Hello and happy 2016! It’s been a while, and I’ve missed you!
My blog has been quiet while I spent a good part of 2015 hunkered down writing my next book, Fierce on the Page. It’s coming to bookshelves near you in July from Writer’s Digest Books, and I’m excited to tell you more about that soon.
Today, what has me totally jazzed is an introduction. I’d like you to meet Jill Kelly, a friend, colleague, author, wise woman and creative spirit who has become a very important person in my life in the last year. The more I know about Jill, the more I want everyone I care about to be in her orbit, too.
Jill is editor, author, and painter. She works as a text and developmental editor and coach for writers and other creatives. Through a disciplined process that she’s been cultivating since 2000, Jill has written a memoir, four novels, and two nonfiction books, one on creativity and one on sugar addiction.
I just finished Jill’s novel When Your Mother Doesn’t. The story immediately entered my bloodstream at the evening rest stop where a very surprising transaction launches the novel’s journey. Through decades of unspooling history, secrets, pain, and transformation, the novel showed me deep in my bones what becomes of daughters when their mother can’t love them as they need to be loved.
Next on my bedside table is Sober Truths, Jill Kelly’s memoir that tells the stories of how she lost herself through alcoholism and recovered that self in sobriety. When the memoir was a finalist for a prestigious Oregon Book Award for literary excellence, The Oregon Book Award judge had this to say about Sober Truths:
“Forget James Frey. Jill Kelly’s memoir of alcohol addiction and recovery is more believable and, arguably, better written. She doesn’t wallow in self-pity but gives a vivid and honest account of what it means to give up drinking and find the way to a new life. Much of Kelly’s memoir centers on what ordinary life is like after the treatment center and will be valuable reading for anyone looking to deal with on-going recovery issues that present themselves in terms of anxiety, loneliness, and self-doubt. Kelly’s eventual success in learning to deal with her demons is inspiring indeed. Her colorful self-portrait is on the cover of this book, testament to a resurgent creative spirit.” —Barbara Sjoholm, author and founder of Seal Press
Books get read when people love them and share them. And I would love to see Jill Kelly’s books in your hands and then passed on to the readers in your tribe. Jill has generously given me a copy of When Your Mother Doesn’t. If you’d like a copy, share a comment in this post about a book you can’t put down. I’ll draw a winner from the first 10 comments. And if you’d like one of Jill’s other books, she just might send you one directly! Write her at jill at jillkellyauthor dot com to learn more.
Happy reading!
