We found some solace in the hike, but by late afternoon, we had still not seen the actual footage. It wasn’t until we stood before a wall of televisions in Radio Shack where we’d gone to buy a radio for our camp that we saw the footage. I remember falling to my knees. I’m not sure if I actually did fall but I remember that I did.

I stayed up that night listening to the radio, bewildered people calling into talk radio. Everyone seeking a connection. The next morning, we decided to hike again. We hoped the hike would help us make our decision about whether to keep going on our trip or to head for home. As we were going up a beautiful trail in Olympic National Park, two young men were coming down. We stopped on the trail and chatted. They’d been camping in the backcountry for several days, they told us. Did you hear the news? We asked.

Yes, they said. They were almost blase about it. Not in a horrible way, but in a way I understood as not fully understanding the gravity of what they were about to witness once they made it back to reality. They had not yet heard the voices. They had not yet seen the images. They had been wrapped in the cocoon of nature. They had been safe. They had been innocent. I envied them their not knowing. I wanted to tell them to turn around and go back. Do not let yourself know this horrible thing.

I have wondered what it would be like to go back to that state of innocence when we don’t yet know that  a horrible act has occurred, when we are focus solely on feeding and housing ourselves. What would it be like to be alone in the woods? What would it like to be cocooned in nature? I think about this when I read the news–the atrocities. Children abused, starved. Bombs dropped on civilians. People murdered in their sleep. I want to unknow these things. I want to believe I am innocent and safe.

Steve Himmer has not only wondered about returning to our state of innocence–returning to the allegorical garden before an original sin has occurred and before the birth of knowledge–he has recreated it in his beautiful novel, The Bee-Loud Glade, where his protagonist Finch accepts a job as a decorative hermit on the property of an impossibly wealthy and powerful man named Mr. Crane.

What follows is an allegory for our times, in which we have forsaken human contact and chosen, instead, to communicate without our true voices or with no voices at all. In which we ARE the avatars we create for ourselves. We have closed off our speech and allowed ourselves to be viewed by others, our privacy stripped away. We have been tempted to believe the beautiful people we see in movies are what we should desire and in desiring them, we recognize our own limitations–our all-too-human smells and unfortunate hairs and dimples.

Though Finch has left the world of technology behind him, he does not really leave it behind, until Mr. Crane loses everything he owns, leaving Finch truly alone for the first time. Then he relies on himself alone and finds that he can, in fact, be self-reliant. It is only when two hikers seek out and find the aged Finch that he realizes the true state of his existence:

I pretend my solitude is isolation, that I’ve erased myself from the world, but I’m more in it than I’ve ever been. Which is to say, not very much, no more and no less than anyone else–we may have a more lasting impact on the world when we break down into nutrients and raw material that nourish a whole chain of life, insects and earthworms and grass, than we ever have when we’re alive. Perhaps that’s the closest any one of us comes to knowing how things fit together.

Ultimately, Finch understands his purpose in the garden. He understands that we can’t return to blissful ignorance. Once connected, we remain connected on this great big garden, planet Earth:

Maybe self-reliance was never what I was meant for, and sustainability was: can I build something and have it continue without me, can my good works outlast my good life?

This book will make you think. You will consider you reliance on social media, your inability to truly trust in the regenerative aspect of nature. You will see your own frailties and desires in Finch. Finally, you will see what Finch sees despite his failing eyes and that is that we are not often at our best when we are alone. We are social animals, after all, who need the warmth and love of others like us to help us reach  true sustainability and self-worth.

It is a beautiful book. I hope you will read it.

Yesterday, as I was getting ready to board a ferry that would take me away from New York State, the world of my youth, and back into New England, the world of my adulthood, a song came on the radio. It was the song “Dust in the Wind,” by Kansas. This is notable because it was a song I dearly loved in 1978-1979 which is when I met my dear friends who attended my reading at my undergraduate alma mater, SUNY Plattsburgh, on Tuesday night. To me, hearing that song felt like a coincidence, a sign. An indication, that I was traveling once again from my childhood to my adulthood. Later, after I had left the ferry, another song came on. That song was “Heaven” by Brian Adams. Again, this song is significant because it was the song I sang over and over until we remembered the words with that same group of friends. Indeed, it was the song we chose for our prom theme. The coincidence felt important to me and I cried.

I left on a trip worrying about the outcome. I came home from a trip grateful for all of the people who have stood beside me in my life, bringing me to this moment of satisfaction and pride. You are standing beside me and I beside you. Once we are connected, that connection never leaves.

What it is is this: you are not alone in this world. There are people who have been there with you throughout your life, watching you grow, inspiring you, teaching you, bringing you up. There are people who knew who you were and who have witnessed the adult you’ve become, but inside you still is that child open to possibility, able to believe that a seemingly simple coincidence has significance.

*** disclaimer: brace yourself for this video as it is v. 1970s. ***

By the time the bird flew away I was nearly in tears. There was something deeply moving about this small creature taking a moment of pleasure. I realized that I had a part in the bird’s moment of peace by refilling the bird bath each day.

Right now, I am that robin and each kind word, each review, each time someone tells me something new about my book, I feel myself dipping into the water of the bath and shaking out my feathers. You are the ones who are filling up that bath each day. Thank you!

This has been another great week for me, beginning with a quick visit to New York City to read at Sunday Salon NYC. My thanks to Sara and Nita (wonderful hosts!), to my fellow readers (all fabulous), and, most of all, to everyone who attended for providing such a warm audience. Danny Goodman kindly posted some photos of the event.

Tuesday night, a dream came true for me when I got to see The Avett Brothers. I’ve loved their music since the first time I heard it seven years ago. Their live show exceeded my high expectations. My hands are actually bruised from clapping. My husband reluctantly joined me but left the show a fan. A thrilling night.

My promotional efforts for Echolocation are winding down, but this next week is going to be a big one.

On Tuesday, I’m going back up home to upstate New York, where I’ll be reading at SUNY Plattsburgh. I’m already feeling emotional about it because it’s a coming back to where my writing life began. It will be a miracle if I get through the reading without crying. For more details, please read this wonderful feature in the Press Republican: Plattsburgh State Alumna Returns with Debut Novel.

On Friday, April 27th, I’m thrilled to be lecturing at Clark University. My lecture will be unrelated to Echolocation. Instead, I’ll be speaking to a fiction class about flash fiction, which was the focus of my master’s thesis.

Friday night begins the Newburyport Literary Festival. I’ll be heading over to the Dinner with the Authors where I hope to hang with Victoria Barrett, Andrew Scott, Matthew Quick, and Alicia Bessette.

On Saturday, April 28th, I’ve got two events at the festival:

Authors and Editors: Working Together, Saturday 1:00 PM, Unitarian Universalist Church

What is the relationship between author and book editor? How closely will you work with an editor before your book is published? What is the process from acceptance to publication? What’s the difference between an independent and a traditional publisher? Ann Kingman of Books on the Nightstand will moderate this panel of authors and editors from independent and traditional publishers, including author Matthew Dicks and his editor Brenda Copeland from St. Martin’s Press and author Myfanwy Collins and her editor Victoria Barrett of Engine Books.

And:

Echolocation by Myfanwy Collins Saturday 4:00 PM, The Book Rack:

In this stunning debut novel, Myfanwy Collins lays bare the hearts of three lost women called together by their own homing instincts in a season that will change their lives–and the place they call home–forever. Echolocation is literary fiction at its finest. Listen to Myfanwy Collins read from this harrowing tale of love and loss.

If you are in the area, I do hope you’ll drop by the festival. There are tons of events for young and old. It’s a reader’s paradise. I’m so proud to live in a town that not only sustains two independent bookstores but also hosts this wonderful, vibrant festival.

As always, thanks for reading.

Wild is Strayed’s nonfiction account of her journey, as she made her way up California and through Oregon, seeking not only enlightenment but also solace. Without ever saying it explicitly, what Strayed needed was a respite from the unrelenting grief she felt over the loss her mother five years before her journey began.

And while there was no big revelatory moment in which Strayed realizes what losing her mother means to her, what there is is a serious of little deaths and drifting aways, as Strayed peals away the layers of her grief and builds a newer, thicker skin to cover her original skin, worn raw by her own attempts to medicate herself through self-loathing.

What Strayed did on her journey up the PCT was remarkable for anyone, let alone a young woman unarmed and alone. But what she has done with Wild is even more remarkable; indeed, she has shared a narrative in which we all see ourselves, laid bare and bleating. Out of Strayed’s hardships, she shows us our own footsteps forward. With her, we cross the bridge and find ourselves stronger for having traveled with her.

There was much that I personally identified with in this narrative, but I suspect that so many who read it, find that as well. Strayed captures with heartbreaking perfection what it is to lose your mother when all your life you felt your biggest job was to keep her alive, and what you learn in letting go of that overwhelming grief is how to mother yourself.

Strayed does not take it easy on her readers. She will make you cry. In fact, I did not simply weep silently into a tissues as I read; I sobbed. Loudly. I finished the book just this morning on a packed bus to New York and actually had to lock myself into the bathroom so that no one would hear me as I sobbed. She will also make you laugh. She will entertain you and teach you things. In the end, you will awe and relief at her survival. You will be changed.

Wild is a gift to us all. I hope you will read it.

I saw myself as I’d never seen myself before. I try not to look at photos of myself from those years. When I do, I see someone who is furious and alone. I see someone who is sometimes mean to people because she hates herself so very much. I see someone who feels a lot of shame. I see someone who is frightened. I see someone who is lost.

For a variety of reasons, I was lost and I was alone. I was lost and I was alone and I was sixty pounds heavier than I am now and I wore a lot of makeup and I had terrible hair and I drank a lot and I used drugs and ate food that was bad for me and I hated myself and I did not in any way believe that any of the dreams I had for myself were ever, ever achievable.

When I saw those pictures, I was right back in the moment of feeling trapped within my body and my skin and my mind. I was right back to feeling hopeless. I was right back to not understanding why life is worth living.

In the 26 years since those photos were taken, I’ve found a voice within myself that will not let me be broken in the same way that I was then. The voice was always there inside me, waiting to come out and rescue me from myself. And so to be reminded of what I was and what wasn’t at 18 can only momentarily break me and those dreams I didn’t believe would ever come true in 1986, are all happening now, mostly because I opened myself and let people guide me and accepted help when it was offered to me, and mostly let myself believe I was worthy of being loved. I am.

As for help and gratitude, I offer my thanks to Patricia Henley, a writing warrior who is beautiful in every way. This week, I was blown away and deeply moved to read Patricia thoughts on Echolocation. Here is just a smidge:

The language and lyricism of Myfanwy Collins’ prose never takes over; it reveals her tenderness toward the characters and the land. She is skilled at the puzzle of plot; she is skilled at poetry. This novel is a fine debut, portending more to come.

To have a writer I admire so much say such loving things about my work is an enormous gift. Thank you, Patricia! And thank you also to Ron Slate for his wonderful blog: On the Seawall.

My thanks also to Sharon Shaloo, executive director of the Massachusetts Center for the Book. I was fortunate to meet Sharon at AWP in Chicago, early in March. Today, she hosted me as a guest on her First Fridays webinar with the MLS. It was my first-ever webinar and a whole lot of fun. Sharon runs things beautifully and is a passionate advocate for the book and I truly appreciate her support. Thank you, Sharon! Thank you also to Scott Kehoe who is the technical wizard at the MLS.

On Sunday, I’m thrilled to be reading at Sunday Salon NYC. I will post more about this event next week after it’s happened, but if you’re in the area, please do stop by.

On Tuesday, I’m dragging my husband to see The Avett Brothers with me. I have big time love for them and can’t believe I get to see them live. I know it’s going to be a great show.

The week after next is going to be a crazy flurry of activity, kicking off with old-home week, when I travel up to read at my undergrad alma mater, SUNY Plattsburgh. More on this later!

As always, thank you for reading.

Reblogged from hotpanthers:

Just One Question is a new series in which I pose just one question to a Hot Pants author about their work. In the past, I have featured Myfanwy Collins and Ethel Rohan.  In this episode, I ask Scott Garson about his collection American Gymnopédies. Recently re-issued by Lit Pub Books, the book was praised by Jim Heynen as a “wonderfully original work.”

Read more… 521 more words

Love this.

Reblogged from Boston Writers Review:

Congratulations to Newtonville Books on their new location. Can't wait to visit.

I’m using grass roots to talk about my Echolocation launch. Since the end of February, I’ve held readings, signings, discussions, chats, lectures. I’ve been interviewed. I’ve blogged. I’ve guest blogged. I’ve been reviewed. I’ve reviewed. I’ve grabbed hold of my book’s destiny and run with it. And each pair of hands my book has landed into as a result of this work, will hopefully land it into another set of hands.

My sincere hope is that you feel that this book is not being shoved down your throat from some large machine, because it’s not. It’s coming to you from me and from the people. It’s coming to you from an independent press, Engine Books. The goal is not wealth. The goal is telling our stories, sharing them. The goal is spreading our roots.

In this, I am not alone. My friends, my family, and complete strangers have reached out to help me launch this book. I’m so grateful to you all. Every day I feel like I’m running as fast as I can and you’re right beside me, holding my hand, keeping up.

Five years ago, just before my baby was born, a bunch of women writers I knew mostly online threw a virtual baby shower for me  in which they not only sent me generous gifts, but also shared their advice on motherhood and children. It was a complete surprise that left me feeling utterly delighted and quite loved. I will never forget one of the gifts Kathy Fish gave me; it was a story she’d written called, “Bless this Child.” Never published before or since. Generously, she gave me her beautiful words and they are extremely close to my heart still and forever more.

That is what she has done for you, too, dear reader, in this beautiful collection of short fiction. Within, you will find stories that will touch you, leave you breathless, make you laugh, make your heart ache. You will run the gamut of emotions–I promise you that–and you will find yourself living in the moment of these stories as filled with despair and hope as many of the characters are, waiting for change that may never come, but always waiting, never giving up. Just like the narrator in “Breathless,” you will have hope:

I’ll take Marta and move back to Ohio, closer to my family. Lynn can join us when school’s out. I’ll get a better job and we’ll buy a house there. Something modest, but comfortable. In summer we’ll buy fresh strawberries and we’ll eat them on the roof, under the draping branches of some enormous tree.