Acknowledgements

ORIGINS OF HYLA & HOW I FOUND MY WRITING FRIENDS

HYLA Unto the 7th Generation (under a different working title) began in a frenzied reply to an email with a last-minute deadline in the late summer of "the awful year".

My Book Plan  for the course was due at midnight!

The Book Plan included a Synopsis with instructions to "tell the whole story from beginning to end."  

Synopsis?  All I had were:

• Vague ideas about life, death, fate, altruism, and metamorphosis
• One character on "life support" -- I just couldn't get her out of my mind -- a Historian named Gregoria Slen, the last of her kind
• About 27 minutes before I would have to proofread and push the SEND button. . .

This was moment of reckoning for me. My dream of writing a novel and publishing my scruffy manuscript of poetry was still just that – a dream. Then came “the awful year” and the realization that in the midst of the upheaval and personal grief lay a rare opportunity. That summer, I joined Joe Bunting’s The Write Practice enrolling in his 100 Day Book course, and this is the result: Volume 1, 2, and 3 of a single tale that spans 7 generations and has knit my life back together and brought me “writing friends” finer than any my imagination could have summoned to mind.  

These folks welcomed me, took an interest in my work, answered my questions, gently pointed out where my drafts could be improved, and in two unforgettable cases, brilliantly solved scene problems that were entirely beyond my experience and my reach.  

written and the envisioned tale.

In no particular order, but as they come joyfully to mind:

Ann Rapp (Watch for The Boy Who Loved Birds)

“Fancy Nancy” Gee (Watch for Flying Eagles)

Adam Wright (Top Hat) Watch for The Man of the Daggers

Demi LeJeune (Path of Relics: Aether Shard, available on Amazon)

Sandy Juker (Watch for Hidden)

Elizabeth Nettleton (The Illyxium Chronicles, available on Amazon) 

Robert Dyer (Watch for A Small Memory)

Selma Martin (Watch for Days Without Grace)

Meg Hadley Trager (Watch for Murder Most Likely)

Evelyn Puerto (Evelyn’s booklist, 7 books available on Amazon)

Ruthanne Reid (Go, now, to Createit22 to be nourished and inspired)

David Chase (Watch for Rise of a Dread Lord)  

David Safford (FLOOD, available on Amazon)

Lori Paradis (Watch for What Lies Within)

Monica MacKinnon, Monica’s List, 4 books available on Amazon 

John Crotty (Watch for Amer: An American Eagle’s Story)

Robert L. Harrel  Chevalier: A Time for War

Darrell McGuire (Watch for The Tides of Heaven)

John N. King Of Scales and Fur: SHIVA available on Amazon

Hazel Behrens (Watch for The Christmas Plate) 

Susan Perkins (Watch for YET TO BE 

Irene Allison (Watch for Angie’s Song)