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Hi everyone!

Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought the farm. No, I mean a real farm in Creemore, Ontario, Canada. It is vintage 1850 and has all the cracks to prove it. Fixing it up has been a revelation. You know the story A River Runs Through It? It was written for my basement.

In the takeover procedure, I asked the previous owners where they purchased their water supply. The farm wife said she got it from a well on their land. I thought, “How quaint. She has no idea how to order utilities.” Probably the farm husband did that while she watched pies cool on the windowsill.

Out of patience, I said, “I mean who puts the water in the well?” She said, “It is a well on the property”. Finally she asked her husband, and he said, “God.” So I guess I have a few things to learn about country life.

I have not let farm life totally overtake my writing life. Even the best of us must take breaks from birthing the calves. I have an essay coming out in a new book entitled The First Man in My Life. (Whoever came up with that title never read Freud.) Each of the 22 contributors writes about her relationship with her father. It is a perfect book for Father’s Day, which looms in June. Enjoy the excerpt and I hope to see you at the reading at Toronto’s Harbourfront.

Between feeding the swine and birthing the bovine, I have finished a draft of my sequel. I still have lots of work to do on it. It weighs in at 2,000 pages. I have no idea how such a boring life took so much space in the retelling. I have had to divide it into 2 volumes or it would have been longer than War and Peace.

For my sequel I have almost settled on the title of Tightrope. (I will see how the publishers weigh in on that.) The title is taken from the text of the sequel. There is a scene where my mother and I watch a daredevil walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope while balancing a large rod. (My mother closed her eyes and made me tell her what was happening.) I like the title since the book is about my life from early teenage years, 14, to adulthood, 21. This time period is also a treacherous journey, and you must keep your balance from one shore to another. If not, whirlpools surge below.

Thank you for all the hundreds of requests I’ve had about the sequel publication date. I will let you know when it is coming out. It probably won’t be for at least a year, but in the meantime, you can read a portion of my draft of Chapter One.

I’ve tried to do less work on the public appearance side now that the book is near completion. Writing a book is a bit like giving birth. My memoir is now in the birth canal and there is a real urge to push—so I’m trying to take advantage of that. I do, however, have a few appearances coming up.

I just returned from my high school reunion, my 40th. It was in Tampa (never go there unless you like too much food and not enough bookstores) since everyone refused to go to our native Buffalo in March. I was given a present by my high school cronies for the farm. It was a black sheep. Were they trying to tell me something? Anyway, it was reassuring that I was not on the wrong path with my memoir of those years.

What did I learn at my reunion? No one ever really changes from 16-60. Looks-wise, it is best to be a blonde in high school, but the wheels fall off at about 25, while the brunettes keep on truckin’. If you smoked and were a blonde, you might as well hang yourself up in my new barn as a rawhide saddle.

So until next time, happy trails,

Cathy

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