July 2023

Written by: Katie Marie

It was an amazing experience to appear on Randi-Lee’s show. Such a wonderful opportunity to talk with a compassionate and enthusiastic person about things that mean a great deal to me.

Those being writing, in particular in the horror genre, and the invisible challenges many of us face, like mental health and dementia.

I truly believe that by improving the conversation around dementia (and other mental health issues), we will normalize the condition and make it less frightening, which will increase society’s wider awareness of it and improve services and treatments.

I think one way to improve the conversation around these topics is by having plausible and ‘realistic’ representation in fictional works. Positive representation can help the misunderstood to feel more visible and accepted.

It was a part of the reason I wrote my novella, A Man in Winter.

Arthur, whose life was devastated by the brutal murder of his wife, must come to terms with his diagnosis of dementia. He moves into a new home at a retirement community, and shortly after, has his life turned upside down again when his wife’s ghost visits him and sends him on a quest to find her killer so her spirit can move on.

With his family and his doctor concerned that his dementia is advancing, will he be able to solve the murder before his independence is permanently restricted?

A Man in Winter examines the horrors of isolation, dementia, loss, and the ghosts that come back to haunt us.

In 2014, there were an estimated 5 million adults with dementia, and it is projected to be nearly 14 million by 2060. So, it is essential that we have a better understanding of this disease to increase our ability to interact with compassion and empathy.

Podcasts like this are a key element of the conversation, and it was a joy to be involved.

Get Katie Marie’s book (affiliate link).

Written by W.L. Hawkin

Thank you for the opportunity to read from my romantic suspense novel on Readers Intrigue. Reading aloud to my students was one of my favorite things to do when I taught high school English. Here’s a little more about the making of LURE.

I wrote the first draft of Jesse and Hawk’s story thirty years ago when I lived in rural Ontario. I was something of a wild child and quit high school with only grade ten. In my mid-thirties, I felt the need to graduate, so returned to high school by registering for one correspondence course at a time. Along the way, I enrolled in a course called Native Ancestry that changed my life.

One night, I was sitting at my kitchen table reading the chapter on Animism—the belief that all beings, be they rocks, trees, deserts, fish, or winds, are alive with spiritual force—when I realized I knew this. I totally resonate with this. That epiphany set me on a new path. I’d just started my B.A. in Indigenous Studies at Trent University when I wrote the story of Jesse and Hawk. I was reading books by Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) storytellers; learning with traditional teachers and Elders; going to powwows and feasts; attending ceremonies; and soaking up a culture I resonated with. Then one day, my seventy-five-year-old mother casually said, “I’m not surprised you’re into this. My great-grandfather married an Indian. She was Tuscarora, and he was Dutch.” I don’t know if there’s such a thing as ancestral memory, but perhaps my mother was right. While researching my ancestry, I connected with a previously unknown line of the family who confirmed my mother’s story and sent me a tin-type photograph of my Indigenous great-great-grandmother.

I found the manuscript of the thirty-year-old draft, wrapped in brown paper, a few years ago while packing to move. When I read it, I was surprised and intrigued. It was a romance! I started to rewrite it, then Jesse found the bones of a missing Indigenous girl in her shed. Ruby Little Bear started to speak, and the story took off in another direction.

If you’re curious to know more, go to my website: http://bluehavenpress.com or drop me a line at wendy@bluehavenpress.com.

Get the book (affiliate link).

Month: July 2023

We Need Compassion & Empathy – Dementia

Ancestral Memory to a Book