This edition of the Communiqué will be brief. Tom and Julia have both been deeply involved in personal projects, with Tom devoting time daily to his memoir (first longhand, then typing it up) and Julia immersed in editing scripts. The coming week will have both of us leaning into this legacy work—Tom at home, at the partners desk he bought in Chicago 35 years ago with a vision, even then, of himself and Julia engaged in cooperative creative endeavors; Julia in Marblehead, MA, enjoying the peace of a quaint airbnb to focus on finishing the next episode of a series.
Tom’s side of the partners desk
If you’d like to read more of Tom’s memoir, which he’s no longer posting publicly, please let him know at tom@christmaslakecreative.com.
Here’s a teaser:
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby“Aunt Ruthie, Uncle Buddy! Come quick! Something’s happened!”
Those eight words, screamed by nine-year-old me as I jabbed frantically at my aunt and uncle’s doorbell in the freezing cold after freeing myself from the back of the Mersa-deez by pushing my mother forward and scrambling out across their icy driveway, those words signified a signal moment in my life, though I didn’t yet know it. I knew something terrible, horrible, was afoot…
Our weekly flash fiction workshop continues to entertain and inspire. One of our writers broke through a block and, in the days after our session, completed and posted a lovely essay—both edgy and enchanting—that may just be the beginning of her book.
Forsythia blooming in the rain
What we’re working on…
Once again, we’re all about audio.
The audio edition of The Big One is finally nearing completion. Stay tuned for its release on Audible.
Greg Lawrence’s techno-thriller, With You, is now out, recorded by narrator Louise Porter. If you have an Audible subscription, this book is definitely worth one of your credits. If not, you’ll get about 12 hours of entertainment for $24.95—cheaper than a movie, and you can listen while you walk, drive, do the dishes, or fold the laundry.
On the print side, our cover design for Where the Light Is Brighter by C.C. Griffin (and co-written by Tom) is nearly complete, and we’ve just written the copy for the back. Here is the book’s description:
Where the Light Is Brighter is the touching, bittersweet story of life in a long-term care facility, told mostly through the sharp eyes of 98-year-old Edith, who has an opinion on everything—and everyone—and a lifetime of memories that are slowly slipping away. She enters River’s Edge reluctantly, just before New Year’s, at the insistence of her son, William, but she plans to be back home in time to put chubby Cupid on her mantel, then swap him out in March for her madly grinning leprechaun. As we accompany Edith through her first year of living in this “never place,” the place on the hill where no one wants to be, we meet a cast of characters in various stages of aging. But despite her dread of the darkness within—a fear we all share about our elderly futures—brightness breaks through at every turn. The story is structured around holidays and the decorations with which the River’s Edge residents mark time, and as Edith settles in, surrenders to a self-appointed “welcoming committee,” and reluctantly makes friends, she begins to feel more and more at home. Written by a woman who works in the field, Where the Light Is Brighter shatters stereotypes and preconceived notions about the proverbial “old folks home” as we meet the forever young-at-heart folks who challenge our beliefs by greeting their final years with grace, enlarging our hearts as they enliven River’s Edge.
What we’re looking for…
Solid stories. Fiction or non-fiction. Captivating openings. Endings that take your breath away. Tales that take us places we never imagined going. If you know of any writers looking for a publisher or just some advice, please send them our way.
What we’re reading…
We’ve been doing more writing than reading these past two weeks, and Tom has ordered two books to help him with his memoir: Eloise in Moscow by Kay Thompson (a favorite from his childhood) and The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector, a Brazilian author, based on a recommendation from The New York Times.
Julia is constantly reading poetry but found the time to write a marvelous birthday poem for a dear friend.
What we’re listening to…
Having finished Maya Jasanoff’s The Dawn Watch, and determined to read more Joseph Conrad (including a short novel titled The Shadow Line about the threshold between youth and manhood), Tom is looking forward to listening to the episode of On Being featuring poet Mary Oliver. Julia is still enjoying A Light so Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of a Wrinkle in Time.
What we’re cooking up…
We’re still planning our first pop-up Zoom workshop for late April, when we may be able to conduct it from the porch (weather permitting).
As always, we are grateful to our authors, clients, friends, and supporters. Onward and upward in 2022 and beyond!
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