The Columbus Metropolitan Library Festival was the library’s first Book Festival, planned to celebrate its 150th anniversary. They estimate over 30,000 folks came out to check out the festivities. It was 18 months in the making and involved dozens and dozens of staff and volunteers. Over and over again, I heard people saying they hoped this was the first annual event. The Columbus Metropolitan Library has many good reasons to be very proud of an event that was well planned, expertly executed, and a tribute to books and the people who love them.  The 2023 Book Festival was a success on steroids.

Highlights of the Library

The Mirror Couple

I had a wonderful weekend at the Columbus Metropolitan Book Festival and thought you might enjoy visiting it via some of the photos I took. This was one of the best-organized events I’ve ever attended. The pre-event details were numerous and helpful.   It began on Friday evening with a reception for the authors, donors, and vendors, featuring appetizers and an open bar. This couple, known as the Mirror People, wandered around to keep things interesting. We also had the opportunity to explore the tent filled with books, music, and movies. I only came home with one book and three movies. This couple wandered around entertaining us.

Meeting Other Authors

Meet the authors panel

First thing Saturday morning, I moderated a panel with three talented authors. It was inspiring to meet (L-R) Erin Bartels, Lynn Blackburn, and Shelley Shepard Gray.  All their books are fascinating, and my list of books to read grew by leaps and bounds after meeting the authors in person.

Topiary Garden

I signed up for a booth, figuring it would be a canopy, table, and chairs. I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was a tent along a path that meanders through to the Topiary Garden. There is a small museum about the park only a few yards down the path from the booth, so I took time to visit it. The park is situated on the remnants of the Old Deaf School Park. The parkland dates back to the early 19th century when there was a dormitory and campus associated with the Deaf School. It’s a fascinating story that I’ll cover another day. For now, here’s a glimpse of a few of the charming items in the park.

Meeting Other Book Lovers

Booth #47

The tent protected us from the rain on Saturday and the heat on Sunday. Lots of folks stopped by to learn more about the story behind the Mayflower. I enjoy sharing some of my research resources with others who want to know more about the story behind this famous voyage. If that’s you, one resource I recommend is an amazing website managed by Caleb Johnson. Mayflower History has enough information about the ship, the voyage, and the people on it to keep you busy for hours.

Family Time

On my breaks, I wandered around admiring all the families spending time together exploring the many book options and enjoying a day in the park. With their permission, I took photos of these two parents enjoying a lovely day in a beautiful place. I hope one day these children will realize how fortunate they are to have parents who spend time with them enjoying some of life’s simple pleasures such as taking time to read together and stroll around a beautiful park.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information. Select a monthly newsletter and/or weekly articles about whatever’s on my mind that week.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

The post Book Festival appeared first on How Wise Then.

Then someone has to publish and distribute the book. That someone could be the author, but it is just as likely to be a publisher who can navigate the ever-changing world of modern book production and distribution in electronic, print, and audio formats. I’ve been privileged to work with dozens of word lovers who have chosen coaching, editing, graphic design, marketing, printing or publishing as a career path. I am grateful to all of them. For without them, everything I’ve ever written would be languishing in notebooks and computer files.

Publisher Van Velzer Press

It is impossible to name the dozens of people who have helped get my words into print since my first article was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer back in 1968. Allow me to introduce you to one of my teammates. Trish Lewis, the founder of Van Velzer Press, is the publisher of Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Matriarch of the Mayflower.

Publishing runs in Trish’s family. Her great-great-uncle, F. C. Van Velzer, and his father, as well as his father’s father, were traveling newspapermen. They traveled from the East Coast across the expanding United States in the 1800s, leaving behind them a trail of small-town newspapers. They stopped in towns lacking any reliable contact with the outside world and stayed long enough to establish a local paper. Then they traveled to another town in need of a paper. Eventually, they settled in California, near San Diego, where they launched another weekly newspaper in 1902.

Connection to Walt Whitman

Trish says her family tree includes Louisa Van Velsor, the mother of Walt Whitman. Trish is carrying on the family business by publishing books. “We are proud to continue the family business in the art of literary magic. Van Velzer Press concentrates on our glorious country that boasts of such a rambling, brave, innovative history.”

I met Trish at a Vermont writers’ event, where she was available to assist six of us authors competing for a publishing contract. At the time, I was working on Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures. I found her suggestions insightful and helpful. When I decided to write a second Mayflower historical novel from Mary Brewster’s perspective, I asked Trish if she’d be interested in publishing it. We both thought Mary ought to come out of the shadows of historical obscurity into the sunlight of appreciation for her role in the fledgling Pilgrim community.

Mothers Who Research Family History

Trish and I have in common mothers who put in the long, tedious hours required to trace our respective families’ heritages. Trish credits her mother and her grandmother, a dignified lady Trish knows as Grammy, for populating her family tree with names and details. I have my mother to thank for her detailed notes, which connect our family to William and Mary Brewster, who were part of the Mayflower voyage.

Aware of the strong publishing background in her DNA, she launched Van Velzer Press in 2019. “Yep, right before the pandemic hit, and tossed all my plans for my first year up in the air. No one but my husband and my mother encouraged me; everyone else just gave me a side eye and stayed quiet. I forged on ahead.”

Trish earned a Bachelor of Science in Sociology in Pennsylvania, which has helped her prepare for her current vocational passion. She’s over halfway through the credits required for a double master’s degree in of all things Microbiology and Political Science. It helps that she worked as a book editor for nine years before launching her own publishing business.

Joys and Challenges

When I asked her what gives her the greatest satisfaction from publishing, she told me, “Creating a quality book involves a heavy amount of research, even fiction, and lots of time rewriting, fussing, and rethinking. So, when authors hold their galley copies in their hands, it is like a Christmas present. I love to see their joy. I also like helping produce stories that have an overall positive energy to give to the world.”

Trish says her greatest challenges have been access to good software and the high costs of printing and distribution. Like the authors she publishes, she finds the creative stuff a breeze and the rewarding part. I asked her if she could start over and if she’d do anything differently. “Like planting a tree, I would have started earlier. I had the skills long before I realized I had built them up strong enough to be a publisher.”

Words of Wisdom for Authors

She has advice for authors about working with a publisher. “Many authors think their stuff is great right out of the gate. Well, it is not.  Authors write for themselves, and that is great.  Publishers then help shape the final book for readers, which means a decidedly different end product. The craft of writing — the skills — is something most hopeful artists fail to spend enough time perfecting. So, an author needs to know there will be changes to the manuscript. They need to enter into the process with a spirit of teamwork. Then it is all happy days and golden sunshine.”

I know many people who dream of writing a book. The difference between a dream and an accomplishment is the willingness to put in the hours required to learn the craft and produce the product. Trish’s advice to would-be authors is “Start by writing your story and not worrying about a thing.  Then, don’t be lazy – do rewrites and rewrites and rewrites until you think your manuscript is perfect. Then laugh when you see all the red a good editor puts on that screen for yet another rewrite.”

Editors as Advocates

It helps if an author can send his or her ego on vacation when the book is ready for serious editing. Red ink is not a grade about the author as a person or the value of the author’s work. Instead, it is rather a professional’s opinion on how to make a piece of good work better. Anyone who does much reading at all can quickly spot books published by authors who tried to skip this step of writing a book.

Thank you, Trish Lewis, for being part of my team and adding your red ink to my efforts.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information. Select a monthly newsletter and/or weekly articles about whatever’s on my mind that week.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

The post Van Velzer Press appeared first on How Wise Then.

Yet, if we turn off the flow of news and spend time among the people around us, we will see people quietly and calmly going about their lives. I spent last Saturday at a book festival at a huge outlet mall. Dozens of us were set up at the various entrances into the outdoor corridors leading to the shops and dining venues. This is the tale of that day.

A Community of Strangers

It took me three tries to find the check-in place, but I got there thanks to the directions given to me by other authors who were busy setting up. Near the check-in table, I found two young women struggling to set up their canopy. Since I’d just rehearsed how to set mine up the previous day, I told them I’d gladly help them as soon as I unloaded my car, in exchange for their help.

When I returned, I learned a plastic piece of their canopy had broken, rendering it fit only for the curb trash pick-up pile. I offered them space in mine once we got it up. We three worked on it with moderate results. Then the husband of another author assigned to our location finished the task for us. I later learned he’s a retired engineer who proudly claims that he fixes things. Over the next half hour, we set out our materials and got acquainted.

Unforeseen Problems

Another man representing a non-profit showed up, and soon four hopeful authors, plus two who came along to provide encouragement, waited to greet the shoppers as they began to trickle in. It turns out that, for reasons I never learned, the power was out, so none of the shops were open. That included the coffee shop located a few yards from our tables. I had intended to reward myself for the effort to get there and set up with a treat from there, but that plan didn’t work out very well.

We waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually, a few folks came by and we four authors began trading books for cash. I earned enough to cover my entrance fee for the space. More importantly, I had conversations with some remarkable people.  Taryn just graduated from Ohio State University and has already published two volumes of her poetry. She was accompanied by her roommate, also a new graduate. Some of their friends stopped by to greet them and stayed for a while. Another college student joined the conversation. He spoke with me for a long time about his plans to attend graduate school to become a licensed mental health professional. I gave him a copy of A Ready Hope about what happens in the first year after a disaster hits a community. It has a lot of information about responding to people who’ve been through a disaster of some sort.

Connections Everywhere

The author on my other side was a mid-fifties woman who had to completely reinvent herself after both her job and marriage fell apart a while back. I gave her a copy of Asunder, as I’ve experienced the same thing. She writes poetry, along with being a massage therapist. Not the occupation English majors typically pursue, but a woman does what she has to do to keep going.

Brian, on the other side of the new OSU grads, came to the event from Cincinnati. His daughter just took a position in Columbus, so we discussed various neighborhoods in Columbus. She lives in a community west of mine.

Let There Be “Open” Signs

Around noon, the power came back on. One by one, “Closed” signs flipped to “Open” ones. I jumped up to go get my belated coffee when Mr. “I fix things” offered to get it for me so that I wouldn’t miss any of the dribble of people stopping by our tables. Ah. Coffee. Life is good.

Being an outdoor event, I was assured that my 20-pound Mini Poodle, Brandi, would be welcome. As I had anticipated, he drew folks to the table and relished the attention, along with the dog treats I encouraged visitors to give him. That generated numerous conversations about dogs. A couple of folks showed me photos of their pooches. One woman who fussed over Brandi had just come from a dog rescue run to raise money to care for and place stray and unwanted dogs. She came to the event to support poetess Taryn. Through an OSU alumni mentoring program, this author has been coaching Taryn in her authoring efforts.

The highlight of the day was the end of the day. After I had everything packed up and ready to take back to the car, it was time to dismantle the tent, a task best done with a team. In the few minutes it took me to move my car closer to the curb to load, my neighbors came together like a reverse Amish barn-raising team. They had the canopy ready to put in its case. Then Brian insisted on hauling my stuff to the car and getting it all inside for me. When I stopped for a quick fast-food lunch before starting the drive home, the cash register attendant showed me a way to save $3 on the order. I drove home smiling.

Goodness Abounds

My dear readers, the point of all this rambling is that goodness is still alive and well in the world. It is there in a retired engineer fetching coffee for a stranger. I saw it in a young college student preparing to be a mental health professional, because he believes that path best prepares him to address destructive behavior. We can see it in the veteran author helping a young woman launch a writing career. It was there in a team of strangers coming together to help this aging author participate in a book fair.

A line from one of my many favorite hymns, This is My Father’s World, puts it this way: “That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” Was the time and effort to make a two-hour round trip, to set up a table at a mall with no power, where I sold only enough to cover the cost of being there, worth it? Absolutely. It was a powerful reminder that goodness abounds.

Goodness is everywhere and anywhere people swap stories about themselves, share photos of their dogs and family, and help one another. Those simple things make goodness grow. Goodness toward one another is the glue that holds society together. That is what gives hope; hope that displaces fear and despair.

We cannot and should not ignore the news. However, for the sake of our mental health and the well-being of our communities, we must also turn off the news and tune in to what the strangers all around us are doing. For goodness’ sake, take time to talk to strangers.

PS: It’s OK to stop by a table at a book festival and not purchase a book from the author waiting there to greet you. Authors love to chat with people who want to discuss the ideas in their work and what prompted them to write about them.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster Autographed copies are available on my website.

The post For Goodness Sake appeared first on How Wise Then.

I think of Dr. Roger Leslie as a sort of Mr. Rogers for adults, especially those with dreams of becoming authors. His unflappable good cheer, encouragement, and helpful insights have kept numerous authors from giving up their dreams of being successfully published. Discouragement is often more prevalent in the publishing world than bylines and checks. An editor may insist the author’s favorite phrase or scene won’t sell and has to go. The rare agent who actually responds to a query is more likely to say, “Not my genre,” than “Sure, I’ll work with you.” Writing for publication can be hard, discouraging work.

Life is a prism

Dr. Leslie instills hope and helps authors turn the situation around. “My philosophy is that life is a prism. Everyone is looking at the prism from a different facet. If you don’t like what you’re seeing, you might try seeing the world from a different facet and see how it changes your perspective.”

He’s had plenty of his own experience seeing things from a different perspective. He’s fond of talking about what he calls ‘fateful detours.’ For example, he knew from his early teens that he wanted to write novels. He grew up in Dearborn Heights, MI, until his family moved to Houston when he was fourteen. After high school, he was on track to become a published author, choosing his courses at the University of Houston accordingly. “But then one day a friend told me, ‘You can’t make a living as a writer.’ So, I changed my major to English Education and set out to teach, just long enough to launch my writing career.”

Change of Plans

Often our temporary plans prove more permanent than our long-range ones. He accepted a teaching position at a Houston area high school where, much to his surprise, he “fell in love with teaching. That really taught me so much about myself and people. Those kids were the biggest blessing in my life.”

He was apparently quite a blessing to them as well. In 1989, his fourth year teaching, he was named teacher of the year for the entire Galena school system. By then, he’d settled into a manageable routine of teaching by day and writing evenings and weekends, still hoping to become a successful enough writer to make that his career. He completed a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and did have some success publishing his work in various periodicals.

“But I always wanted to write books. I’ve always believed the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Nothing stands in the way.”

The Life-Changing Phone Call

He was in his classroom one day when he got the phone call that led him on a fateful detour away from that straight line. “The Department Chair told me the principle needed a librarian. He offered me the job, though I had no degree in library science and lacked the appropriate certification. “I went home that evening and had a conversation with God. ‘You’re not listening to me! I want to be a writer!’”

The principle countered Roger’s objections by pointing out he’d have more time to write since he’d no longer be reading student essays, the position would mean a pay increase, and he could arrange for emergency certification.

“I took the job.”

New Opportunities

That job led to opportunities he could never have imagined. Dr. Maureen White and Dr. Patricia Wilson ran the Library Science program at the University of Houston’s Clear Lake Campus, where Roger enrolled. One of Dr. White’s assignments was to write reviews of children’s books. She loved his reviews and told him to pick out three which they submitted to Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association. “That led to assignments, pay, and a by-line every two weeks in the most prestigious magazine in the field.

It got even better. Dr. Wilson invited me to co-author a book for librarians. The first day we began working, we realized we had a series, not just one book to write. We pitched our idea to Libraries Unlimited and ended up with a three-book contract from one of the most prestigious publishers in the country. By going back to school and doing something I didn’t want to do, I also met publishers at the annual library conferences. These are what I call ‘fateful detours.’ Detours that seemed like delays actually catapulted me to where I needed to be.”

And More Opportunities

Roger is quick to share his experience, connections, and knowledge with others, partly because, as a teen and young adult, he learned how hard it is to go it alone. “I grew up gay in a Catholic midwestern environment. During that time, I had an epiphany. Because I’m an old soul, aware of spiritual and emotional things others don’t seem to notice, accepting being gay was my light come out of the closet. Accepting being gay meant going against everything I learned from the parochial school I attended and my family. I knew something didn’t fit, and I concluded I would just have to live my life alone, without love. But as I explored my own soul, I realized I needed to determine for myself what was right for me.”

In undergraduate school he met Jerry. Their friendship gradually evolved into their life-long commitment to each other. However, they didn’t find much support from anyone, even within the gay community. Back in the 1980s, many in the gay community thought their vision of having a lifelong marriage was cute but naïve. They had to venture out on their own. “That experience emphasized for me how important it is to support other people; because it’s so hard to go it alone.”

Look for the Light

Today Roger is living the life he wanted for himself and helping others do the same. He says on his website, “I feel grateful every day to live the life I dream. I am an author. All dreams flourish with outreach. As an author, speaker, coach, editor, and publisher, I love guiding people along their path to make their dreams come true, too.”

“I always look for the light.”

Having worked with him on one of my books and observed him in a variety of situations, I’ve observed that often he is the light that sheds hope and help to countless others.

Thank you for being part of this growing online community. If you appreciated this post, share it with one or more of your friends. Or, sign up for your own FREE subscription. You may also enjoy an earlier article about Dr. Roger Leslie.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures is available wherever books are sold in paperback, eBook, and audio.
Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies are available from my website or BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post People of Hope – Dr. Leslie appeared first on How Wise Then.

Skip to the end for details about my special year-end book sale event.

Dickens opened his smash hit novella with this:

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to rise the Ghost of an idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their house pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant.
C.D.

December 1843

The Man Who Invented the Modern Christmas?

What would Dickens think if he could see how his efforts to “rise a Ghost of an idea” inspired numerous versions of his story in theatres, movies, spin-off books, and festivals?  Paul Millward’s Literary Traveler  2017 article suggests we thank Dickens for the popular, and lately, controversial, “Merry Christmas” greeting. After Dickens used the phrase in ” A Christmas Carol”, it went viral. I suspect Dickens would be shocked to learn that today people argue with strangers on social media about the appropriate use – or failure to use –  the phrase in the public arena.

Dickens set out to write something that would resolve his desperate financial straits.  Our modern Christmas traditions are relatively new. Dickens was born in the English Victorian era, when Christmas as a festival had begun to decline. There were still remnants of earlier pagan-inspired Christmas traditions, but it was Dickens’ story that rekindled the kind of lavish Christmas traditions we observe today. He introduced readers to a version of the season based on joy, compassion, fellowship, and family – the ideals on which modern Western cultures mark the season.

Unintended Consequences

Some go so far as to credit Dickens for inventing the modern Christmas season. Although he makes only veiled references to the biblical birth-of-Christ narrative, he champions charity and goodwill toward all, just as the angels in the biblical accounts. He hits hard on the theme that the key to happiness is giving to others. Ebenezer Scrooge is the antithesis of that. It takes four spirits – the ghost of his partner Jacob Marley and the Christmases past, present, and future – before Scrooge comes to his senses and turns his life around.

Though that central message is often lost in the piles of presents and platters of pastries, it remains the primary reason for the season. Dickens’ story launched an avalanche of sentimental journeys through the bleak winter season.

Desperation Fuels Inspiration

When Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in the fall of 1843, he desperately needed a successful story. His wife, Catherine, was about to give birth to the fifth of their ten children. He was deeply in debt, and his two previous writing efforts had flopped. He had huge debts of his own, as well as those he inherited from his father. Desperation, as much as inspiration, prompted Dickens to write A Christmas Carol.

Whatever motivated him, he wrote a ghost story that hit the mark then – and continues to do so today.  Christmas Carol sold 6,000 copies by Christmas Eve and has been in print ever since in several languages. Any modern author would be thrilled to have their books do as well as this novella did.

Write About What You Know

Authors often advise, “Write about what you know.” Dickens knew about poverty. At times during his life, Dickens could easily relate to the plight of Bob Cratchit. Born in 1812, as the second of eight children, his parents were poor but provided a happy enough childhood for him and his siblings – just like Bob Cratchit does for his family.

When Dickens was ten, the family moved to a poor section of London, where their financial struggles deteriorated from difficult to desperate. When Dickens was twelve, his father was sent to debtor’s prison. Dickens dropped out of school and took a job at a boot-blacking factory to help support the family. The family’s fate improved when his father inherited enough money to pay off his debts, and young Dickens returned to school for a few years.

When he was fifteen, he dropped out again to take a position as an office boy. That was the start of his literary career. He started freelance reporting in the London courts, which in turn gave him the skills to report for two major London newspapers. At age twenty-one, he started submitting his work to various magazines and newspapers under the pseudonym “Boz.” He went on to publish fifteen novels.

From Print to Film and Far Beyond

The first U.S. adaptation of Dickens’ story to the screen was rushed into production in 1938. The movie differed from the novel in a variety of ways, such as the timing of the arrival of the three Christmas ghosts. Several parts of the book were omitted from the first screen version, including Scrooge’s fiancée leaving him for being so stingy and the two poor, starving children, “Want” and “Ignorance.”

I have three favorite versions of the Christmas Carol. 

• The 1984 movie version starring George C Scott
• The 1992 The Muppet Christmas Carol
• The 1956 musical The Stingiest Man in Town, starring Vic Damon and the Four Lads, among others.

My folks played that record every year as we decked our family halls. What’s your favorite version of Christmas Carol?

May the spirit of Christmas haunt your home pleasantly.
Merry Christian. Happy Holidays. God Bless Us, Everyone.

BLATANT END OF YEAR BUY A BOOK  BEG  – Some authors make a livable income from their book sales. I am not one of them; I’m more like Dickens’s pre-Christmas Carol success story. I write for the love of the craft and my passion for the topics I cover. I also share any profits with assorted non-profit organizations. When you purchase any of my books, you are indirectly helping a worthy cause. Check out what’s available through December. Sadly, due to the increased cost of shipping real paper and ink books, rates will have to go up come January.

‘TIS THE SEASON: A HOLIDAY ANTHOLOGY: A dozen delightful short stories, each with a holiday theme, await you between the covers of this annual treat from Texas Sisters Press. One of them is by yours truly. “A Rose By Another Name” tells how sometimes the entrance to joy is through a door marked “tragedy.” Special Holiday price of just $12 (which includes shipping) – or $1/story. HowWiseThen/’Tis the Season

ASUNDER: The holidays can be brutal for those going through them for the first time after the loss of a loved one. Be inspired by how one fictional middle age woman, with the support of family and friends, dealt with grief that threatened to overcome her. Only $6 at HowWiseThen/Asunder

A READY HOPE: It seems we hear about another disaster somewhere in the world every week. Whenever disaster strikes, hundreds of well-organized volunteers come together through non-profit disaster response organizations to bring help and hope. In this book, you’ll learn what typically happens through the first year following a disaster and ways to help that are actually helpful. $12 at HowWiseThen/A Ready Hope.

The post Christmas Carol appeared first on How Wise Then.

Eventually, Mary had at least five more children. One was either stillborn or died in early childhood. Her next two babies were daughters, born when the family still lived in England. Her two younger sons were born when the family lived in exile in Leiden. They lived there from 1609 until William, Mary, and the two younger sons joined the others on the perilous Mayflower voyage as English colonists.

My Launch into Motherhood

Daughters Carol & Karen

On October 7 – a few decades ago – I joined the ranks of motherhood when daughter Carol joined the family. A couple of years later, Karen joined us. Today both daughters are grown, each with their own three children. Though I grew up knowing we are related to William Brewster, I knew very little about Mary until I started digging into the story behind the story of the Mayflower to write Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures. As the mother of two daughters, I was stunned at what I discovered about our ancestor.

My mother was a reference librarian. She spent many hours in her early retirement years documenting our family’s connection to William and Mary Brewster. The Brewster surname in our branch of the family ends in Duncan Falls, Ohio. Several generations of Brewsters lived and died in this community a few miles southeast of Columbus. The last one to bear the Brewster last name was my great-grandmother, Emma J. Brewster, who married a Ross. Their son, George Ross, is my mother’s father and our link to the Mayflower story.

Tracing Family History

In March 2017, my brother and I, accompanied by one of my granddaughters, made a pilgrimage to England to fill out the Brewster story a bit more. The pilgrimage took us to Scrooby, England, where the Brewster family played a role in the oversight of Scrooby Manor, an important communication link between London, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland. 

I already knew that William and Mary Brewster, and the other Mayflower passengers, owed their lives to the Native Americans who first greeted the new settlers. In my research, I learned it went well for about fifty years, thanks primarily to the treaty between the two cultures initiated by Massasoit Ousa Mequin.  

Sacrificial Love

What I did not know prior to doing the research was that Mother Mary Brewster left both her daughters behind with friends in Leiden when the Mayflower sailed. My heart ached when I learned that. I cannot imagine leaving Carol and Karen behind, not knowing if I’d ever see them again. We currently live in Texas, Nebraska, and Ohio and only see one another occasionally. However, between e-mails, texts, phone calls, and zoom capabilities, we easily stay current on one another’s daily lives.

It was not so for Mother Mary Brewster. She did not know if she would ever see her daughters again. Letters were the only means of communication, and the delivery time for a letter back then was measured in months, if not years. Her daughters, Patience and Fear, did eventually come to Plimoth Plantation, so that chapter of Mary’s life had a happy ending.

From Generation to Generation

This new-to-me family history is what prompted me to write a follow-up story to Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures. This one, Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Matriarch of the Mayflower, is also historical fiction. Since history recorded so little about Mary Brewster, I’ve had to imagine how I might have reacted if faced with the choices and circumstances she encountered. The book has a tentative publication date of March 2023.

As I reflect on what I was doing that October 7 when our family welcomed Carol into the world, I am thankful for the efforts my mother made to document these connections. Historians, librarians, and genealogists use their skills to enrich our lives by helping us find our roots. Happy Birthday, Carol. Thanks, Mom, for all those hours you spent in libraries and for being the keeper of our family’s history.

Thanks for taking the time to learn a little bit about Mary Brewster. If you aren’t already receiving my monthly HowWiseThen newsletter, sign up, so you’ll be informed about the progress of Mary’s fictional biography, which is due out next spring. Register at HowWiseThen.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures covers the Pilgrim’s escape from England and their interactions with the Pokanoket people. Available wherever books are sold in paperback, eBook, and audio.
Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies are available from my website or BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Mother Mary Brewster appeared first on How Wise Then.

Hope is a simple four-letter word that carries an ocean’s worth of depth and a mountain’s worth of aspiration. What is hope? Why do we need it? How do we get it when we run out of it? Do you ever experience the universe seeming to line up to deliver some message to you? You may find that threads of a conversation combine with random lines from a book you’re reading, or something you hear on a radio talk show, or a podcast. You flip through a magazine and stumble upon an article on the same topic you’ve been thinking about. Could that be evidence that hope for a particular outcome is not an exercise in futility? Perhaps those are stage whispers that you’re on the right path or warnings that you’re heading down the wrong one.

Hope and Wonder

From Susan Jeffers in her helpful book, Embracing Uncertainty, I gleaned the helpful suggestion to focus less on things I hope will happen and more on wondering about the ways in which things are unfolding. Replace “I hope x will happen” with “I wonder if x will happen” and observe if your stress level doesn’t go down a notch or two. This modest change in self-talk has been helpful to me as I navigate my way through the current things unfolding in my life.

Among them is the act that I am approaching the final descent in the long process of publishing my next book, a fictional biography of Mary Brewster. She was one of the 102 people on the Mayflower who sailed in 1620 full of hopes for how grand life would be in the New (to them) World. Many of those hopes were dashed along the journey, yet they kept going.

I’m in the “Put your seatbacks upright and close your tray tables” stage of this book’s journey. The publisher and I are approaching the gate to the published version of her story. It’s been a very long journey. I think this particular project started about the time COVID turned the world upside down and inside out. All those months confined to the house gave me extra hours to experiment with various approaches to telling Mary’s story.

Sources of Hope

I often wonder how Mary Brewster endured the turmoil leading up to her Mayflower voyage, the treacherous crossing, and starting over again far from home with virtually no resources. What kept her going? One obvious answer is that she had no viable other choices. She was a wife in the 16^th and 17^thcenturies. Her options were pretty limited. Plus, she was part of a Separatist community that placed a lot of emphasis on fully committing one’s fate to the Lord as they understand the nature of a divine being. Men did all the planning and leading. Women bore and raised the children and made things run as smoothly as possible at home with whatever resources they had available. She would have been trained from toddlerhood to defer to the wishes and decisions of the men. Still, as I’ve tried to wrap myself in her apron, I’ve been wondering about her sources of hope.

I recently sent the latest draft of her story to a handful of Beta readers who will review what I and the publisher have concocted about her story. These pre-publication readers will render their opinions, and we’ll make more adjustments to the story based on their feedback. Her story will go through another revision. And then, maybe – dare I say hopefully? – she may be ready for publication. But rather than hope for a certain publication date, after missing several previous potential dates, I now wonder when the book will be published. It is amazing how substituting the word “wonder” for “hope” has reduced my mental pressure to push to get her delivered by an arbitrary deadline. We’re aiming for quality over arbitrary deadlines.

Connection Between Prayer and Hope

Recently I came upon a few insights about the nature of hope in an article in Mysterious Ways by Dr. Steven Sandage, a professor of theology and psychology at Boston University. He explores and teaches about the connections between spirituality and mental health, especially in regard to hope. He defines hope as, “an active anticipation in the ability to reach desired goals. It requires a willingness to put energy toward those goals.”

He writes about a connection between prayer and hope. Prayers that focus on petitions for something specific sometimes result in a negative effect on being hopeful. Specific petitions repeated requisitions for the same outcome do not result in the hoped-for results. On the other hand, he writes that contemplative prayers that focus more on meditation, and less on requests, tend to lead to a deeper sense of peace and encourage a sense of hopefulness.

What Gives You Hope?

In other words, we may hope that something will happen, and take steps to try to make what we want to actually happen. But if we can relax a bit, and focus on wondering how it might unfold, we reduce the potential of experiencing discouragement and a sense of defeat. I hope the Mary Brewster book may soon be completed and published. While I wait, I focus on wondering how it will all come together.

What gives you hope? We all need hope to keep going. A life without hope is not a life worth living. What helps you find and retain hope? These are a few habits that have proven helpful for me in my quest to remain hopeful, especially when situations look anything but hopeful.

*Regular quiet time – aka meditation, prayer, or reflection. By whatever term, I try to spend some time each day sitting and marveling at the world around me.

*Conversations with members of my circle of confidants – people who have the gift of listening without needing to try to solve anything; but rather just connect.

*Reading inspirational articles and books or listening to them through the multiple modern avenues available.

*Walking around the neighborhood or in a park and observing nature.

*Planting or tending to things already planted.

*Feeding the birds.

*Putting something in order – a drawer, shelf, or closet.

I hope you find sources for hope in the midst of whatever life tosses you these days.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy reading about Mary Brewster.  Consider sharing this with a friend, or sign up to receive your own blogs at HowWiseThen. and join our growing on-line community.

Read more about the trials and triumphs of the Mayflower passengers in my historical novel, Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale or Two Cultures.  It is available in numerous libraries and for sale in electronic, print, and audio format at these places:

The post Hope and Wonder appeared first on How Wise Then.

Before the Mayflower sailed in 1620, the English Separatists, living as exiles in Holland, appointed Deacon John Carver as their governor for the voyage. According to genealogist/historian Caleb Johnson, the future Pilgrim Governor John Carver earned that role through his relentless efforts to make the trip possible. He was baptized 12 March 1580/81 at Great Bealings, Suffolk, England.

Carver’s Earlier Life

Carver’s father died when he was only nine years old. When he turned 21, he claimed his father’s inheritance and, apparently, became a successful businessman. He brought considerable wealth with him to Holland. In England he’d been active in a manor court, acting as juror several times in the early 1600s, but sold all his property in 1608. He joined the Leiden fellowship in 1615. Sometime before 1615, he married Katherine (White) Carver in Holland. Her sister, Bridget White Robinson, was married to the Separatist community’s beloved Pastor Robinson, making Deacon Carver and Pastor Robinson brothers-in-law. Katherine was his second wife. He and his first wife, Martha Rose, had one daughter, Margaret. He and Katherine had only one child. The unnamed child was buried in Leiden in 1617, possibly still born. Infant mortality was high in those days. I do not know anything more about Margaret.

The English Separatists immigrated to Leiden in 1609, after living first in Amsterdam for a year. While their lives were better in Holland than they had been in England, it was not ideal. Life as immigrants was challenging. They wanted to try their fate in the New (to them) World. Such a bold plan required several years of planning and numerous trips between London and Leiden. It also required the sort of political diplomacy that would impress any of today’s slickest politicians.

Carver the Negotiator

Through hard work Carver, Robert Cushman, and others obtained a charter, or patent, granting permission to establish a new settlement in the territory previously claimed by the English Crown with the 1607 establishment of Jamestown. They also secured financing. They first talked with Amsterdam merchants who liked the idea of a colony in North America. However, that meant they would establish a Dutch colony and they wanted to remain English subjects. They also negotiated with Thomas Weston, a London Merchant Adventurer, and that is where they ultimately got their financing. According to Mary B. Sherwood  in Pilgrim: A Biography of William Brewster, Weston “operated just inside the law on some occasions and outside it on others.”

Carver, Cushman, and others in the Leiden congregation, used their connections with people of influence in England to get the charter. Given that they fled England to escape King James’ searchers, they could not assume English authorities would grant their request. Perhaps King James had bigger problems on his mind and wasn’t paying attention to the Leiden refugees, or maybe he was happy to send them as far away from England as possible. In either case, their patent was granted. By July 1620 they were packing to sail. John and Katherine Carver agreed to go with the first group. Pastor Robinson and Bridget decided to stay in Leiden with the others and join them at soon as possible.

Financial arrangements

Being immigrants, the English Separatists were not eligible to participate in the Guild system that helped Dutch citizens work their way up the economic ladder. Seeking economic progress played as large a role in the decision to migrate to the New (to them) World as religious beliefs, though for the Separatists that was also a major theme. Part of the agreement for the financing for the trip included them working as indentured servants for seven years to repay the Merchant Adventurer investors. They would then own the land they worked, along with the houses they built, and be free to work for themselves. In the original plan between the Merchant Adventurers gave the settlers two days a week to work for themselves and five to work for them.

At the last-minute Western announced two disturbing new “take it or leave it” terms. First, they must work seven days a week for the Adventurers, or go find alternate funding. Additionally, they must accept a group of others to travel with them, bringing the  total number of passengers to 102 men, women and children. Of that number less than 40 came from Leiden. They also took two dogs that have been documented. Recent research suggests, a few other animals, such as perhaps chickens, pigs, and goats, may have also made the crossing with them. Plus a crew of probably a couple dozen sailors. Not knowing these new people, the Leiden community called them “Strangers” and dubbed themselves “Saints.”  At first they harbored mutual distain and suspicions about one another, but several weeks at sea and the daunting challenges they encountered eventually molded them into one more or less cohesive group.

Yet More Challenges

Carver and Cushman did their best to negotiate a better deal for the Leiden group, but in the end, they had to acquiesce or their abandon plans. They’d already sold everything they weren’t taking with them, resigned their jobs, and said their tearful farewells to friends and family. It was too late to turn back. There was yet one more obstacle to overcome before finally sailing off to a new life in a new place. Initially Carver and Cushman arranged for two ships – the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The Speedwell had to return to port twice to repair leaks. The second time the Captain declared it unfit to sail across the Atlantic. Some of the passengers, including Robert Cushman, returned home. Everyone else, and all the cargo, crowded onto the Mayflower.

The group of “Strangers” appointed their own governor, who often got embroiled in conflicts with the Leiden leaders. When Mayflower Captain Jones spotted land on November 9, 1620 he informed them they were many miles off course. Due to concerns about the winter weather, he announced he would not sail any further. Disappointed, but desperate to have access to land again, they anchored off shore Provincetown on November 11, 1620, instead of their destination at the mouth of the Hudson River.

Looking for a Place to Call Home

Now beyond the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company, some considered this chance to strike out on their own. To avoid chaos and conflicts between the “Saints” and “Strangers,”  and to increase the odds of surviving, Pilgrim Governor Carver and others drafted the Mayflower Compact. As Governor, John Carver was probably the first man to sign it. Every adult male signed it or marked it with an “X” to indicate consent to the terms. No women signed since weomen’s rights weren’t even a concept four hundred years ago. They appointed Carver as Governor of their newly established settlement, even before they knew exactly where that settlement would be located.

Carver went on three exploration trips over the next several weeks in search of the best location to build their new community. When Carver and others reported what they found, the ship sailed across Cape Cod Bay to establish Plimoth Plantation. The Governor helped establish Plimoth Plantation on the site of a deserted Patuxet village, across Cape Cod Bay from Provincetown, thus changing the course of Native history and North America forever.

The First Encounter

In the spring of 1621, Massasoit Ousa Mequin, the grand leader of all the area Native tribes, sent two English-speaking representatives to call on the new settlers.  He and his men then called on the settlers to work out the terms of a treaty between the two groups. Shortly after that, Pilgrim Governor John Carver  helped establish their first garden. On a warm afternoon, he fainted, and died shortly after, apparently from heat stroke. His wife, Katherine, died a few weeks later. Perhaps she died from a broken heart, or from the utter despair she may have felt when she assessed her situation as a childless widow in a strange new place, far, far away from her sister and other family.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures covers the Pilgrim’s escape from England and much more of the interaction between them and the Pokanoket people. Available wherever books are sold in paperback, eBook, and audio.
Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies available from BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Pilgrim Governor John Carver appeared first on How Wise Then.

I ended up needing medical attention for the symptoms that erupted from the stress of all that. And, I wrote my first book as a result of that move. As one friend put it, “Someone might as well gain from all that pain.” With five additional books into the weird and wild world of modern publishing, I learned why authors are advised not to sell their first book. While I remain proud of the effort, Married & Mobile: Making a Move That’s Right for You had some room for improvement.

Make the Right Move for You

Writing the book was the right move for me at the time. I learned a lot, including how to work with editors and book promoters. And, once I put forth in writing all the myriad of competing emotions instigated by all those moves, I felt much better about myself and the world around me.

I didn’t write another book for 22  years. It took a hurricane the size of Katrina to motivate me to try book publishing again. By then I’d moved back to Ohio and then back to Texas, adding several additional new addresses along the way.

I’ve learned a bit about moving and how to mitigate the stress of it. I’ve never heard of a move that didn’t include stress. But there are things we can do to mitigate it.  Married & Mobile: Making a Move That’s Right for You is out of print and somewhat out of date given the dramatic changes in the way people work these days. However, I think there’s some good wisdom contained in it. For example:

Moving is a Pain

It is normal and natural to experience at least some pain as we relocate from what is familiar to what is new and largely unknown. Modern technology makes it much easier than ever to connect with friends and family who don’t live where we do. That helps. But it’s not the same as hanging out together. There are things we can do to manage the pain, such as being gentle with ourselves when we do experience pain. Emotional pain is nature’s way of honoring the significance of the people and places left behind. Leaving them wouldn’t hurt if it didn’t matter to us.

Counting the Cost

Even if you have only a dorm room size stack of things to move, and you go with the pizza and beer bribes for friends route for moving the stack, it is still expensive. Things like utility and rental property deposits, gas, and rental fees for a truck add up. If you’re selling and buying you have all sorts of interesting and creative fees to cover, on top of the down payments for a new house. It is going to cost money and it might take months, even years to truly recoup the investment.

Then there are all those unanticipated costs. The furniture that worked perfectly in the last place doesn’t fit in the new place. No matter how carefully you inspect a place before you move into it, you’re going to discover something that is missing or needs to be repaired or replaced. Count on it.

Resistance is Natural

If your other family members – that may well include a dog or cat – are well settled where you are, be prepared for their resistance to the idea of relocating. No matter how rosy a picture you paint of the new place and new opportunities, rebellion is likely to occur. A house-trained dog may forget everything about proper behavior. Younger children may revert to behavior they outgrew several years ago. Older children may resort to fighting, sulking, arguing, and storming away from efforts to communicate.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t move. Moving gives us a new perspective on life. Moving gives us new people to become friends, new experiences to try, and new opportunities to investigate. But at first, it can feel very strange to let a stranger cut our hair, or talk to a new doctor about an issue the other doctor knew well.

Make Your Own Welcome Mat

In all my moves, more than I care to disclose, I can count on one hand the number of times neighbors came over to introduce themselves. If you want to know your neighbors, plan on introducing yourself to them. If you don’t get a warm welcome, it probably has nothing to do with you. Enlarge your definition of neighbor and keep reaching out.

Also, find some way to engage in the community beyond whatever job or situation instigated the move. Find people who enjoy what you enjoy and get to know them. We all need community. It is up to the newcomer to meet the community.

Keep Moving

No, not by packing and relocating again. Rather, after you’ve unpacked the essentials for daily living, go forth into the new location and explore. Try new places to eat. Find out what the locals do for entertainment. Visit area parks, museums, and special events.

Whatever brought you to the area, it is now home. Make yourself at home. If a move is part of your plans for the next few months, good luck. If you want more tips on how to conquer the pile of brown boxes and get yourself established as quickly as possible, I have all the remaining copies of Married & Mobile. I’ll gladly relocate a copy from my home to yours for $6 to cover the cost of shipping and mailing. For your copy, e-mail me at my HowWiseThen website below. I’d be happy to move them along, you know, just in case I decide to move again someday.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts about moving. If you found this helpful, past it along to a friend. If you got it from a friend, you can get your own articles at https://HowWiseThen.com.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures covers the Pilgrim’s escape from England and much more of the interaction between them and the Pokanoket people. Available wherever books are sold in paperback, eBook, and audio.
Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies available from BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Making the Right Move appeared first on How Wise Then.

I met author Russ Smith on an Ancestry.com cruise a few years ago when he was speaking about one of his books. He has recently published The Pointe System. I liked the premise of the book and invited him to write this guest blog about it. Thank you Russ for your book and this blog.

The Pointe System

What actions do we as individuals and a society take to include or exclude people? How do we make people feel either welcome or unwelcome? I began to ask myself these questions when I did research for my recently published murder mystery, The Pointe System. In some cases, actions to include or exclude people are taken by the community or even the state or nation, while in other cases, actions are taken by individuals or small groups of people.

The Pointe System is not only the title of my book, but also the name of the system that was used for over thirty years to keep certain people for moving to Grosse Pointe, the suburb of Detroit where I grew up. I knew Grosse Pointe had a history of not embracing diversity, but it was a revelation to me of how systematic the efforts were to keep it restricted to a very limited number of ethnic groups. When the pointe system was in place, the local property owners association partnered with Realtors to investigate home buyers before the sale of a home was allowed to progress. They used a scoring system to assign points for various characteristics of potential residents.

Deciding Who’s Allowed In

Points were given for lack of a foreign accent, lightness of skin color, occupation, religion, club memberships, profession, and various other traits. People with Western European heritage needed fewer points than people whose ancestors came from Southern or Eastern Europe. Jewish people needed an even higher score and were rarely allowed to buy a house. African Americans or people with Asian heritage were always rejected. The system, which was once upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court, was finally eliminated by federal civil rights legislation in the late 1960s.

The Pointe System is an example of how a community or state can support division and exclusion. Since it can take years for demonstrations, lawsuits, and lobbying of legislators to drive change at the community, state, or nation level, what can we do today, as individuals, to include or exclude people? How can we make people feel welcome? What actions do we and others take to exclude people?

Gossip Kills Reputations

Gossip is one of the tools often used to damage the reputation of others and exclude them. I create characters who gossip in all of my murder mysteries to spread fear, hatred, and anxiety. Personally, I become concerned when I hear someone start a sentence with something like “I’m not one to gossip, but did you hear…?” People who tell tales about other people don’t always realize the damage they may be causing. They won’t stop, unless they are challenged and told that such behavior is not acceptable.

Gossip has taken on a whole new dimension with the emergence of social media on the Internet. We no longer just have one on one discussions with individuals but now make comments that can go global and instantly destroy the reputation of an individual, an organization, or a business. Comments on blogs can create fear, distrust, and divide people. Websites thrive and make millions of dollars by providing forums for gossip and disinformation. We can decide to stop reading or posting hurtful material on such sites.

Less Talking, More Listening

Other than challenging people who gossip and being selective using social media, what else can we as individuals do to promote inclusion and acceptance? Actively and genuinely listening is a tool to make another person feel welcome and respected. The less you talk when having a conversation with someone who has something to share, the more you hear. After listening, asking clarifying and intelligent questions shows that you want to understand their point of view.

Another way to improve your ability to understand people and include them is to find opportunities to meet and work with people from different backgrounds than your own. When you do so, you may be invited to be included in their group and you might be inclined to invite them into your social or work group. I’ve been lucky to have had jobs with work assignments in many different countries, each with a different culture and ways of doing business. I was only successful in those assignments when I learned to work in those cultures and adapt to them.

Look for Opportunities

You could volunteer. I seek out opportunities to work with people with different life experiences than my own. In the past few years, I’ve helped people recently released from prison write resumes, refugees from Syria settle into their new homes, recent immigrants learn English, and students from low-income families prepare for college exams and apply to universities. Each person I’ve worked with has had different perspectives than mine. Working with them helped me to understand them and helped them to understand me and where I come from.

Many of the legal barriers to inclusivity have been eliminated over the past fifty or sixty years, but are we more inclusive? Do we listen to other people? Do we actively engage with people who are different than ourselves and make efforts to include them, or do we just tolerate people who are different and actively try to avoid them and stay with people who make us comfortable? Ask yourself these questions?

Russ Smith is the author of 4 murder mysteries. The Pointe System, Murder at Beulah Crest, The Carinthia Secret, and Table 29. Examples of inclusion and exclusion are found in all of his books. You can learn about his books at www.crimemysteryauthor.com.

Thanks for stopping by. When have you felt included? Excluded? How would you advocate for someone who’s been excluded?  If you got this from a friend, sign up for your own free subscription to my weekly articles and/or monthly newsletter at HowWiseThen. I focus on good people doing great things in our global village.

Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures covers the Pilgrim’s escape from England and much more of the interaction between them and the Pokanoket people. Available wherever books are sold in paperback, eBook, and audio.
Bookshop.org (Supporting local Indie Bookshops)
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles-Tale-Two-Cultures/
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles-kathryn-haueisen/
Autographed copies available from BlueWillowBookShop.com/book/

The post Who Sits at the Table? appeared first on How Wise Then.