Ralph Josiah Bardsley's Blog

I recently wrote a piece revisiting one of the classics - Dancer from the Dance. Check it out on The Provincetown Independent https://provincetownindependent.org/a...

Hi folks - Continuing on with the experiment. Here is the next chapter of Music in Berlin. All comments welcomed.

New Orleans, cont...

My mother finally graduated from college after what seemed to me like a lifetime of night courses. After a brief period where she was very nervous about everything, there was a moment of jubilation when she became some sort of assistant working for one of the great big oil companies over in the business district of New Orleans. I never saw the place she worked until I was much, much older. But she became a new person then. She started to have work clothes – nice outfits that she wore very carefully – always putting them on after she finished her coffee in the morning so that she would not spill anything on herself. Her work clothes were meticulously hung up in her closet the moment she came home and every two weeks she would take a great chunk of them out of the closet on hangers and bring them to the cleaners. I was not allowed to touch her after she’d gotten dressed up in the morning or until she had changed after work. So she hugged me before heading back to her bedroom to get ready for the day. I say her bedroom, because by that time my father was so seldom home anymore that it could hardly be called theirs. When he was home he slept on the couch, then later I think after he had lost his key or maybe it was stolen, he just propped himself up on the front porch and slept there. I never asked my mother why she didn’t make him another key. They spoke very little to each other then, and at that point everything about my father made my mother angry.

By the time my father died, he had already left us in most of the ways that a man can leave his life and his family. He had stopped coming home with any regularity. We hardly knew him when he did show up. He had lost most of his teeth and his hair was matted and grey, even though he wasn’t even forty.

The morning we learned of his death a policeman came to our door. It was early, but still, my Mother was already in her work clothes. I remember exactly what she looked like that day as she walked down the long hallway of our shotgun house, the ancient floorboards creaking beneath her high heals. She had on a black and white print dress made out of light cotton fabric that swayed with her gait as she walked. It was belted at her waist with a thin red leather belt. The shade of the belt matched her lipstick. Her hair was short in those days, just down to her shoulders, light brown with streaks of blond throughout.

“Is that the doorbell?” she asked me as she walked into the living room at the front of the house. I was sitting on the couch, staring at the television with a bowl of Cheerios in front of me. I shrugged. I had barely heard the sound and I wouldn’t have recognized it anyway. In my ten years, no one had ever once rung our doorbell.

“Oh,” I heard her say as she opened the door. I looked up and caught a glimpse of the blue police uniform as she stepped out onto the porch and shut the door behind her. That caught my attention and I got up and went to the door. But as I opened it to join her outside, she turned around and looked at me. “Zach, go back inside,” she said, kissing me on my forehead. “I’ll be back in in a minute, honey.” She pulled my head to her waist in a quick hug before turning me around and pushing me gently back through the door. She had never hugged me in her work clothes before.

I watched through the lace curtains of the front window, ducking behind the ancient couch that had always been in the front of our living room. She sat down on the porch bench and the officer sat down next to her. They were there for a long time. The officer eventually placed a hand gently on her shoulder, and then finally stood up and slowly walked off the porch and down the street to a beat up squad car. When he had been gone for a few minutes, I went back to the door and slowly opened it, looking around the porch and at my mother to make sure the coast was clear.

She was sitting there, just staring out at the street. She was such a contrast to look at on that porch – her bright new modern dress, perched against the backdrop of the faded clapboards of our house with their chipped white paint. The ancient bougainvillea plants draped over the edges of the porch, framing everything in a bright pink that seemed to dramatically contradict the mood of that morning.

“What happened, Mama?” I asked, still not sure if it was safe to step out onto the porch.

She looked over to me and tried to smile, but the result was little more than a flat frown. She gestured for me to come over and sit next to her on the bench, and so I did. We were in the spot that I used to sit in with my dad. But the spot felt altogether different that day. She stroked my head gently, brushing the long strands of my hair to one side. I needed a haircut then, but I hated to go to the barber.

“It’s Papa, isn’t it?” I finally asked her.

She nodded and looked down at me.

“What happened?”

“Zach,” she seemed to come awake then. She turned to face me and gently placed a hand on my cheek. “This is not going to be easy to understand, but your Papa isn’t coming home anymore. There has been…” She hesitated a moment and took a deep breath before continuing. “There’s been some sort of accident. It’s just going to be you and me now.”

I looked up to see the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. It was at that point that I knew she loved him. For so long I had only seen them doing battle with each other. The look of exasperation was constantly on her face, the look of vacancy more and more often on his. It had been forever since I had seen them close. But there must have been something between them, some love that brought them together and kept them there. I saw it that day in my mother’s eyes and I have never forgotten it.

She changed that day. Or, rather I should say that the change in her was completed on that day. She had been making a better life for herself and for us – her nights spent at college courses and then afterwards, working late – all that was to make sure that we had a future. I think – no, I know – that she’d originally wanted that for all three of us. But my father was cut from a different cloth and for whatever reason he had decided long before his death, that he couldn’t make that transition with us.

Hi folks - Continuing on with the experiment. Here is the next chapter of Music in Berlin. All comments welcomed.

New Orleans Late 1970s
Chapter One


My father drank himself to death on the streets of New Orleans the summer I turned ten years old. The exact mechanics of his death are still a mystery. Officially, he died of a blow to the back of the head, but nobody knew for certain whether he had stumbled and killed himself or if someone had helped him along the way with a quick unexpected thump. He hadn’t had a wallet for a long time, so the fact that he was found without one didn’t matter. His one prized possession, his fiddle, was found in its case by his side. If he was robbed, they didn’t get much, maybe a little cash that he had earned from playing on the street that night, nothing more. Robbery and murder or accidental death, the New Orleans Police didn’t seem to care either way, and my mother and I doubted we would ever find out what truly happened to him.

There were only two of us left then. With him gone, my mother and I didn’t know how to act; we were, to some extent, strangers both trying to adjust to a new life. We made the motions of being alive. We moved around the house as if things were normal. But our movements were not real. Everything we did felt like we were pretending. I did my homework. She made dinner and breakfast and went to work shortly before I left for school each day. We said our prayers together at night and then she tucked me in to bed, each and every evening. Even though I was old enough to tuck myself in, I was secretly glad that she still did it.

I think grief is different for children. Even today I’m still trying to figure out how I felt in those days and weeks and months immediately after his death. I know I missed him terribly in my own way. But it was a strange and distant feeling, not anything like the grief I’ve worked through in my adult life. I remember it instead like a feeling of dull vacancy and detachment from everything and everyone around me. I knew my mother was suffering, but I didn’t feel anything for her. I didn’t feel bad or upset. She was just there. It was probably for the best that I didn’t acknowledge her pain. She was trying to hide her grief and it might have made things worse if I felt sorry for her. She kept things moving – everything right on a schedule as if nothing had happened. But everything about her was hollow.

In the weeks and months after my father’s death, my mother would alternate between talking about him as a talented musician, a genius, a free spirit, and describing him as a street urchin, a beggar who made his living on the streets of New Orleans with a ratty old fiddle. But she must have loved him at one point because she married him when she wasn’t supposed to, and because after he was dead, she had a way of looking like she missed him when she talked about him.


My father was not always drunk, especially in the beginning. He was kind and soft-spoken – unless he was singing or playing the fiddle. Then he sparkled; then he was lithe and light and effervescent. The music brought out a very different side of him, as if that part of him lived on its own, separate from the rest of the things that animated him.

Our home was filled with the sounds of old Dixie jazz and Cajun waltzes. He played from the moment he woke up to the time he left the house, songs like Black Eyed Suzy and Orange Blossom Special. He never learned to read music, but he had lived his whole life with his fiddle, making his way from the deep bayous of Plaquemines Parish, down at the toe of the boot of Louisiana. It was a different world there, a world where things were mysterious and deliberate in ways unimaginable to my mother and me. It was down by Chawasha Indian land, where the sky and the gulf meet the swamp and the greens and blues go on forever beneath a warm breeze that smells faintly of mud and muck and crawfish.

My father was always saying how he was going to bring me back home to visit with his people, his mamma and her kin. He talked about how happy they would be to see me and that they’d want to show me the secrets of the bayou, the low lying islands thick with rogue persimmon and orange trees, left over and forgotten from the time when Plaquemines supplied the world with citrus fruit. He’d talk about alligators the size of pick up trucks lying in wait under the stillness of cypress trees and Spanish moss.

When he talked to me about his home, his accent would get so thick that I could hardly understand what he was saying. To this day I can still hear his words and the way his voice wrapped gently around the consonants and vowels, slurring into one another in something that sounded like a cross between a southern drawl and a French accent. If he rambled long enough he would sometimes even slip into the French Patois that he had spoken as a boy. But it never bothered me. I loved to listen to him.

If my mother were around she would rouse him out of his story telling. “Jerome,” she would say, her voice gentle in the early days, “don’t go telling him things like that.”

He would look up from me to her and shake his head. “And what should I tell this one about where he comes from, Na-na?” He was the only one who ever called my mother by that nickname. Everyone else called her Nan or even worse, her full name, Nanette. Na-na had been what her parents had called her, according to my father, and what he had called her when they were younger.

She would roll her eyes at him and say, “It’s not about where he’s from. It’s about where he’s going.”

He would look at me and say “Your Mama, she’s not proud of where we come from, here-”

“Where you come from,” she’d correct him. “I don’t come from the swamp.”


I used to listen to him play all the time and as soon as I was big enough to pick up a bow and fiddle, I grabbed his and tried to run that bow across those strings only to find that it made a horrible screech.

“Oh no,” my father laughed when he heard me do that. “Zach, you tee one, come see.” He meant for me to bring the fiddle to him so I did and he hoisted me up on his leg as he played and sang softly for me.

He always held the fiddle gently, as if he were lifting a carton of eggs out of a sack of gravel. Those hands, even after they began to shake from the booze, were sturdy and determined when handling the fiddle. He’d get a look of dead seriousness as he went about tuning the knobs on the end of the instrument, tightening the strings, plucking each one until it sounded precisely the way he wanted it to. Then he would draw back the bow and that look of seriousness on his face would melt into an expression of pure joy in the seconds before the music began. It was as if he were hearing the song in his head before he brought it to life on those strings. He and his fiddle were one and everything else in the world disappeared.

Sitting there listening to him, I let the music fill me up. I let it bring me out to the bayous that he came from.

Even though I’d never been down to the fringes of Plaquemines Parish, I could see it all crystal clear in my mind, just as he’d described it, when he played. Green marshes and rugged islands, ragged fingers reaching out into the shallow blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, coming to life in the music.

His music was a mélange of sounds, the product of hundreds of years of people handing songs down generation after generation – a great conglomeration of French ballads, Irish jigs and Indian chants. He couldn’t read music and I think that was better, because there was no way to capture on sheet music what he played – it was free, it had a life of its own that sprung from him. I learned only a fraction of what he knew but even now, if I were to pick up a violin – or fiddle –my first inclination would be to draw back the bow to the sliding, fluid notes of my early days.


But my mother was not pleased to see how much I had taken to the fiddle. To her there was too much of the swamp in that instrument. Unlike my father, she did not come from the bayous. She had grown up in New Orleans’ Garden District, raised in a great big brick mansion, the kind of home with floor-to-ceiling windows and a front porch that seemed to roll on forever, surrounded by banana trees and soft, tropical flowers. Her father was a professor of classical music at Tulane and she was brought up on a steady diet of Mozart and Brahms.

I found out later in life that she had fought her parents tirelessly in her pursuit of my father. She was rebellious and a romantic when she was younger – two things that she fought tirelessly to hide from me. When my father was young, I guess he was handsome with a vague flavor of danger about him. But my mother’s parents had a specific life in mind for her, and it did not include marrying a fiddle player from the swamp. They made that clear through endless threats and over a series of yelling matches that were the talk of the Garden District gossips for months. Finally she left home and married her fiddle player and never looked back. Whatever words had passed between her and her parents were set in stone. She never spoke to them again after she married and I never met them. But years later, with a son of her own, their values re-emerged in her and she was determined that I should have some balance in my musical tastes.

So they’d made a deal, those two. My mother would take me to the orchestra and the ballet as often as she could afford it and my father could teach me the fiddle. She had tried to get him to teach me different kinds of music, but of course he couldn’t – or he wouldn’t. He was stubborn through and through, and he only taught me the songs he knew and loved, and my mother never wanted to hear me play them.


Learning from him was like listening to stories; his lessons were easy and playful. Most days he would go and sit out on the deck with his chicory coffee at whatever time he woke up, and I would grab the fiddle and stand just inside the screen door, waiting for his eyes to open up full.

“That you there, tee Zach?” He’d smile and look out into the street.

“Yeah Papa,” I’d say, still inside the door.

“Well, come out here, see.” He’d look back at me as I pushed the creaky screen door open. “I see you got that fiddle today. Well, let me see that. What are we gonna play, eh?”

He pulled me close to him on the bench and placed the fiddle in my hands, leaning behind me to position my fingers on the neck of the instrument, and with his right hand he would help me draw down the bow.

“See here,” he said. “Hear that long slow soft sound, that’s the journey down from way up north. When our folks were still trying to find a place to call home. They were still finding their way to the bayous.” He would laugh.

“Don’t the songs have any words, Papa?” I would ask.

“Oh yeah, Zach.” He would laugh. “Sure some of them do.” Then he moved his fiddle, down from under his chin, tucking it into his shoulder, and he drew back and started another song, this time singing the words along with the music.

Those lessons would go on and on for hours. In my mind’s eye, I could see the ragged clutch of men and women searching for some place to call home, and at last coming up the great big Mississippi river. Finally, his coffee cup long since empty and sitting on the porch beside the bench, we would get up to go out to the Quarter to play. When I was four and a half years old he came home one day with a second fiddle for me. It instantly became my most treasured item. It’s still the most important thing I own.


As much as I loved my father’s music, my mother’s influence was at work in my young brain as well. My father had taught me to pick up songs by ear, so while he was out I would practice the songs I had heard at the orchestra and the ballet. It wasn’t that I was a virtuoso – far from it. But I could figure out the basics of what I had heard and what I couldn’t quite get, I improvised on my own, combining some of the bits and pieces of my father’s music in with what I could remember of, say, a Bach piece.

One time I played one of those loosely reconstructed classical songs for my Papa when we were sitting out on the porch and my Mama wasn’t home. I drew the bow across my fiddle as if I was going to launch into some fast two-step, but then I surprised him. He sat up as he listened and he got a very serious look in his eyes as he watched me.

When I was done he said, “Zach, where did you learn that one, child?”

“I heard it at the symphony, out with Mama.”

He took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead. “You have a gift, tee one. Do you know that? A gift.”

“Should I play it for Mama?” I asked him.

He thought for a minute, then shook his head slowly. “Some day, Zach. But I don’t think today.”

“Does it need more work?”

“It’s perfect, tee one, perfect.” He put an arm around me and drew me to his chest and pulled me tight. “Just like you.”

“Then why won’t she like it?”

He sighed deeply as he let me go. “You know what? I’m sure she would love to hear it.” He forced a brighter look onto his face. “Let’s arrange a little concert for you out here on the porch tonight? What do you say?”

“Really? A concert?”

“Absolutely. I’ll talk to your Mama when she gets home and we can set it all up.”

But the concert never happened. My mama had to work late that night. Papa waited later than usual before he headed out for the evening. But before long it was too late and he had to go. I tried to stay up for my Mama that night by myself, but I fell asleep before she came home. I woke up the next day tucked into my own bed with my fiddle put away in its case.

So, I've been in quarantine for about three weeks now, and while there are many things I miss about the old normal, I have been doing a fair bit of writing. I decided that I'm going to post a series of chapters here for a project I've been working on called Music in Berlin. This is a little bit of an experiment. This is a (very) lightly edited draft; it's nowhere near a completed manuscript. I want to hear from you - whatever you think of this. So please post your feedback - the good, the bad and the ugly :-)


Music in Berlin
By Ralph Josiah Bardsley
Installment #1

Prelude: 1983

Lisle shuddered as she walked through the open door of the apartment. It was nothing spectacular, nothing that she wouldn’t have seen in a hundred other apartment buildings all over East Berlin – the same sterile cement walls with bright orange carpets and deep blue linoleum – a glossy 1960s feel to all of it, with lithographic pictures on the wall of country scenes – one of a cow in a pasture and the other of a trail through some lush green forest. But the place had been torn apart – the rayon couch had been slashed open, foam spilling out its seat and back cushions. The desk was turned over, its contents spread across the floor. Instinctively she knew that something had gone very, very wrong.

“Why did you bring me here, Helen?” she asked the woman standing next to her.

The difference between the women was stark. Lisle, wore a deep brown pencil skirt with a light green polyester blouse. The tailoring was sharp and her clothes fit her well, accentuating her thin figure. Helen, in contrast had a baggy grey skirt and a plaid blouse that almost looked like a man’s shirt. There was a thin film of sweat across her forehead and everything about her looked slightly disheveled.

“Is this your apartment?” Lisle asked her. The two had been close once, years ago. They had grown up in the same building, not long after the war. But they had not seen each other much in the years since Helen had gotten married and Lisle had moved off to her own life.

“No,” Helen shook her head as she spoke. “It belongs to two professors – a husband and wife. We live upstairs.”

“Why are we here? What happened to this place?”

Helen looked around her as if she expected somebody or something to come out of the walls. A fear blazed in her eyes as she struggled to speak. “They’re gone. The police came in this morning looking for them. It was awful, Lisle. I was upstairs and I could hear them searching the apartment. They – the professors – were both here and I could hear the screams.” Helen trembled as she spoke and Lisle shuttered. Lisle and Helen both knew too well the stories of what the secret police were like.

“We really shouldn’t be here then.” Lisle took a step towards the door. “What if they come back? What if the place was bugged and they’re listening to us now?”

“There is a boy,” Helen whispered.

“A what?”

“The professors, they had a boy - just a little boy, only about seven. But he was away this morning at school when the police came.”

“Oh my god. What happened to him?”

Helen’s face went rigid but she didn’t speak. Instead she motioned for Lisle to follow her down the hall towards the single bedroom.

“They didn’t have a family apartment, just a single bedroom. The boy slept on a cot that they pulled out from the closet every night. I don’t think the police realized there was a child. Or else they might have left one of the parents or at least had someone here to take care of him when he returned from school this afternoon. But there was nobody. So the boy came to my door when his parents weren’t here to let him in.” Helen looked directly at Lisle.

“Where is he now?” Lisle asked.

“Still upstairs. He’s reading a book in my living room.”
The gears in Lisle’s head were starting to click. She turned away from Helen and walked the length of the small hallway back to the combination living room and dining room. She took in the violence of the scene; she imagined the sounds of things smashing as the STASI tore through the place, the shouting and, she was sure, the physical violence as well. The police were known for that.

“Lisle,” Helen said. She had followed Lisle silently. “I need you to take the boy before anyone figures out that he is here.”

Lisle nodded. She was not entirely taken off guard by the request. She knew Helen had asked her here for a reason, and that reason had slowly revealed itself as she took in what had happened here.

“Helen, you know I’m not in a good position to take care of a child. I run a night club. I live upstairs from it. I’m working all sorts of crazy hours – I don’t get to bed until early in the mornings. I don’t know the first thing about children. Plus, people will come looking for him eventually. Doesn’t he have grandparents? Any other relatives?”

Helen shook her hands. “Lisle, both parents were orphans – they lost all their family in the war. If they come back, I’ll make sure they know where to find you and the child. But right now, there is no one for him. I can’t take care of him. People will know and if the police do come back here looking for him I can’t imagine what they’ll do. At the very least they’ll put him in an orphanage. He’s such a sweet boy and I can’t bare to think what might happen to him there.”

“Someone will adopt him. Someone who can take care of a child, and who doesn’t live above a night club.”

“Lisle, when have I ever called on you for help?”

Lisle shook her head. “Never.”

“Exactly,” Helen said. “I’m asking you for help now. You can say this child came from a family relation in the south; that you are taking care of him while your sister is recovering. Please Lisle, I don’t want to see this boy put away in some state home.”

Lisle took a deep breath and pursed her lips together. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just don’t think I can do this. I can’t provide for a child. I barely have enough to keep myself from starving. It would always be hand to mouth and what will that be like for him?”

“It will be like it is for all of us, Lisle.”

“But I can’t. I wouldn’t know the first thing about looking after a child.”

“Lisle, he can’t stay here. It’s only a matter of time before the police come back looking for him. I can’t take him. I’ve already got three of my own, and they’ll find him – they’ll certainly search the entire building. And who knows what the STASI will do to him – to make his parents talk. A state orphanage would be the best case scenario.”

At that moment the floor creaked and both women looked up towards the door of the apartment to see a little boy standing there. His silhouette was short and slender and barely blocked the light at his waist. He still wore his school uniform from earlier in the day, and he stood staring at the women, a blank look in his eyes. It was impossible to know how long he had been there.

“Do you know when my parents are coming home?” The boy’s voice was small and delicate, barely more than a soft whisper.

“Oh, sweetie,” Lisle said. “We’re just trying to figure that out.”

He trudged over to where the two women stood in the center of the room. “The police were here, weren’t they?” He looked up at Helen and then at Lisle. “Are they coming back for me?”

“Oh, sweetie.” Lisle was at a loss for words. “You’re going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right.” She reached out and put a hand on his head. He leaned into her and she wrapped her arm around him. He was waist high to her and so slight she had to keep her arm from slipping off of his tiny shoulder.

“They’re gone, aren’t they?” He asked, his voice muffled in the embrace with Lisle.

“They’re gone for now,” Lisle said. “Maybe they will come back some day. But right now, we need to get you somewhere safe and sound. Would you like to come stay with me…” She realized mid-sentence that she did not know the boy’s name. “My name is Lisle, but you’re going to have call me aunt Lisle for a while. Can you tell me your name?”

“I’m Anders,” he said.

“Anders,” she repeated. “That’s a beautiful name.”

“I’m named after my grandfather.”

“I bet he’s proud of you.”

“He’s dead. He died in the war.”

“I see. Well,” Lisle took a deep breath, as if contemplating what she was about to say next. “Let’s go and get your stuff, then you can come with me until we find out what happened with your parents.”

“Okay,” he said and slowly withdrew himself from her embrace. “My room is this way.”

Lisle and Helen worked quickly and quietly to pack the boy’s belongings into a small suitcase. There was not much, some clothing and a small stuffed bear that the boy insisted he carry in his own pocket.

“What will you tell his school?” Lisle asked.

Helen shrugged. “I’ll tell them that the government came and relocated the family. You should wait a few weeks and then enroll him in the school near you.”

Lisle nodded her head. “I may be calling you for advice.”

Helen smiled. “Thank you. I know he’ll be safe with you, Lisle.”

Hi all - Anyone interested in checking out a few of the wonderful titles from Bold Stokes Books should head over to their website this weekend - www.boldstrokesbooks.com. They are having a flash sale with 15% off using this code: BSBWELL

Blanket sales from the publisher don't happen that often so I wanted to pass along.

Of course - I would recommend Brothers, The Photographer's Truth or Careful Heart... But there is a whole wonderful catalog there beyond that.

Happy Reading!

Last week I finished reviewing my galleys for my latest book. As I sent them back to the publisher I had that mix of feelings I only seem to get when I’m wrapping up a book – that combination of accomplishment mixed with dread. What did I miss? Do I like the story enough? Will anybody read it? Will it be as good as the last book? Thank God it’s done.

But, for all of the gut-wrenching feelings associated with the debut of a new book, writing has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. It’s a marathon of sorts, and that feeling of having completed something is always amazing. But deeper than that is the sense of sharing something – sharing a story that people can dive into and experience. Some people will love it and others will hate it – experiencing the difference of opinion is another plus of being an author. I love reading the criticism as well as the positive reviews – it makes me think about my work in new ways and it somehow always feels like I’m growing.

This latest book, A Careful Heart, was a weird and exhausting book to write. The characters live through things that I hope my friends and family don’t have to experience. They come through the challenges together though, and that makes me happy. A Careful Heart was fun and funny and heartbreaking to write, and I already miss the characters I came to know and love in writing the book.

There is a blankness to life after finishing a book. Every morning for a year or so, I sat down with the same set of characters and that storyline, and for a couple of hours that was my life. And now it’s over. In the days after finishing a novel, I sit down at my computer in the morning and write other things – emails, blog updates, Facebook posts. But that life of the last story is missing and everything seems static… until the next book begins.

This week was an exciting week for book reviews. @LambdaLiterary did a nice review of The Photographer's Truth. So cool to get noticed by such a fantastic organization.

Check out the review here:
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/reviews...

It's true that you can't judge a book by its cover... but the cover is definitely part of the fun!

Here is the cover of my next book, A Careful Heart, coming out next spring from Bold Strokes Books (pre-order here: https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/book...).

A Careful Heart tells the story of two best friends who grow up in a small town together, and how they face the challenges of life and love when things don't always go their way.

Today was a pretty awesome day and it's only 6am where I am. I learned that my debut novel, Brothers, has been nominated as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. I found out when my editor (Jerry Wheeler, you are amazing) posted a link. I start today so thrilled, humbled and incredibly thankful for this.

http://www.lambdaliterary.org/feature...

When I read a writer's bio, I usually want to know why they write - what makes them sit down at a keyboard and what do they hope to accomplish. When I ask myself those same questions, it's more difficult to answer. I've always loved writing - in any capacity. For a long time I got enough fulfillment out of the writing assignments I did for work. I've written white papers on software, airlines, mobile technology and advertising practices. These were (and continue to be) great assignments and I absolutely love them - I get to learn about all sorts of cool new things all the time. But eventually I wanted to do something more personal. So I started a blog called BrandFiller. I recruited several contributors and we had a lot of fun for a year or so writing short form articles and posts about everything from hockey to fashion. Let me say - for me blogging was A LOT of work. It was rewarding, but I wanted to do something bigger - something that expressed bits and pieces of my own life and feelings in a work of fiction. So that's when I decided to retire the blog and try a novel. I never expected anyone would publish it. But the team over at Bold Strokes Books saw my manuscript for Brothers and decided to take a chance on me. You can be the judge of if they were right, when the book comes out on December 1, 2015. So what makes me sit down and write now? I guess just the opportunity to express myself and share that expression.

My writing comes from a combination of experience and imagination. My family - especially my husband Dana - is a big part of my inspiration. They're always pushing me to do more and I love them for it. I also love to travel, and I manage to work the details from the places I visit into the stories and the books I write. Someone once told me that the only true value you ever get for your money is travel - and I couldn't agree more.