So Long, Farewell . . .

Lovely friends, this will be my last newsletter for a while (hence the image of the hot air balloon taking off into the wild blue - take what you will from the “hot air” part of that).

I close this chapter with so much gratitude to all of you for sharing this journey,

This newsletter includes a book review, some fabulous Two Over Easy All Day Long news and other writing news, a reminder to subscribe to The Dogs of Looser Island, if you want some happy distraction from the too-much-with-us world, and musings on our nation’s birthday (last rather than first in this newsletter, in case you feel like skipping it).

I will continue to keep this website updated with new writing information, but I think this newsletter has run its course for now, and between working full time, getting ready for grandchild number two (!!!), and sharing twice weekly episodes of the Dogs of Looser Island, my plate is full, and I’m guessing yours is too.

Booky Booky Book Club

(“Booky Booky Book Club” stolen from the podcast
Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone)
(and of course this is just my review, not really a book club)

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

I loved this book - and that surprised me. Gritty post-apocalyptic is not really my "thing," but the narrator's tenderness in the face of a reality that is horrifying and requires horrifying acts made this book like nothing I've read before.

A few of my favorite quotes:

"There is no one to tell this to and yet it seems very important to get this right. The reality and what it is like to escape it. That even now is sometimes too beautiful to bear."

On our divisions, and his partner Bangley's kill-or-be-killed philosophy versus the philosophy of cooperation: "Shoot first ask later. . . . Follow Bangley's belief to its end and you get a ringing solitude. Everybody out for themselves, even to dealing death, and you come to a complete aloneness. You and the universe. The cold stars. . . . Believe in the possibility of connectedness and you get something else. . . . Help asked and given. A smile across a dirt yard, a wave. Now the dawn not so lonely."

Of the unlovely carp that have outlived all the other species: " . . . they simply refused to budge, which wasn't fun, but then there wasn't much fun any more and I came to admire their stoicism. A stolid refusal to be yet consumed by the universe."

On grief: "There is a pain you can't think your way out of. . . . You can't metabolize the loss. It is in the cells of your face, your chest, behind the eyes, in the twists of your gut. Muscle sinew bone. It is all of you. When you walk you propel it forward. . . . it sits with you. Pain puts its arm over your shoulders."

I now know Peter Heller has written many books, and I will henceforth be checking out the others!

Writing News

• Kirkus Reviews featured Two Over Easy All Day Long in its Vacation Reads list AND in their June 2025 magazine! And then, as if that wasn’t delicious enough for my writer’s heart, on June 10 the book was also featured in their Critic’s Pick newsletter. Kirkus Reviews is “The most trusted voice in book reviews since 1933,” and features fewer than 25% of their reviewed books in their monthly magazine. Their Vacation Reads lists, which go out weekly through the summer, typically include fewer than twenty books on each list. To say I’m honored would be a ridiculous understatement!
  
  You have already been so supportive, but if you’d like to do more, I am still joining book clubs and giving readings at bookstores, and have several planned for the fall. If you are interested and have capacity for organizing events, I am always up for bookstore/library readings and book club appearances!
  

• A dear family member convinced me to try BookTok, TikTok’s platform for readers and writers. I am dipping my toe in this by reading snippets from my children’s novel, The UnFairy Tale. If you’d like to watch me make a fool of myself, my handle is sharilane88, and the name of the page is Story Time!

• Speaking of making a fool of myself, I’m still posting short readings from The Dogs of Looser Island on my YouTube channel, @sharilane38.

And speaking of The Dogs of Looser Island: Who Laughs Last is about halfway through, but there’s still time to subscribe. Paid subscribers get access to full episodes and archives of past episodes, so new subscribers can get caught up on the stories. Subscribe to receive episodes as they post at sharilane.substack.com.

Want to subscribe but paying is difficult? Let me know and I can comp the subscription.

If there’s enough interest I may just continue to the sequel, and the next sequel (though I will definitely pick a less frenetic pace - twice weekly is tough for this still-working/not-yet-retired girl!)

Fourth of July Musings: Time for a YOPP!

This year for the Fourth of July I am not going to share my usual Happy Periwinkle Day post, reprised many times (though I still believe we are less divided than the media and social media would have us believe, and I still believe we need to find our common ground and work together for a better future), nor am I sharing I Do Declare (my Declaration of Independence from fear and anxiety), also reprised a couple of times. I’ve shared the links below if you’d like to read them.

This year, I’d like to talk to you about Dr. Seuss’s
Horton Hears a Who.

When Horton the Elephant discovers a whole world of Whos on a speck of dust, he is determined to protect them, but the other animals in the jungle mock him for his tender-heartedness and send the speck of dust far away. Against all odds, Horton finds the Whos, but the other animals beat him and lock him in a cage, and declare they’re going to boil the dust speck. They don’t believe the Whos exist or, if they exist, they don’t believe the Whos matter. From his cage, Horton begs his new friends to make themselves heard.

***

“ . . . Don’t give up! I believe in you all!
A person’s a person, no matter how small!
And you very small persons will not have to die
if you make yourselves heard! So come on now and TRY!”

***

They try, but it’s not enough. The angry animals in charge can’t or won’t hear the Whos. So the Mayor of Whoville searches until he finds one small boy who is ignoring the crisis around him, calmly playing with his Yo-Yo.

***

“This,” cried the Mayor, “is your town’s darkest hour!
The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
To come to the aid of their country!” he said.
“We’ve GOT to make noises in greater amounts!
So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”

Thus he spoke as he climbed. When they got to the top,
The lad cleared his throat and he shouted out, “YOPP!”
And that Yopp…
The one small, extra Yopp put it over!

Finally, at last! From that speck on that clover
Their voices were heard!

***

This, dearest friends, is our country’s darkest hour.

Democrats and Republicans and Independents – we are all in this together. Even if you never imagined yourself standing shoulder to shoulder with "the other side," now is the time to find common ground and stand together.

We’ve faced some dark times in our history, and maybe you’ve found yourself on one side or the other of recent divisions.

Maybe you didn’t march for Black Lives Matter, protest the Family Separation policy that left so many children permanently separated from their families, or write to Congress to codify the rights gutted when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, threatened gay marriage, and eviscerated the Voting Rights Act.

Even so, I have to imagine there’s something in the last few months that made you gravely concerned about the future of our country.

Maybe you haven’t yet had difficulty accessing the Social Security payments you earned after a lifetime of working.

Maybe you don’t know anyone whose Medicaid or SNAP benefits will be lost under the “Big Beautiful Bill” (or maybe you know it will be painful but felt it was past time to shrink the government’s budget and role, not yet realizing the bill only shrinks health care for children and disabled folks, and food assistance for struggling families, in order to support tax cuts for the very wealthy, and increased funding for ICE).

Maybe you weren’t appalled at the pardoning of violent insurrectionists who called for the hanging of the Vice President.

Maybe you weren’t aghast at the withholding of Congressionally-approved military aid to Ukraine, the public bullying of Zelensky, and the false claim that Ukraine started the war.

Maybe you don’t care that businesses all across the nation are struggling, laying off people and even getting ready to close their doors under the double whammy of tariffs making operations too expensive and ICE raids sweeping up their employees.

Maybe you weren’t upset at the obvious grift in accepting an airplane from a corrupt government.

Maybe you haven’t been horrified that ICE is collecting people from hospitals, schools, and churches, from courthouses and immigration offices when they show up for mandatory check-ins to maintain their legal status in the country. Maybe you thought this is the logical consequence of illegal entry into our country, that masked men will tear mothers and fathers and children from the arms of sobbing friends and relatives.

Maybe you’re not alarmed that the president himself keeps raising the idea of deporting US citizens, and calling for the deportation and/or removal of citizenship status from those who voice political opposition to him and his administration’s agenda.

Maybe it doesn’t bother you that the party that claimed fiscal conservatism and reducing government debt as its guiding principle has just passed a budget that will increase the country’s debt more than any administration in our collective past.

Or that the party of No More Foreign Wars said nothing when its president launched missiles at nuclear sites in a foreign country, even though only Congress has the power to declare war and initiate military action, except in an emergency (and no emergency existed).

Even if all that is true, I’m guessing you are afraid of a government that refuses to comply with court orders, and that ignores the right to due process that is a foundation of our republic (the right to try to prove your innocence in a court of law before being jailed, detained, and/or deported), and that is willing to turn the military against its own citizens.

If any of those concerns ring true for you:

Now is the time to put aside our differences
and raise our collective YOPP!

We Americans are a diverse bunch. Skin color, age, country of origin or ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, language, education, income, gender identity, favorite books and favorite television shows and favorite family recipes . . . and, of course, political philosophy. That has always been true. What we share is a belief in governance of the people, by the people, for the people, a governance we will only have if those we elect adhere to the guardrails our founders put in place: the separation of powers.

Today, we celebrate our independence from tyranny, but tyranny once again threatens, this time from within. Our democracy only functions if our judiciary, military, law enforcement, and courts are truly independent and non-partisan, not tools for personal vengeance and oppression of opposing political views; if Congress fulfills its role as the only branch of government with the power over spending and the power to declare war; and if government officials obey court orders. The current administration and Congress are failing on all counts.

And so I say again:

Calling all Whos to raise a mighty YOPP!

As promised, if you’d like to read old 4th of July musings, you can find them here.

• Happy Periwinkle Day: https://www.dragonpepper38.com/news/happy-periwinkle-day (“If you mix the red, white, and blue of the flag you get . . . a lovely shade of periwinkle.”)

• I Do Declare: https://www.dragonpepper38.com/news/idodeclare (“So today I throw off the shackles of fear, and vow to embrace the present moment in all its glorious unpredictability. Today I see that the sun is shining, my flags are waving in a gentle breeze, my wonderful family is visiting, and I am, if not a picture of vibrant health, still upright and mobile.”)

I leave you with another huge dose of gratitude for sharing this journey with me, and a photo from last year’s Fourth of July.

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.

Shy People and Powdermilk Biscuits

Full quote from A Prairie Home Companion:
“Powdermilk Biscuits
—they give a shy person the strength
to get up and do what needs to be done.”

I love reading, I love writing, and I love talking with good friends about books—my own, and others’ books. Unreservedly, forever and ever amen.

My feelings about public speaking are more mixed.

So when I am asked to talk about Two Over Easy All Day Long, I am (a) thrilled, (b) terrified, (c) proud, and (d) looking for the nearest exit.

(On that topic, if you get a chance, check out this speech by Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, and other marvelous books.  A teaser: “I’m here because my agent said it would be good for my career.  . . . It will be fun, she said. So I told her that I write books. I spend eight hours every day locked inside a room with people I have made up. If I was comfortable talking to real people I would have a real job.”)

Because of the aforementioned shyness, it is with more than a little trepidation that I share my interview with Literary Titan.

Image by Marek Piwnicki @marekpiwnicki

In case you don’t feel like clicking on the link, here’s a mash-up: I refer to my background as an attorney, call into question my own sanity, throw in a little woowoo, celebrate the power of community, and make reference to my/our human penchant for making the same damn mistakes over and over and over, balanced against the possibility, always, of rising, phoenix-like, from the ashes.

Time for some powdermilk biscuits. While answering the questions was fun, seeing my answers in print, on the organization’s published website, made me the tiniest bit nauseous. Just a smidge.

But posting the interview—like Fredrik Backman’s speaking gig—is “good for my [writing] career,” or at least that’s the prevailing wisdom. So there, now I’ve done it. If you have any questions, contact my PR agency. (Hah, that was a little joke. It’s just me and my oh-so-wonderful publisher, no vast team of PR agents. If you have a question or comment, you can post it in the Comments section below, or email me at sharilaneauthor@gmail.com)  

And though I remain deeply uncomfortable blowing my own horn (see previous statements), I am also proud to share that Two Over Easy won Literary Titan’s Book Award this month.

Courtney Maum’s helpful (and funny!) book, Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book, points out it can get tiresome—for authors and for their readers—to always and only talk about their own book, and suggests reviewing others’ books. I’ve been doing that for years (because, as I said, I love reading and talking about books). But Maum goes on to note that most people have already heard about bestsellers, and suggests boosting the underdogs, so there will be lots of that (in addition to reviews of well-known books) in this and future newsletters.

Here's the first installment.

At the end of last year, friend and fellow author Gini Chin came out with her debut novel, The Beautiful Abyss. It’s got: a loveless (and sexless) marriage, an escape to Greece, a shape-shifter, passion, danger, and a criminal caper! A sampling of reader reviews: “A fast-paced thrilling read that will leave you wanting more,” “I didn't want it to end and when it did, I found myself wishing there was more. Night after night I found myself wondering what the main character might be up to now. Possibly a sequel?” “It’s the kind of story that’s hard to put down.” So do yourself a favor and check it out! It’s available on Amazon and Bookshop.org.

Last but not least, if you’d like to support Gini and any other writer you know, the very best thing you can do (after buying the book) is easy and takes very little time: talk about the book. Talk about it on social media, ask your library if they’d consider carrying it, order it from your local bookstore (and ask if they’d be willing to order another copy to have on their shelves), post a review on Amazon, and/or GoodReads, suggest it to your book group . . . . You get the idea. In this information-overload environment, it’s not so much about winning awards or being backed by a big publishing house, it is about word of mouth.

If you’ve read a book and genuinely liked it, spread the word!

So Little to Share

Image by Jon Tyson @jontyson

So little to share, so much time . . .

Strike that, reverse it.

(Fans of the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with Gene Wilder, will recognize a version of that quote. If you don’t recognize it, well, hie thee to a streaming service and watch the movie. Better yet, read the book.)

Image by Zach Ramelan @zachramelon

My wish for you today:

May your time be your own.

At least until

after that first cup of coffee or tea.

For this newsletter, I want to keep my promise to focus on book reviews and recommendations.
Because there’s nothing quite as wonderful as curling up with a good book
(as demonstrated
by our in-house model, here)!

I just finished Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr (Scribner 2021).

I’m glad I got a heads-up from our bookstore – shout out to Lopez Bookshop! – that it’s a little confusing at first, and I’m oh so glad I persevered, because:

I. LOVE. THIS. BOOK.

Seemingly disparate stories are connected by a mostly illegible ancient manuscript about a man who seeks a city in the clouds and becomes, along the way, a donkey, a fish, and a crow. The characters who interact with the story in the manuscript include a girl living in the future after ecological apocalypse; a boy in the fifteenth century who suffers from prejudices related to his poverty and his cleft lip, and a resourceful girl living in the same era but on the opposite side of a war into which the boy has been conscripted; a disaffected teen who mourns the loss of wildlife to accommodate tourists in a tiny town in modern-day Idaho; and a man who, orphaned at a young age and misunderstood by everyone except the local librarians, is in love with a man he may never see again.

The marvel of this book is that each of the wildly different characters and their wildly different settings is completely credible. Some writers excel at creating sci-fi or fantasy landscapes, some craft beautiful historical fiction, or romance, or coming-of-age stories for young adults. Doerr does it all, in a single book, and made me love and care about every one of the characters.

While I was reading it, I made excuses to go to bed early so I could get back to the book, and when it was over, I heaved a bittersweet sigh because the ending was oh so satisfying but still, sadly, an end.

Favorite Quotes from Cloud Cuckoo Land

“Repository. You know this word? A resting place. A text—a book—is a resting place for the memories of people who have lived before. A way for the memory to stay fixed after the soul has traveled on.”

***

Seymore feels like he used to . . . as though he’s being allowed to glimpse an older and undiluted world, when every barn swallow, every sunset, every storm, pulsed with meaning.

By age seventeen he’d convinced himself that every human was a parasite, captive to the dictates of consumption. But . . . [then] he realizes that the truth is infinitely more complicated, that we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be a part of the problem is to be human.

(Believe it or not, the photo was taken by my phone, from Watmough Bay.)

In other news . . .

For friends in the Pacific Northwest, the book launch party is coming up! Friday, May 17, 2024, 5:30 – 8:00 pm, at the Lopez Island Library. Bring an egg-dish to the potluck and join the fun!

If you can’t make it to the book launch, join me at the Griffin Bay Bookstore in Friday Harbor on Sunday, May 26, at 2:00. We’re thinking of making a party out of that, too! We’ll either sail over together, or caravan on the ferry, and spend the day in Friday Harbor having brunch, shopping, maybe even take in an evening movie. Email me if you’re interested in taking the trip with us sharilaneauthor@gmail.com.

And on Thursday, July 25, 2024, at 6:30 pm I’ll be at Roundabout Books in Bend, Oregon. Roundabout Books has a unique policy (which I applaud): entry is a $5 ticket or purchase of a book. It doesn’t have to be my book, by the way! The goal is to support independent bookstores, and I can definitely get behind that.

More information about these and other events can be found on the home page of the website www.sharilane.com

Last but not least, another novel I wrote, Jaysus, MooMoo, and the Immortal Woos, was longlisted in the international Stockholm Writers Festival First Five Pages contest. I am truly walking on sunshine…

Sunshine and wildflowers at Iceberg Point

A Good Book

On Reading and Writing and Pigs in Heaven

I’d like to talk to you about
Barbara Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven.

Yes, this is my brand new blog/newsletter on my brand new website launched to support my brand new book, Two Over Easy All Day Long.

But I’ll have plenty of time to talk about that in the coming months, maybe even (if I’m lucky) in the coming years.

I hope so.

For now, I just want to rave about one of my all-time favorite books, by one of my all-time favorite authors.

The quotes below, from Barbara Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven, encapsulate beautifully what is possible in a good book.

___________________________________________

Background: Annawake Fourkiller, a newly-minted lawyer, is trying to explain to her boss, Franklin, why she believes the Cherokee child Turtle should be returned to her people, even though Turtle’s white adoptive mother is the only family Turtle knows. Annawake describes how important a sense of belonging is.

“People thought my life was so bleak . . . But I dreamed about the water . . . . All those perch down there you could catch, any time, you know? A world of free breakfast to help get you into another day. I’ve never been without that, have you?”

“No,” he admits. Whether or not he knew it, he was always Cherokee. The fish were down there, for him as much as for Annawake.

“Who’s going to tell that little girl who she is?”

. . . Franklin wears a Seiko watch and looks as Cherokee as Will Rogers or Elvis Presley . . . yet he knows he isn’t white because he can’t think of a single generalization about white people that he knows to be true. He can think of half a dozen about Cherokees.

Later, Annawake tackles Turtle’s adoptive mother, Taylor, who is deeply upset and offended that anyone would try to take her child away.

“There’s a law that gives Tribes the final say over custody of our own children. It’s called the Indian Child Welfare Act. Congress passed it in 1978 because so many Indian kids were being separated from their families and put into non-Indian homes.”

“I don’t understand what that has to do with me.” [Taylor says]

“It’s nothing against you personally, but the law is crucial. What we’ve been through is wholesale removal.”

“Well, that’s the past.”

“This is not General Custer. I’m talking about as recently as the seventies, when you and I were in high school. A third of all our kids were still being taken from their families and adopted into white homes. One out of three.”

. . . “My home doesn’t have anything to do with your tragedy.”

Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins 1993)

___________________________________________

In a few short paragraphs, Kingsolver tackles identity, loss, and the desire for absolution from our ancestors’ sins. Her characters are morally and ethically imperfect, not fully “good” but—like Giles/Tony—“not bad,” and evolving into something better.

(See? I did get in a reference to Two Over Easy All Day Long after all.)

Kingsolver’s stories are full of grace, even when tackling the darkness we humans sometimes fling at each other. And humor, too, which is nothing short of miraculous; to look into the void and find, in addition to hatred and bias and hurt, an infinite well of laughter.

What does that have to do with me?

I’m a writer because I love to read, because ever since I was a child books have touched me, moved me, and, sometimes, changed my mind. I felt as if the authors were speaking directly to me, as if the characters were friends taking me along on their journey, whispering their revelations to me. I knew from the first time I opened a book and the symbols resolved themselves into words that this, this is what I wanted to do—speak through stories. Then and now, it often feels as though stories are my only meaningful form of communication. I often feel a Homer Simpson-ish ‘Doh! over every word I actually speak aloud, certain I’ve said the wrong thing, or failed to say the right thing.

Image by Elena Mozhvilo @miracleday

But when I write, I can test and weigh and sit with the words first, make sure that my words are honest, and sincere, and as often as possible, kind.

When I write, I can paint a verbal picture of how I see the world, and more importantly . . . how I imagine it could be.

The title of this, my inaugural newsletter, is A Good Book. I am, of course, hoping something I’ve written or something I write some day in the future will merit the label: A Good Book.

In the meantime, in the newsletters that follow, I’ll often share what I’m reading, in that elusive search for “A Good Book.”

Barbara Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven feels like a great place to start the conversation.

Got a good book to share? Thoughts on Pigs in Heaven?
Drop me a line here, in the Comments,
or send me an email.