Well, these are some seriously strange times we’re living through, no?
Sad, scary, distressing.
I hope each and every one of you is managing your stress, taking care of yourself and listening to all your favorite music very, very loudly. (Trust me on this: It helps.)
Since real life (and book launches) have been put off for a bit around here, I thought it might be a good time to check in with our authors. What have they been up to since their books came out, and since Covid placed them all in quarantine?
Here’s what they had to say.
Linda and Ty Hatfield
PARENTSHIFT, 2019
Since ParentShift was released, we'd been busy with teaching our 18-hour Parenting From the Heart course and presenting parent workshops. Since Covid, our classes are postponed, but we've replaced them with parent coaching on Zoom. We've started a YouTube channel, “The ParentShift Show,” as well. On a personal note, we've seen one daughter graduate from law school and another become engaged, and have welcomed a new pup into our house named Sailor Moon, a three-pound rescue dog.
We also published a new ebook, Quarantined with Kids: Your Family's Emotional Survival Guidebook For The COVID-19 Pandemic, and have participated in two recent online presentations: We Are Rising: Parenting in a Time of Crisis and the Becoming a Peaceful Parent Summit.
Peter Gajdics
THE INHERITANCE OF SHAME, 2017
Over the last two years, I have continued the work I started with my book. In addition to being deeply involved in efforts to get conversion therapy banned in my native Canada, I've also been writing a stage adaptation of my book. In 2019, I was awarded a British Columbia Arts Council grant to write the first of two three-act plays, which later was produced and workshopped by an off-Broadway theatre in New York. I'm now writing a second three-act play, focusing on the last half The Inheritance of Shame.
In addition to Vancouver’s ban on conversion therapy, similar efforts in Calgary, Alberta and nationwide have kept me busy. In my activist capacity, I've been interviewed numerous times and have written extensively on the subject, including this piece which ran in the Huffington Post. This year, I'd been slated to speak on conversion therapy in Winnipeg, give the keynote address at the Affirming Leaders Day for LGBTQ faith leaders in Alberta, and to make a presentation at Saskatoon Pride; all three events have been postponed due to Covid. Just recently, the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education published a presentation paper I wrote in their journal Other/Wise.
Tim Grobaty
I’M DYIN’ HERE, 2016
When California Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested old people stay at home in order not to die, I told my editor at the Long Beach Post, "It looks like I'm going to be writing 'The Quarantine Chronicles' now.” I was kidding. But she liked the idea, so I started writing a daily column (and I mean daily. Weekends, holidays. Daily.) Now I'm on Day 74, pretty much writing on the same subject more or less, every day.
My daughter's at home, and my dogs may or may not be loving having me around (we all like to think who wouldn't love having me around all the time?) Once I got into about Day 60-something, the staff at the Long Beach Post began coming up with new daily hobbies for me to take up and then write about. One a day: Learn Spanish, bake bread, paint by numbers, make tiki drinks, learn calligraphy, try edible marijuana products. I'm becoming a renaissance man, which is nice. Or maybe the word I'm fishing around for is "polymath." Or maybe one of those jackasses who knows a little bit about everything and is a totally joyless conversationalist. Despite the title of my book — perhaps you've heard of I'm Dyin' Here — I continue to not die. A big part of that book are the big changes journalism is going through, and, like the doc said about the changes my body will be going through, is the years flow by, none of them good.
I don't know, Wendy. I think I might be aging a bit. But, still, I'm enjoying life and, as a dedicated and well-practiced introvert, I'm doing OK in my house with my daughter and my dogs. Still Dyin' Here, but, then, who isn't?
Sandra A. Miller
TROVE, 2019
My husband, Mark, is a clinical psychologist, and years ago we wrote a proposal for a book that taught couples some quick, easy communication skills. We called it Quickies for Couples. But it wasn't that kind of quickie. Because so many couples are having a hard time with self-isolation, we've resurrected the project and hope to put out a booklet in the next few weeks. One of my writing partners, Margaret Muirhead, and I started researching the story of Eleanor Abbott, who invented the board game Candy Land in a polio ward in 1948. Despite the game having an outsize hold on generations of Americans, almost nothing was known about Abbott. But Margaret and I have now found some fascinating information about her. The San Diego Union Tribune wrote a story about our search.
I'm about to start an online master novel workshop through GrubStreet in Boston. I started a novel a few years ago, and this summer — with so many cancelled plans — I might have the bandwidth to get back to it. And I'm still publishing plenty of essays, hither and yon. This one, about sharing music with my son, was on AARP's Disrupt Aging site.
Finally, I have issued another clue about the Trove Treasure Hunt, the winner of which will receive a bejeweled bracelet valued at $2,200. Here is a bonus clue I offered on my blog, SandraAMiller.com, so people stuck at home can still do some searching.
Alan Rifkin
BURDENS BY WATER, 2016
I’m professoring remotely, getting ready to watch another great kid graduate Poly High (one left to go after him), and sitting on my balcony. I finished a painfully realistic novel and just started a blessedly unrealistic one, which is proving way easier to write. The serious one is being agented as we speak, to a short list of shell-shocked editors in New York. I know I’m supposed to keep my byline out there, but I’ve found life and teaching and fathering too fractured to want to immerse in anything short. The last piece published was Paper Moon, which formed the first chapter of the novel that’s on submission now. Hope the other authors make up for my lack of glitter!
Oh wait, my essay, Writing in the Dust, from Burdens by Water, appeared an anthology called John Fante’s Ask The Dust: A Joining of Voices and Views, just out, with amazing stuff by Fante, Bukowski, Robert Towne, and lots of others.
Maxine Russell
HOW TO BE A FEMINIST (FOR LITTLE GIRLS & BOYS), 2019
I haven’t been doing very much during quarantine, I must admit. But, in all honesty, there isn’t much to do! I’ve mostly been binging Netflix and swimming… so grateful to have a pool in times like these!
But besides that, I have a few things I would love to share. I am working toward being a director when I grow up, so I’ve been trying to explore new aspects of filmmaking, specifically how to write and film sketch comedy.
I was also asked to read my book, How to be a Feminist (For Little Girls and Boys), on Zoom for my middle school’s diversity week. That was a blast and a very nice opportunity. A fun little surprise was when Long Beach Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce’s daughter read my book on Facebook Live. I hope you are all staying safe during this strange time. We will get through this!
Wendy Thomas Russell (Me)
RELAX, IT’S JUST GOD, 2015; PARENTSHIFT, 2019
These days I’m wearing two primary hats, publisher and parenting writer, with varying degrees of success. I really enjoy blogging here at Notes in the Margins and seeking new and creative ways to promote the business — and all these great people you just heard from.
I’ve also written a few things for the PBS NewsHour and have launched a blog for ParentShift, which is finding its legs.
If you’d have told me a decade ago that, in 2020, I would be running a small press, surviving the presidency of Donald Trump and be living through a global pandemic, or that the cause I’d be most passionate about would be police reform, I’d have told you that you were on glue. It all seems totally surreal, every dang bit of it.
Then again, surrealism is the new reality, right? We’re all hanging out in the same boat. What do you say we meet up for a drink on the poop deck?