An excerpt from my story, The Apple Orchard, in the anthology, You’re Still The One.

For most of my childhood I was poor.

I spent years living in a dismal trailer next to an apple orchard. I have spent years trying to forget those years.

My mother died the day after we made an apple pie.

I left home at sixteen.

I fell in love with a man I met at a waterfall. Something very sad happened.

We broke up. I have never stopped missing him.

I wore used clothing until I was twenty-two.

After college I worked for a high-end retail corporation. My fancy outfits helped me to hide my past from myself. I ended up vice president.

I saved money. When you grow up poor, you fight hard to leave poverty far behind.

I was fired when I told my boss off. She threw her Manolo Blahniks at me.

My dad died an hour after I was fired. We hadn’t spoken in years because he was both scary and abusive. He left me an apple orchard.

It’s hurtful that he chose to leave me apples.

I am using an urn, filled with his ashes, as a doorstop.

My name is Allie Pelletier and that’s the summation of my life.

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I plot big chunks—road signs and what I believe will be the key turning points—and then write, but I definitely end up detouring and rethinking those scenes that I think will be the big scenes.

2. Do you have a favorite place to write or “must haves” while writing?

I need to be able to control my environment as much as possible—space, lighting, noise, amount of time I have to write.  I don’t do well trying to write in bits and pieces, or with lots of activity going on around me.  I can and do write in coffee houses when in a pinch, but then I try to find the quietest place possible, with a corner or wall table with lots of natural lighting and I add my Bose headphones to block out sound.  But honestly, my home office—clean and clear and free of clutter—is best.  I think I’m getting old.

3. Is there anything that has surprised you about writing, publishing or touring with your books?

Just how hard it all is!  People assume (and I used to be one of these people, too!) that all you have to do is get published, and you’ve pretty much got it mad because you’re on the ‘inside’ now, but that’s just the start of endless, uphill battles.  And it’s all a battle—the writing, the promoting, the marketing and touring and writing while promoting/touring.   It’s not a fluffy, relaxing career.  J

4.   Was there anything (or anyone) while growing up which helped you decide you wanted to be a writer?

Louisa May Alcott.  I loved that Jo, from Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys, etc, was a writer.  I also loved inspired by the author of my other favorite series of books, Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls.  Being a writer definitely seemed to be the way to go.  And I tried to get published early….I wrote my first picture book in 2^nd grade and my first novel in 4^th grade.  I was pretty serious about becoming a novelist!

5. Do you have a job outside of being an author? 

Nope.  I write.  A lot.  And then I try to be a good mom on occasion, too.

6.  If you could meet one person who has died, who would that be?

I’d love to meet the James family…Henry James, and his sister Alice who had an amazing mind, and their brother William who was also brilliant.  And if they weren’t interested in meeting me, I’d try to get Virginia Wolfe and her sister, the artist Vanessa Bell, to spend an afternoon with me.  I love interesting families, and so I’m not surprised I wrote a series like the Brennans because I do think sisters and brothers have tremendous influence on each other, and help shape each other.

7. If you could co-author a book with anyone, who would it be?

I don’t think I would.  I’d find it too much a power struggle!

8. In one sentence, why should we read your book?

Because I’m a storyteller and want nothing more than to grab you and sweep you away for a day—and make you feel.  And hopefully, feel good.

9. What do you do in your spare time?

Hang out with my kids, annoy them by making them talk to me (and listen to me), read, and I love to travel.  I live to travel.  Travel is my poison.

10. How does your family feel about having a writer in the family? Do they read your books?

I’m a mom of 3 sons—17, 13, and 3—and no they don’t read my books.  And the two older ones are pretty proud of me.  They know I work hard, and they like that I’m a ‘different mom’.  The 13 year old worries about my career, though, and has been giving me career advice on becoming bigger (stop writing women’s stories that have no plots and write apocalyptic Young Adult stories like The Hunger Games.)  The 3 year old started a new preschool recently and announced that there his friends were Jack and Jane, but little Jane doesn’t write novels.  He knows because he asked her.

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Q. Intentional or not, your trademark is poignant tales laced with humor that melds perfectly into the story. How do you manage to keep the proper balance between humor and tragedy without it appearing contrived?

Cathy: Ah, that’s a hard one. I bang my head against the keyboard many times as I write each book to make sure that I hit that sweet spot. I try to mirror life: Sometimes life is devastating. It’s hard, it’s trying, it’s exhausting, it’s so very painful. And, sometimes life is a glowing rainbow. It’s laughter, contentment, gratefulness, excitement, peace and joy, all wrapped up together. I blend the two for my books, so it’s realistic.

My books always end on hope, though. That I will guarantee for every book I write: hope.

Q. In “The Last Time I was Me,” you introduce a bevy of women at a B&B and anger management classes who interact with the main character Jeanne, searching for her perfect version of life. These secondary characters are memorable. Will we see them again?

Cathy: No. Once I finish a book, despite my readers begging, I don’t plan on writing the second chapter, so to speak, of my characters’ lives. Sometimes readers will write to me and ask what happened to my characters, and I’ll tell ‘em so they can sleep at night, but I won’t be writing stories featuring the same groups again. I feel like I’ve told their stories, the characters are living their own lives, they’re off and running, and I’m moving on to a new family that’s already frolicking around in my head.

There is only one exception, a minor character, Cherie Poitras, a kick – butt divorce attorney who wears leopard prints and bang up high heels, has shown up in a couple of my stories.

Q. Any parting thoughts for your readers and those not familiar with your stories yet?

Cathy: Please read them! And to my readers, thank you for reading them. I mean that: Thank you.

I have many letters from readers telling me that my books make them laugh and cry. Sometimes they laugh and chortle and cry and sob on subways and airplanes and people stare at them strangely. Basically, I love to write and tell stories. I always have, even when I was a kid. I listen to my characters talk and sometimes I talk back. I live in my imagination a lot. It’s an odd place to live. I blog and I Skype with book clubs all the time, so if you would like me to visit your book club, I’m happy to.

DA Kentner is an author and journalist. www.kevad.net

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WRITING ADVICE FROM MAINSTREAM AUTHOR CATHY LAMB

BY RT BOOK REVIEWS, NOVEMBER 02, 2010 | PERMALINK

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Last week a former classmate was arrested for running a chop shop. A chop shop, for those of you not running around with criminals, is where that jerk who stole your car will drive it, where it will then be stripped down, the VIN numbers scraped off, and your license plate tossed into a pile.

They’ll sell it off to some other dark and scary entity and you’re out of a car. It’s a bad day for you.

The former classmate’s mug shot indicated a very hard life. Honestly, that face scared me.

I met – let’s call him Cory –  in seventh grade. He was wild even then, but not in a fun, let’s go rock and roll and laugh and be crazy in a whooeee sort of way.  He was wild in an unhealthy, tough way.

My mother, Bette Straight, was Cory’s English teacher.  She was five feet three, always wore heels, and was the most cheerful, kind and compassionate person I have ever known. Cory, tough guy, loved her.  He used to take roll for her every day and if a kid was even a second late, he’d mark the kid as tardy. No one ever argued with him, he was too much of a hard ass. If you messed with him you could expect to get hit, your nose put in the wrong place on your face.

The hard ass would come to our house to visit my mother. Not me. My mother. He liked talking to her.

But something was seriously wrong at home for this kid.  He came to school drunk one day. We were thirteen. He went to my mother’s class, took roll, did what she told him to do, and left. My mother recalled him being “extra funny” that day. The teacher in the next class smelled the beer/whiskey whatever he’d guzzled, and he was expelled for three weeks.  Drunk. At thirteen.

My mother would have been so sad – and that would be the word for it – sad, that this kid grew up, became tougher, stole people’s cars, broke ’em down, and re – sold them. That wasn’t honest work. That wasn’t right. She would have remembered the kid who treated her so well, every day, even if he was a ball breaker about kids being on time to her class. She would have seen a person who could have become so much more.

On the flip side, when I was growing up there was a family next door with the last name of, well, we’ll just call them the Wengs. The oldest son, we’ll call him Jay, used to come over and visit my mother.  They were Asian, and he was having the usual cultural clashes kids have had over hundreds of years with parents who have migrated from another country and want to conserve the old ways and traditions, and their kids who are growing up American.

He was upset about the conflicts with his parents, the pressure to excel, and his girlfriend who was white. The parents wanted a nice Asian girl, not a blonde American.  Jay just loved my mom, and loved talking to her. My mother told me, “He needs someone to listen to him.” So, she did. She listened.

Today, Jay is within the top 60 best paid executives in this country.  He founded a technology company, which will remain unnamed here. A building at an Ivy league college is named after him after a massive multi ten – million dollar donation. His net worth is over half a billion dollars. I believe he married the blonde girlfriend his parents did not approve of. They are still married.

My mother would have been so pleased for Jay. Not because of the money, she was not a materialistic woman, nor did she base someone’s worth on their income. She was a teacher, remember?  No, she would have been proud of Jay because of his character. She believed in hard, honest work, she believed in family. Jay worked hard and honestly, he had a nice family.

My mother died in January, 11 years ago. Feels like yesterday that I held her hand and watched her go. It was the most heartbreaking day of my life, only equaled by my father’s death five years later, as I held his hand, too, and watched him follow my mother.

I always miss her, but January is definitely a harder month.  I do, however, get a lot of peace, a lot of comfort, thinking about the wonderful impact she had on so many of her students, including future car thieves who needed some kindness when they were young, and top level executives who needed someone to listen.

Cheerfulness, kindness, and compassion sure goes a long way.

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Every year, in January, we are besieged with articles on how to be healthier: Eat better! Lose weight! Exercise more!

Blah blah and blah, blah, blah.

Here’s what we should all do:

1) Don’t eat like a pig very often.

2) Don’t eat kale. Or alfalfa sprouts. They’re gross. It’s rabbit food. God made it for rabbits, not you.  Are you a rabbit? Eat some fruits and vegetables or cheat and dump fruits in a blender and make a smoothie with ice cream. It would be naughty to add scotch. See below.

3) Don’t slam liquor down, you fool, when you do you look like a fool and your liver hates you. Yes, your liver speaks out loud and it also groans and has political opinions.  Listen to it.

4) Don’t eat food that’s not really food unless you can’t resist. Here are my favorite non – food items to eat that I love and shouldn’t eat, but I will anyhow in 2013: Cotton candy. Dulce de Leche cheesecake with caramel. Orville Redenbacher’s movie theater popcorn with extra butter. Burger King’s french fries. Yours?

5)  Read more to shake up your brain. Do something new to shake up your attitude. Travel to shake up your soul. Shake your booty to get some exercise. Really. Go shake your booty, boom, boom, boom.

6) Don’t pretend your life if perfect. By pretending it is you’re annoying and that’s why no one wants to hang out with you.  Now you know why no one calls. If your life is perfect, make something bad up. Like, you’re actually a man under your dress, or your husband is a flesh eating cannibal and everyone should watch their thighs around him in case he entertains some carnivorous thoughts. If he squirts ketchup on you, run.

7) Keep the whining to a minimum unless you are conversing with your cat. If the cat whines back at you, in English, quickly sell the cat off and make a lot of money.

8. Let go of the people in your life who are negative, mean, manipulative or difficult. Life is lickety – split. You/Me could be dead tomorrow, hit by a crashing ostrich or Jupiter falling. Your tribe should consist of awesome and fun Earth – walkers only.

9) Get that colon photographed by a snake – tube while you’re knocked unconscious like salami. Women, stick your feetsies in stirrups for that scintillating pap smear with the tool that resembles your mother’s metal salad tongs. Men, you don’t need a pap smear and you should not ask for one, that would be weird. Women, you do not need to get your testicles checked by a doctor unless he is gorgeous and you can think of no other reason to make an appointment.

10) Get out into nature. Watch leaves, the seasons, the weather. Make it a goal to see more sunsets. (No comment about sunrises. I rarely see them). Walk along a river. Go to the mountains or beach. See that beauty? Just relax in it for awhile and marvel and be glad you can sit and marvel. Do not smoke pot while you’re enjoying the scenery. That goes against previous goals of being healthy. In fact, don’t smoke pot at all. Another fact: Marijuana is not an herb.

11)  Say nice things. Look for the good in others. Hug people. But don’t hug strangers, they may think you’re a drunken lecher and act accordingly.  And don’t hug Keanu Reeves because he is my Second Husband and I’ll get jealous and act accordingly.

12) Daydream wildly. It’s healthy and takes the edge off life. Dance. Sing. Laugh a lot. Listen to music. Take vacations. Be your own damn self and no other.

13) Be grateful. Still upright? Not planted in the dirt? That’s something to be grateful for every night. What about your kids and spouse and partner and home and health? Yahoo. Never stop being happy about the basics. It’s the basics that make everything else possible.

14) Love more.

15) Love better.

16) Love with an open heart.

Cheers and Happy New Year.

(Remember what I said about kale and alfalfa sprouts.)

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I run and I write.

Four or five times a week, I throw on my running shoes, usually mismatched socks, and head to the forest near my home. 

I love watching the leaves change, the seasons change, the weather change.

...and I love that the sunlight slips through the trees, as if it's following me, bright and cheerful...

For some reason I find inspiration in leaves. Golden leaves, burgundy leaves, emerald green and pumpkin orange leaves. I cannot get over how each leaf is completely different from another. Like people. All unique. All special.

I find peace in nature during my runs. The vibrant colors, the crystallized silence, the rustling leaves, the dead tree trunk with a new tree growing nearby, the curious squirrels, the darting mouse, the sneaky raccoon out in the afternoon, the arches of the branches, the symmetry of the ferns, the perfection of the white flowers.

Can you see the cross? Every single time I run, I blow that cross a kiss and say, "Thank you, God, for the health and safety of my kids."

I think of the tree on the left as my late father's tree, the tree on the right, my late mother's...a bit strange to associate a tree with a parent, but these trees are standing together, on either side of my path, and I couldn't help but think of my beloved parents when I saw them. I do not think of the cancer that killed them as I run by, the chemo, the radiation, holding their hands as they left, I think of the happy memories we made together. I am past, for the most part, that terrible and tearful grief, and now embrace all the wonderful things we did together as a family, and my relationship with both of them. I let those memories comfort me and bring me a smile, or a laugh. My father was a runner, my mother was a walker, and I grew up camping. The trees are my way of remembering them.

The two trees that cross each other on the right, I think of as my twins' trees. I thought the way the trees grew so close together was symbolic of their fun, funny, loving relationship. I lived in the hospital for six weeks when I was pregnant with them and prayed almost hourly that they would live. They did, and they have been a gift to my life ever since.

This is my oldest daughter's tree. Growing straight and tall and strong, right into the blue sky. This tree will stay where it is for hundreds of years, but my daughter, with her adventurous heart, has gone to school on the east coast, in France, and now in Scotland. Still, there's something about that tree that speaks to me about her...

I use sticks to keep track of the laps I've run. Can't keep the count straight if I don't as I'm running around in my own thoughts too much, too lost in my wild imagination and private story telling.

I used to try to solve hard problems and life's entanglements and issues while I ran. I no longer allow myself to do that. For one hour, I run. I daydream, I laugh, I think only pleasant and easy thoughts. I have found that my problems are always waiting for me at the end of the run, but for one hour, I let myself be me, for one hour, I leave everything else behind.

In 2013, I want to be outside more. I want to enjoy more brilliant sunsets, though not more sunrises. I want to be on our drift boat more in Oregon's rivers, I want to hike through old forests, I want to watch snowflakes fall and I want to run through the freezing cold waves at the beach. I want to breathe in cold mountain air, and walk alongside rushing rivers. Wishing you a year full of nature that soothes your soul, brings peace to your troubles, and offers you a bit of colorful relief from life. Cheers.

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I don’t know much about fashion.

I don’t truly care to know. I can’t imagine spending much of my precious time on this planet worrying about what the latest styles are. There are so many more interesting things to think about and interesting people to talk to.

Plus, I hate shopping. Shopping makes me want to eat, specifically chocolate, and drink, specifically decaf mochas.

So when New York has fashion week, I pay little attention to it, except that this year I noticed the NY Times had many articles on it. As I have a slight addiction to the NY Times, I opened up an article and saw models strutting down the runways in various…fashions.

One model seemed to be wearing a poorly sewn quilt. Another was in dizzying polka dots. There were models dressed as presents and others who sported fabric with amoebas and what appeared to be blood clots on it.

Some wore shorts with stilettos and suit jackets.I find this particular style ridiculous. If you’re going to get dressed up, get dressed up. If you’re going to be casual and wear shorts, then don’t wear four inch heels, a tie, and pearls. Just me. But I don’t get it.

There were a couple of see – through white dresses. Wearing a see – through white dress in public is my nightmare come alive. One of the latest styles appears to be knee pads. Another is a flowing tail.

But that is not here nor there, nor that or this.

What bothered me was the models.

They were so, so thin.  I could see collarbones poking out, ribs and sternums sticking through skin, knobby knees, sunken cheeks, gangly arms, emaciated legs, fragile shoulders.

Can I say this without trying to be hurtful? They looked absolutely awful. It made me feel slightly ill for them, and for their families, to look at them.

If my daughters were that thin, I would commit them to the best anorexia/bulimia clinic I could find in this country. I would keep them there for months until they gained at least thirty pounds, and this problem was under control.

Why are designers using these young ladies? Because tall, slender people show their clothes the best. I get it. They are not looking for an average sized American woman with hips and a bust.

But how can these designers justify using girls who are not eating healthily, many of whom quite clearly are suffering from eating disorders? You do not get this thin, you cannot get this thin, without having a problem, without dieting down to nothing. Your food intake? Diet pop and carrots.

By using models who are emaciated, it encourages other young women to get this emaciated, too. This isn’t healthy. This isn’t right. This doesn’t look good. This isn’t what our daughters should strive to look like, and yet so many girls in our country struggle with anorexia and bulimia and want to be this sickly, scary thin.

Fashion week?

It was mildly amusing to look at the clothes.

It was tragic to look at the models.

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