopeful pessimism for every good and just Sisyphean task you face, and leave you with a simple reiteration of Havel’s words:

Hope is . . . an ability to work for something because it is good.

(And this - I leave you with a photo of a sweet encounter
with a burro on the beach.
Because donkeys make me feel hopeful.
Always.)

*Beckerman, Gal, Be Like Sisyphus, The Atlantic, 1/22/2025 (available online at https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2025/01/case-for-sisyphus-and-hopeful-pessimism/681356/)(last accessed on 1/23/2025)

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

*** Mara van der Lugt, author of Hopeful Pessimism (Princeton University Press 2025), and professor of philosophy at the University of St. Andrews.

Optimism

Rhett reminding me that a world where belly rubs and bacon-flavored treats exist, there is always reason for hope . . .

I am a hopeless optimist.

I know, the bit on this website says I’m a possibilist, and that is, in fact, my word.

Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

There’s an interesting history behind the word possibilist. According to the Wikipedia entry about Dr. Hans Rosling:

In his posthumous book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think he wrote, “People often call me an optimist, because I show them the enormous progress they didn't know about. That makes me angry. I'm not an optimist. That makes me sound naive. I'm a very serious ‘possibilist.’  . . . It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason, someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview. As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic. It is having a clear and reasonable idea about how things are. It is having a worldview that is constructive and useful. (Emphasis mine)

Hope for further progress, and a constructive and useful worldview. Who wouldn’t want that?

So I aspire to be a possibilist, but in my clearest moments I admit to optimism, to believing the best may come, in spite of any evidence to the contrary.

Which is why I love celebrations of the solstice and the new year: light in darkness, celebrations in spite of sometimes grim reality, hope for the future. And most of all, a belief, however irrational, that love will prevail, that all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Book Review

It’s a place where good things happen.

In anticipation of reading Somewhere Beyond the Sea, I am taking a moment to savor the first book in the series, The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (Tor Books 2020). If you haven’t read this book, described as Harry Potter for adults, I strongly encourage (admonish, commend, suggest, urge, advocate, tout, and put in my two cents) you to run right out and buy it or borrow from your library. Or—fine—scroll to the appropriate page and purchase it online, if you must.

What’s it about, you ask?

A tired and dreary case manager living a tired and dreary life, beset on all sides by unpleasant people, his only friend an even more unpleasant cat, is suddenly cast ashore (almost literally) on an island paradise. He has been sent by Extremely Upper Management to shut down the island’s orphanage, which houses children with magical abilities who are considered second class citizens at best, and at worst dangerous creatures who must be quarantined from the rest of civilized society.

But here, at the orphanage, these children are allowed to be themselves, and loved because of, not in spite of, who they are.

Like I said: it’s a place where good things happen.

There is a bearded garden she-gnome, and a devil’s son. There is a boy who turns into a dog. There is a charming sea slug. There is unexpected romance in an otherwise romance-less life. And there is joy and kindness and friendship and laughter. In a world peopled by petty bureaucrats and bigots, the house in the cerulean sea is a place where love exists, in spite of everything.

Telling more would require an extreme Spoiler Alert, and I won’t do it. 

Here are a few of my favorite quotes, to whet your appetite.

 _______________________________________________

Mr. Parnassus arched an eyebrow. “The world is a weird and wonderful place. Why must we try and explain it all away?” 

#

He began to cackle.

Mr. Parnassus sighed . . .  “Did you just tell that entire story to be able to make a joke?”

“Yes,” Lucy said, wiping his eyes. “Because you told me once that if we can’t laugh at ourselves, we’re doing it wrong. Am I doing it wrong? Nobody seems to be laughing.”

“Humor is subjective, I’m afraid,” Mr. Parnassus said.

“That’s unfortunate,” Lucy said . . . . “Humanity is so weird. If we’re not laughing, we’re crying or running for our lives because monsters are trying to eat us. And they don’t even have to be real monsters. They could be the ones we make up in our heads. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“I suppose. But I’d rather be that way than the alternative.”

“Which is?”

“Not feeling anything at all.”

# 

“It would be better if there were actual treasure,” Lucy muttered.

“And what if the treasure was the friendships we solidified along the way?” Arthur asked.

Lucy pulled a face. “That’s the worst treasure in the world. They already were my friends. I want rubies.”

 _____________________________________

Consider your appetite whetted - if you want more, you'll need to read The House in the Cerulean Sea!

One last quote from
TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea,
to bring it back to optimism:

No, it wasn’t very fair at all.

“It’s not,” Mr. Parnassus said,
agreeing with the unspoken words.
“But I allow him to dream of such things because he’s a child, and who knows what the future will bring?
Change often starts with the smallest of whispers.
Like-minded people building it up to a roar.”

Join me in whispering and roaring of a world
where all children are loved and safe and cared for,
where each of us can be our best selves,
where we all focus on being kind to each other
and to the earth we share.

Postscript 1: As you surely know by now, I love words, and “hopeless optimist” is a delightful oxymoron!

Postscript 2: To be clear, I am not talking about Good-Ship-Lollipop feelings (or, if you’re a bluegrass fan, Big-Rock-Candy-Mountain fantasies). On any given day there will be pain and sadness - sometimes unimaginable pain and sadness, more for some who are on the receiving end of institutional and/or societal oppression. And there will be moments of gladness, for all of us. Optimism, for me, is the belief that we can fill our cups with the latter, while fighting to reduce the former in any way available to us.

Image of the earth in family hands by the oh-so-perfectly named Sunny Studios (text added)

For the Love of Dog

The one and only Rhett***

An issue devoted entirely to the dogs of Violet Vale . . .

I share a bit of Chapter Thirteen,
where we meet these marvelous canines,
on YouTube here.

I know, I know, Butch is a long-haired Dachshund.
So this is him with a haircut.
It is summer when we first meet him, after all.

Some may say there’s no such thing as too cute.

Claude begs to differ.
The photographer wouldn’t even let him
rip the teddy bear to shreds.

Did you know Great Pyrenees have “self-cleaning fur”?
Freya looks relatively clean here, but I can assure you from firsthand experience that white fur gets grimy.

There is, I believe, nothing quite so wonderful
as a Labrador leaning against you
and looking up at you adoringly.

As Crackers would say:
Oh my good and gracious me.
Who wrote this content???
Lipton’s a GIRL!
Well, male, female, or non-binary,
in my not so humble opinion
Lipton is the star of the story.

If you haven’t read Two Over Easy All Day Long
and want to know more,
or if you’ve read it and want to share it
with someone you love,
hie thee to a bookseller:
Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, etc.
Better yet, order it from your favorite local bookstore!

To all of you from Rhett-Dog:*
A Happy New Year!
May your days be filled with
everything you like best**
and nothing you like least.***

* Rhett is currently the sum total of our own Hairy Horde, and not a character in Two Over Easy All Day Long. He did model for Freya, though, so his photo is included here as an honorary member of the pack.

** Rhett would have listed belly rubs, chicken-flavored treats, roaming the fields at his favorite dog-sitter’s house, snoozing by the fire near myself or my Other Half, and any time spent with one of my adult children, or my dad - who is visiting as I write this and is one of Rhett’s new favorite people. I agreed to share his personal list of favorites because he can’t. No opposable thumbs, you know.
*** Trips to the vet, nail-trimming, mornings when it’s raining so hard we skip the walk, and any time someone Rhett has identified as a member of his flock walks out the door. Even momentarily.

The images shared here - other than Rhett’s photo - are [mostly] how I picture these sweet and silly dogs. Butch image by NORRIE3699 from Getty Images (text added). Marigold image by Alkir from Getty Images (text added). Claude image (sans squirrel toy) by Wavetop from Pexels. Freya image by JZHunt from Getty Images (text added). Callooh image by Elina Volkova from Pexels (text added). Lipton image by Petar Tutunjiev from Getty Images (text added).

Give the Gift of Story

“You just can’t help
but feel better about life
when you read it . . . ”
Emily Quinn, A Quintillion Words

“Two Over Easy All Day Long is a story of finding meaning in the little things. It’s a story of responsibility, redemption, and resilience. Of friendship and hope. In fact, there is so much packed into this story that it’s pretty hard to define in a single sentence, and for that reason, I fell in love with it. These characters are so full of life and personality that you’ll find it hard not to consider them friends afterwards . . . . I found myself laughing one minute and tearing up the next. A really powerful journey of growth and acceptance, with a few laughs thrown in. It really is a hidden gem!”

Find the full A Quintillion Words review here.

Maybe you’ve already been inspired to Give the Gift of Story. Maybe you’ve already bought a book to give to someone you love. If so, why not buy another, or two more, or ten? Why not make it a baker's dozen?

End of year is a particularly critical time for authors, as annual sales data influence media, contest judges, and other people and organizations who can help spread the word about a good book. So if you’re considering giving a book, might I gently suggest that you do it today? After all . . .

The long dark days of winter
are just begging for a good book!

And if you need more justification, there’s this: more and more research confirms what we bibliophiles know instinctively—reading is good. Good for the soul, good for the brain, good for the individual, good for the community, good for the world. Stories, essays, memoirs, poems, plays . . . reading connects us to each other, builds empathy, and feeds the light within.

There is so much that could be said about the value of reading. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” A 2020 article in the Harvard Business Review reported on findings that:

Fiction builds empathy, because
“fiction provides an opportunity
to complicate standard good versus evil tropes.
Good literature presents characters
with competing and often equally valid viewpoints.”

Developing empathy by seeing the world through another’s eyes is one of the  underlying themes in Two Over Easy All Day Long, as mentioned in the review by A Quintillion Words excerpted above. 

And so, “to flog a horse, that if not dead is at this point in mortal danger of expiring,” (quoting Tom Hanks as The Professor in the 2004 version of the movie The Ladykillers), here is my ask, my recommendation, and my advice:

Give a book —
Two Over Easy All Day Long
or any book.
Better still, give lots of books
and
do it today!

Still on the fence? Check out my website for more reviews of Two Over Easy All Day Long, and past newsletters for other wonderful book recommendations!

www.sharilane.com

Image of a reader by Bowie15 from Getty Images (text added).

Happiness

“I’m happy!”

This is what my grandson tells me every morning, when I get him out of his crib.

In the evening, when I ask him how his day was, he says:

“It was great!”

I can’t remember the last time that was the answer that jumped to mind. (I truly can’t remember—no hyperbole intended; my memory is a finely-tuned machine desperately in need of some WD-40.)

We are living in tough times.

Political divisions, war, famine, and natural disasters, here in the US and globally . . . It all feels overwhelming.

On a more personal note, a close family member is once again facing significant health issues, and it feels as though my overly-full bucket of worry is no longer merely trickling over the top, it’s a gushing torrent that threatens to drown everything else. (I spend much of my time wrestling with health care providers, and sometimes it feels as though the “wrestling” is literal. Anyone who has been in or assisted someone else in a health crisis knows whereof I speak, and knows how exhausting it is.)

For all of these reasons, I am finding it difficult, this year,
to approach Thanksgiving with gratitude.

And then I see my grandson’s tousled hair
and sleepy morning smile
and hear him say, “I’m happy,”
and suddenly, miraculously, I’m happy too.

Other things that make me happy,
and remind me to be grateful
if only for a few, precious moments:

Dogs . . .

. . . Good food.
(Pecan pie comes to mind at this time of year. And pumpkin pie. And apple pie.) . . .

. . . Good books . . .

(Check out the latest book review below!)

. . . Seeing how beautifully
my children have grown up . . .

. . . Friends and Family . . .

  . . . And let us not forget

Donkey Videos . . .

It sounds cheesy, but there is evidence that gratitude really does improve your outlook, your emotional health, your (dare I say it?) happiness.

If you don’t believe me, check out this 2022 NPR article and this YouTube story.

So join me in finding happiness in spite of it all. Maybe then the next time someone asks how the day was we can say with a happy grin:

IT WAS GREAT!

 Two Over Easy All Day Long News

The book won another award, but I’ve been asked by the awarding organization to hold off on announcing the details until they publish the results in early December. Stay tuned…

The reading at Bookery in Manchester, New Hampshire was sweet.

What a lovely bookstore - check it out if you are in the “neighborhood”!

You can find a small clip posted on the YouTube channel here

I was honored to participate in not one but TWO book clubs. It’s a great way to connect and share different perspectives on Walt and Nancy and the rest of the crew, alternative justice, laughter, and the power of community. If you are interested, send me an email: sharilaneauthor@gmail.com.

Book Review

For fans of Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache series, The Grey Wolf does not disappoint—I spent many happy hours lost in the story! I even took the unusual step of buying it in hardback, as I’d already heard this book sets up the next in the series, and I want to make sure I can go back and re-read this one just before the next comes out. International intrigue, an insane poet (and her duck), a Dominican friar (who may or may not be one of the “bad guys,”) children throwing marshmallows on the ceiling and, as always, a race against time to save Gamache’s beloved Quebec. Check it out!

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books 2024)

A Gift for an Author

(Repeated from an earlier Social Media Post - Ignore if you’ve already seen it.)

Have you read a good book, a book that made you hoard time like a dragon, shedding one solitary hot dragon tear when you reached the last page because by finishing the book you’ve lost the companionship of the characters, the escape of an unputdownable story, the Eureka moment when you read the very words you most needed in the moment?

And then when you dried your eyes and blew your nose did you wonder – before taking up the hurly burly of your life again – how you might thank the author for the gift of Story?

Here’s how: tell the world. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell a stranger. Rave about your favorite character to the clerk at the grocery store, while he glances, furtively, at the impatient line growing behind you. Quote your favorite line in barely intelligible garble to the dental hygienist as she attempts to crack the tartar from your upper right rearmost molar. Share a pithy philosophical point eloquently shown-not-told with your mechanic as they hmmm about the sound your car’s engine makes only when it is not in the shop.

Buy the book for someone you love (heavens, yes!), and request that your local library and bookstore carry the book (of course!), and post a review on social media and/or a review site (a sigh for the ubiquity and necessity of PR and social media) . . . . But when you've received the gift of Story from an author, the very best way to show gratitude is to pass it on.

Postscripts:

This newsletter is the third version of a newsletter sent to subscribers. If you’d like to receive future monthly newsletters in advance, sign up here. Also, the original newsletter delves more deeply into the sources of my angst, specifically related to the political landscape in the US. The Facebook powers-that-be have previously blocked newsletters and posts for that reason, so this version is purged of details. Probably for the best, if I am hoping to spread happiness, yes? The second version, posted to my personal social media, included lots of photos of friends and family that have been omitted from this version, which appears only on my Author Page. 

That’s right, dear reader, you could have not one, not two, but THREE opportunities to read this newsletter (picture the eye-rolling emoji here, if you will).

Last but not least, In writing about finding happiness, I want to state unequivocally that I am not advocating that we ignore the state of the world, let up on the fight for justice, or fail to spread kindness where we can.

Only, when drowning in a sea of hard news, it helps, sometimes, to come up and sip the sweet air.

(Friends Melissa Chureau with Fully Mindful and Monika Gold with True Move Studio could tell you more eloquently than I the value of breathing).

AND I want to be clear, with myself and with you, lovely friends, that these are the actions we take . . .

. . . before diving back in.

*** Happiness Rocks image by Jennifer Shoniker from Getty Images (text added).

***Donkey image by JACLOU-DL from pixabay (text added).

Distraction

Advance Warning
(aka Confession)

I have tried, in the past, to avoid newsletters that are simply narcissistic navel-gazing for and about my art. In this edition, I’ve given up the effort. I can think of nothing better suited to distracting myself from election anxieties (in the US), grief for those mired in war and suffering (in so, so many places), and fears for the future of the earth we share, than a short session of self-indulgent fantasizing about fame.

You can thank me later.

Fame and Fortune

“If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her . . . the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better.”

Emily Dickinson, in a 6/7/1862 letter to literary critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Most people who love literature in general, and poetry in particular, have at least passing familiarity with the life story of Emily Dickinson, the reclusive writer who only posthumously achieved notoriety. Her approach to publication, and her rejection of fame on principle, are consistent with the rest of her life.

Contrast Flannery O’Connor’s comments: “Success means being heard and don't stand there and tell me you are indifferent to being heard.  Everything about you screams to be heard. You may write for the joy of it, but the act of writing is not complete in itself. It has its end in its audience.”

I confess to harboring both sentiments.

Writing rarely brings monetary rewards, and that’s okay. There is very little that I need, and certainly nothing essential that I lack for which more money would be the cure.

I have the wild cliffs of Iceberg Point, and the sound of the wind racing the seagulls across the Salish Sea.

I have a partner who looks like a sea captain (and talks like one, too), who can still make me laugh after all these years.

I have adult children who are intelligent and kind and self-sufficient, and a grandson who brings light wherever he goes.

I have a dog, as faithful as Emily Dickinson’s Carlo, who never fails to make me smile.

My private heartbreaks would not be ameliorated with fabulous wealth. Beloved friends and family who have passed away would not be resurrected with more money. The many (many!) aches and pains that plague me would not disappear if I were richer.

So no, I don’t long for the fortune part of fame and fortune.

In the softest places of my soul, however, I acknowledge that I would like to be famous.

I don’t want fame for its own sake; I think even modest fame would be alarming. I am more like Emily Dickinson in that regard, deeply uncomfortable in the spotlight, happiest when I am in the background, especially if I can support others from my place just off-stage. 

I have already found that promoting myself is exhausting in a bone-deep way, and seeing photos and videos of myself, over and over and over, makes me cringe. Paulo Coelho says, “Writing is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in public,” and that is less metaphor and more reality, in my brief experience with very modest notoriety. As my readership grows, I am deeply gratified, and I feel as though I am spending more and more time “naked in public.”

Which is disconcerting.

To say the least.

Photo by paologallophoto (text added)

On the other hand, I do want people to read my book. Correction: I want them to love my book. I want the characters and the story arcs to speak to the reader, to engender laughter and tears and a recognition of what it might feel like to be someone else.

In other words, I remain ambivalent.

If no one reads my words, I am invisible. (As a woman of a certain age, that feeling is familiar, and definitely unwelcome).

If many people read my words, I am exposed—naked in public.

In the throes of my ambivalence, I have to keep going back to the crux of the matter. I don’t write for fame or fortune, or even as a pleasant hobby. (The near-permanent crick in my neck from hunching over my laptop attests to the fact that writing is an obsession, not a pastime).

I am compelled to write,
because writing is for me a way of communicating,
a way of making sense of what is,
and imagining what could be.

And so, with or without fame, with or without fortune, I will continue to use my words to attempt to uncover shared truths until all the words aching to emerge have been midwifed into the world, for better or for worse, with or without New York Times accolades.

But if someone offers me a spot on the NYT bestseller list, I’ll take it.

Two Over Easy All Day Long News

• Write Now Interview. What a pleasure to interview with Gayle Heney, the award-winning producer and host of the TV series "Write Now," through HC Media in Haverhill, Massachusetts!

  Heney is a former North Andover 2-term Poet Laureate, the editor of the poetry anthology "Songs from the Castle’s Remains," "Leaf Sorrow Tree Strong," and the co-editor of "Soulmates." Her poems have appeared in "Moments Falling Open," "Methuen Life," "The Underground Movement," and elsewhere. Heney has taught poetry at the Peabody Essex Museum, libraries, senior centers, schools, Essex Art Center, Rolling Ridge Conference Center, Salem Arts Festivals, retirement communities, Cape Ann Museum, MA Poetry’s Student Day of Poetry, and MA Poetry Festivals.

  Watch the interview live-streaming on HC Media, or on YouTube here 

  (Side note: The comment above about seeing myself onscreen and cringing? I could only watch this once!)

• BookTree Author Panel in Kirkland, Washington. It was an honor and a gift to join Micah Briarmoon, author of A Haunting Deception, and Paul Hunter, author of Untaming the Valley, at BookTree in Kirkland, Washington, to share our books with an encouraging and supportive audience.

  Thank you to Chris Jarmick and BookTree for the wonderful event!
  
  

• Meet the Author at Bookery Manchester in Manchester, New Hampshire, November 16, 2024 at 2:00 pm.
  More information here https://www.bookerymht.com/our-events
  

• Book Clubs. My favorite way to engage! I’m meeting with a book club this week, with more in the future. If you’d like me to join your book club, don’t hesitate to reach out: sharilaneauthor@gmail.com.
  

• Reviews

My heart is oh so glad when a reader tells me the book made her weep and then chuckle through her tears. Then along comes another review, lukewarm at best, and those gossamer wings upon which my heart fluttered crumple and crash.  

A professional reviewer recently called Two Over Easy All Day Long “a comic novel with a heart” and “a quirky murder mystery with a wonderful sense of place.” Sigh. Humor is the leaven to the tragedy that gives rise to the protagonist’s story, certainly, but the book was never intended to be “comic.” Or a murder mystery, for that matter (though I did try to channel the wonderful Louise Penny when including a smidge of mystery in the book). I understand that stories touch each of us in different ways, and one person’s favorite is another person’s meh. But oh! how I’m tempted to declare (with a melodramatic flourish of an antique fountain pen): That’s it, I shall never write another word!

The next day, a different review restores my self-confidence (which lately seems to hide, trembling, in a dark corner):  “It's a Wonderful Life,” the review is titled. “Very engaging novel with light and dark, humor and pathos. Memorable, endearing characters and unusual yet believable life situations. If this novel were adapted to film it might have been directed by Frank Capra or Preston Sturges. Highly recommended.” 5 Star Amazon review by Honoria Glossop.

It’s a Wonderful Life remains one of my all time favorite movies, in spite of the obvious problems with some of the scenes, because, as the reviewer says, it encompasses light and dark, humor and pathos. Knowing another reader saw that in Two Over Easy All Day Long, I am content—for now.

Book Review

(Setting aside self-absorption as distraction, and returning to my former promise to provide interesting tidbits that are NOT about me or my writing . . .)

Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Perennial 2019).

If you subscribe to this newsletter, you already know I swoon over almost everything  by Kingsolver. I was unaware of this book until recently, and I’m only about a quarter of the way through, but already I can tell this is destined to be another favorite. The story follows two families facing disaster in the same house, in different centuries. Both families have adhered to all the rules for success, only to be thwarted by an unholy mix of bad luck and ideological clashes. As with all Kingsolver books, the characters are riveting, funny, odd, and heartbreaking, and their stories speak to universal truths of modern life.

An excerpt:

”Everybody has their theory, but it looks like China’s economy has peaked.”

His or her theory, Willa did not say, swallowing the powerful impulse toward correction that made for first-rate editors and insufferable human beings. “Look at you two guys. The most optimistic people I know, shaking down the subject of doom.”

“Not doom, Mom,” Zeke said. “Crisis is opportunity.”

It felt surreal, watching her family bicker about abstract catastrophe under an actual collapsing roof . . . . Zeke embodied the contradiction of his generation: jaded about the fate of the world, idealistic about personal prospects. A house built on youth’s easy courage. And Tig in her way was also brave, dissecting the world as she saw it, believing her strategies mattered. In a world of people who either let things happen or made them happen, these kids were instigators. Willa felt obsolete.

Excerpted from Unsheltered © 2019 by Barbara Kingsolver.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled free-floating election anxiety:

PLEASE VOTE!

Fall

Autumn on Bywater Farm in Beavercreek, Oregon

Others may talk of spring, “When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim/Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,”[1] or the wealth of being “rich . . . in sunny hours and summer days,”[2] but autumn is by far my favorite season.

According to the Monell Center, “that brisk, crisp, slightly sharp smell we associate with autumn is actually the smell of leaves, trees, and plants dying and rotting.”[3] The article goes on to explain, “The memories we associate with the change of seasons are what make it pleasurable, even when many of us are allergic to moldy leaves and burning wood.”

I won’t let that sadly unpoetic description (yes, I meant “unpoetic” — “prosaic” doesn’t satisfactorily describe my disgust at bringing allergies and mold and death into it) dampen my ardor for fall.

O Autumn, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

. . . The wild burst of color in the leaves, even in the Pacific Northwest, that declares to the world I LIVE even as death creeps inevitably near . . .

 . . . The return to school, with its promise of new ideas and knowledge—so far, I’ve attended school for twenty-one of my years on this earth, and taught in various positions for still more years, and the thrill of a new school year has never dimmed . . .

And, to bring my own banal and pedestrian element into it:

 . . . Sweaters to hide the wrinkles and other indignities that come with age.

Yes, we in the US have a highly contentious election coming up, and yes, a new variant of Covid appears to be surging, with flu season tittering in the wings, and yes, climate change and wars and famine remain existential threats to us all.

Still I will celebrate the heady aromas and new adventures heralded by September.

Care to join me?

Two Over Easy All Day Long News

• Meet the Author event at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland, Oregon
  10/7/2024 7:00 pm

• Meet the Author event at Bookery Manchester in Manchester, New Hampshire
  11/16/2024, 2:00 pm. Invitation and RSVP

• A new YouTube video taking a shot at describing the genre of Two Over Easy All Day Long. (On the new video: Getting Better All the Time, as the song goes, but it’s still A Long and Winding Road - I hope the Beatles who are still alive forgive me for using their lyrics to excuse my lack of skill in videography)

Book Reviews

Attica Locke’s Bluebird, Bluebird (Mulholland Books 2018)

This book has everything I ask for from a book: a page-turner mystery with danger and red-herrings galore, complex and beautifully written characters, tangled family histories and traumas, and musings on being human (among other themes the book explores race relations in Texas, and the difficulty of sustaining an intimate relationship when two people feel love but want very different lives).

Locke just came out with the third book in this series, Guide Me Home. I stumbled upon an interview with Jami Attenberg about the latest book, and decided to start at the beginning of the series.

Highly recommended!

M. Stone Mayer’s Ashes to Ashes (Three Towers Press 2024)

Mayer is a fellow alum from the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College, and it is a pleasure to promote his debut novel!

A fast-paced thriller, Ashes to Ashes follows Will Mercer, a former Army ranger, who wakes on a sandbar in the Oregon wilderness, unable to remember who he is. More importantly, he can’t remember who his enemies are and why they chased him into the river. It’s a race against time as his pursuers close in. One reviewer said, “Loads of suspense from the beginning...great characters and storyline. Vivid descriptions put you right there in the action...A+!”

The ending leaves open the possibility of a sequel, and I’m sure Mayer’s readers will be looking forward to the next installment.

I’m always looking for the next great read,
so send me an email (or comment below),
and let me know what you’re reading!

Art Corner

When it comes to the visual arts, I have absolutely no talent. During my years as a preschool teacher I attempted, once (and only once) to make my own felt stories. I had to give it up when, after sharing my homemade version of the Rudolph story, one of the children said, “Teacher, what is that?” “A reindeer,” I said, trying to hide my consternation. “Oh,” the precious tot said, “It doesn’t look very much like a reindeer. Are you sure that’s what it is?”

But my lack of talent does not foreclose appreciation for the work of those who do have talent.

In newsletters, on the website, and on the Laughing Dogs website, I’ve waxed ecstatic about the multiple geniuses of my friend Gini Chin: artist, writer, and video-creator. I’ve said it before and will say it again - do yourself a favor and check out her website: https://spot312.com/.

Now I want to highlight another brilliant artist that I have the good fortune to know: Martha Spieker. In Martha’s hands the ordinary becomes magical. I am especially enamored of her Faces series. And the Owls and Other Birds. And Octopuses. And Abstracts. Oh, who am I kidding? I love it all! Please check out her website: https://spiekerart.com/. And if you need more encouragement, take a look at these…

Reaching

Feeding Time

Isaiah

Follow Martha Spieker on Facebook and on Instagram @spiekerart.

Both Gini and Martha have an amazing reputation in the art world
- they don’t need my bumbling praise -
but anything that gets art into more hands and hearts is a good thing.

Ending this Newsletter with George Eliot’s words:

“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love
- that makes life and nature harmonise.
The birds are consulting about their migrations,
the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay,
and begin to strew the ground,
that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air,
while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the Earth
seeking the successive autumns."

~ George Eliot

                                         September sunset over the Salish Sea

Postscript: Yeah, yeah, I know – footnotes? It comes from being a lawyer (and a perennial student, see previous statements). And anyway, attribution matters. I certainly hope if anyone ever decides to quote me they’ll provide full attribution.

[1] Sonnet 98 by William Shakespeare. It should be noted for the purists in the audience that Sonnet 98 is not, in fact, a paean to spring, but rather a description of how the narrator is unable to enjoy the season because his beloved is absent.

[2] Thoreau, Henry David. Walden (1854)

[3] Fallik, Dawn. “Why Do We Love the Way Autumn Smells?” Monell (11/21/2021), available at https://monell.org/whyy-why-do-we-love-the-way-autumn-smells/  (accessed 9/21/2024).

Happily Ever After

A few years ago, Netflix put out a miniseries called Hollywood, based on the appalling real-life experiences of women, the LGTBQ community, and people of color in post-WWII Hollywood.

Writers, actors, producers, dreamers . . . the takeaway from the early episodes was that if you weren’t a white man (or a buxom white woman applying for a role as Siren), even genius was likely to be overlooked.

What I enjoyed about the show was that Netflix gave it a somewhat happy ending. Not a Disney-fied, tidy and wrapped-in-a-bow ending, but an ending where, eventually, brilliance and perseverance were rewarded, and prejudices were set aside.***

(***Lots of asterisks here, as will be obvious to anyone who watched the show.)

Interestingly, critics were not impressed.

Here’s a sample of their complaints:

• From The Guardian's Lucy Mangan: “This should be the perfect set-up for a scabrous look at prejudice, corruption, the trading of sexual currency, coercion, the well-oiled machinations that underlie an industry and how it all shapes history—all through a #MeToo lens. But it becomes a mere wish-fulfilment fantasy that, whether it intends to or not, suggests that if a few people had just been that bit braver, then movies—and therefore the world!—would be a glorious, egalitarian Eden.” (Emphasis mine). (Quoted from the Wikipedia article)

• Similarly, FAULT Magazine criticized “the show's dangerous embellishment of systemic prejudice of post-war USA,” saying, “The only ones who benefit from the erasure of Hollywood's brutal history of racism and homophobia, are those that perpetrated it.” (Also quoted from the same article)

I’m not here to argue that Hollywood was great art, but I disagree with the cited criticism, and here’s why: I believe good fiction—on the page or on the screen—can take tragedy, whether real or simply true-to-life, and turn it on its head.

I believe a good story can show us not only life as it is,
but life as it should be.

In my opinion, this is not “erasure of brutal history,” this is John Lennon singing “Imagine all the people living life in peace.”

Hollywood first takes us into a world where anyone who dreams of success in film must exchange sex for recognition, and then allows us to climb out of that sordid world, and glimpse an alternate, happier ending.

And I think we need those happily ever after endings
almost as much as we need air.

We need to see that it is, in fact, possible to have a different outcome if we can bring ourselves to be “that bit braver.”

That is, of course, what I have tried to do in Two Over Easy All Day Long, and what I try to do in all my writing. As I’ve said in Meet the Author events, newsletters, and elsewhere, Tell Your Story is my mantra and fervent hope. And as long as you’re telling your story, why not give it a happy ending?

Postscript

About that photo at the beginning of this newsletter: My personal Happily Ever After involves kids (the hairy kind and the not-so-hairy kind). So here, in addition to the photo of me with lambs and kids, is a photo of me with my grandson. Just because . . .

Two Over Easy All Day Long News

• Check out the new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sharilane38

• Subscribe to the Facebook Page

• Meet the Author event scheduled for Monday, October 7, 2024 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm, at Bloomsbury Books in Ashland, Oregon

Book Reviews

Fire Music by Connie Hampton Connally (2024 Coffeetown Press) follows three teens trapped in a basement-turned-bomb shelter in Hungary during WWII. Music becomes escape and salvation, and a way to heal the trauma of that time for the next generation. A lovely read and a page-turner!

And speaking of music . . .

I will be collaborating with the incomparable Adam Brock on some music for the new YouTube channel. In the meantime, check out two of my favorite songs: In This Kitchen, with Claflin and Grace, and Alice Di Micele’s Wise Old Woman.

Regret

“I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations
—one can either do this or that.
My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this:
do it or do not do it
—you will regret both.”

Soren Kierkegaard

(Moving from the profound to the whimsical-but-still-true)

“Regret is the worst human emotion.
If you took another road,
you might have fallen off a cliff . . .”

 William Shatner

A deeply personal note to start today’s newsletter: I am discussing with someone I love the possibility of moving to assisted living, or some other similarly monumental shift in what had been a comfortably established life. This particular someone has always been my rock, and the conversations have been heart-wrenching.

I regret so many things.   

I regret not spending more time visiting. Two or three times a year was the norm until Covid, and our last planned visit was cancelled due to—wait for it—Covid. I wish I had tried harder to reschedule.

I regret not trying, before now, to get this someone to live near me on my magical island in the Salish Sea. (I tried, but not hard enough).

I regret the times I was too busy to have our weekly call. I let these things get in the way: the dishes and the groceries and the laundry and the yard work and the never-ending To Do list at the office. Travel, writing (of course), music, and gathering with friends. “I’ll call tomorrow,” I said, and meant it, but tomorrow came and then more tomorrows and suddenly two weeks had gone by.

Moving to another well-known maxim:
All we have is now.
And so I plan for our nows,
scheme and dream to make the most of the time we have together.

But that doesn’t fix the regret.

What does any of this have to do with Two Over Easy All Day Long? (Since this is ostensibly my author newsletter)?

Any writer will tell you even the most fantastical characters take a page from the book (pun intended) of life. I am not new to regret, and so my characters experience it as well. Nancy regrets her ongoing intimacy with the steaming pile of excrement that is Roj. Leesa regrets never leaving the town where she was born. Walt regrets that, having escaped from one unbearable life he is now mired in another (sometimes unbearable) life. It’s possible even Roj regrets his sins.

And Giles/Tony regrets the moment he signed off on a defective toy. Oh how he regrets that moment.

Any writer will also tell you their characters’ stories are sometimes a stand-in for processing the stuff*** the universe throws at us.

***Using a nicer word than the one that comes to mind. Walt wouldn’t hesitate to let the profanity fly, but outside my writing I’m a bit more circumspect.

So what do my characters tell me?

The only way through is forward.

I am no time-traveler. (Where, oh where, is my Tardis?)

I can’t undo my past failures, screw-ups,  and pettiness.

“Bad mistakes, I’ve made a few.”

(If you weren’t an adolescent in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, you might not recognize the quote—so for my younger readers, here’s your bit of deep, meaningful history: the quote is from the lyrics of We are the Champions, by Queen.)

Of course I don’t regret this glorious moment with my son!
But pigtails on mom, blonde dye on son -
I think my son would join me in characterizing these
fashion decisions as . . . less than desirable.

To sum up, Inigo-Montoya-style: I can’t undo my past, can’t fix the acts and omissions I so deeply regret.

I can only try to do better in this
second/moment/hour/day/week/month/year,
can only try to make time for this someone,
to be present in ways I haven’t before.

Wish me luck in moving forward, past the regret, into a better now.

I’m going to need it. (Luck, that is.)

Opening quotes from BrainyQuote.com – if they’re wrong, let ‘em know!

Other News

Because of the aforementioned personal situation, planned events are subject to cancellation or rescheduling, but as of this writing, scheduled events for Two Over Easy All Day Long:

• Thursday, July 25, 2024 at 6:30 pm, join me for a reading and Meet the Author event at Roundabout Books in Bend, Oregon. Learn more here:
  (providing the full link as well, since the link has changed with the bookstore’s updated website: https://live-rndaboutbk1714843360.pantheonsite.io/event/2024-07-25/two-over-easy-all-day-long-shari-lane)

• Interview with HC Media’s Write Now (Haverhill, MA), hosted by former two-term Poet Laureate of North Andover Gayle Heney. Watch the News and Events section of the home page of this website for the date the interview will air, and check out earlier shows here: http://haverhillcommunitytv.org/category/community/series/writenow