Amid the hugs and hoopla of Mother’s Day, let’s take time to think of the many women for whom this uneven holiday means enduring, not celebrating. Women who have never been able to conceive. Women who have lost a child, either through death or estrangement. And women in their so-called “mature” years who still yearn for the missing parent.

Even without these specific losses many of us are depressed by the constant threat of Covid, or are fearful because a job has ended,  or are mourning a marriage that’s crumbling. Women who live alone in the shadows of age, with only memories for company.

I’d like to suggest that each of us reach out to someone we know who could use a sympathetic voice this Sunday, and visit or call.  We don’t need to send flowers or bring candy,  just the sweeter gifts of empathy and genuine listening.

I, for one, plan to call a friend who has been trying to get pregnant for years, but recently was informed by doctors that she will never be able to have a child .I can’t make up for her heartbreak, but perhaps my caring will help a little.

As I repeatedly discover, in giving to others we give to ourselves, too.

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME AND GO – available through BookBaby.com; WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY- available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

That childhood retort is false, as those of us who carry the wounds of verbal taunts within us can verify. Words can be as violent an attack as a physical blow.

This brings me to the highly publicized event at the Oscars when Will Smith struck Chris Rock for insulting his (Smith’s) wife. I yield to no one in my abhorrence of violence and Smith has been rightly condemned for his out-of-control behavior.  But his blow wasn’t the  only attack that night. What about Rock’s crude “G I Jane” joke? His victim had to sit there humiliated as her medical condition was ridiculed in front of millions of viewers..

Women are used to being the butt of jokes.  Anecdotes about nagging mothers-in-law and parodies  of the “Jewish mother” have long been staples of comedians. But the mockery doesn’t end with comedy routines; it doesn’t even begin with them. I have a haunting memory of a woman I knew as Miss Maher. She was my 8^th grade English teacher  and inspired a lifelong love of poetry in me. I still see her standing in front of the class, trying to read Keats or Shelley against an undercurrent of snickers from the adolescent boys, because of her deformed posture. One shoulder was higher than the other. The boys called her “the hunchback” and chalked that word on school walls and in the playground. With impressive dignity Miss Maher ignored the taunts. But who knows  how much “hunchback”  echoed in her mind during her lonely nights?

How do you get over hurts like that?  You don’t. I know women who are attractive and slim, yet see themselves as obese because they (and I ) hear within ourselves the “fatso” taunt of childhood. Even Princess Diana is known to have resorted to bulimia, unable to see the reality of her slender adult self.

These are all slight stories compared to the countless tragedies of teenagers driven to suicide by verbal and written bullying. As an author I revere the power of language. I also believe that anyone with the ability to write books or compose songs  or make movies  – even perform stand-up -comedy- has a responsibility to avoid gratuitously shaming another human being.

The indisputable truth is that words are frequently wounding and too often lethal. We all need to use those weapons carefully.

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com

BOOKS: COME AND  GO – available through BookBaby.com, WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY- available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

March is Women’s History Month. ( Don’t we deserve a year at least?) I’ve been thinking about some women in my life who don’t get their quota of publicity, will never be on a postage stamp, but whose strength has inspired me.

My mother  was a woman before her time. Although extremely hard of hearing she wouldn’t wear hearing aids, thinking they would make her look old. (In those days the aids were attached to a long cord.) Yet when my father’s business failed, she refused to excuse herself as disabled and got a job as a secretary, successfully hiding her struggle to hear dictation clearly. Preferring to be her own boss, for years she had a one-woman business as a public stenographer. She finally got hearing aids when my daughter was born. “I want to hear the baby when she cries,” my mother said. One of her steadiest clients was a lawyer. Her familiarity with legal jargon proved helpful when she and my father “retired” to Florida, for she found work as a legal secretary in a large law firm. She remained there as a valuable employee until mandated out at the tender age of 85. Widowed by then and living in a residential hotel filled with other lonely widows, she instigated a series of Sunday afternoon concerts, inviting the women to her room to hear her beloved Pavorotti records, accompanied by generous servings of cookies, tea – and whiskey!

Norma was the Human Resources Director at my mother’s first job, but her past was more glamorous. She had been on Broadway in musical comedies. So when I was a stage-struck teenager my mother asked Norma to accompany her to a college production I was in. The goal was to have Norma review my amateurish acting and discourage me from pursuing a career in theatre. This backfired because Norma thought I had talent and told me I’d go far in theatre. ( How far I did and didn’t go is another story.) For years Norma encouraged me when I was rejected and applauded my rare successes. She confided that she had given up her career for marriage. When her husband died she had been reluctant to start over again. If she had regrets, they were kept shrouded. In her eighties she had to move into a nursing home, where she continued to wear bright print dresses, sparkling jewelry, and one of her colorful wigs to hide the spare gray strands. When asked to perform at the annual Christmas party, she sang the requested songs, and graciously led an animal chorus of “Old McDonald.“ Not once did this former musical comedy star betray how much the setting dismayed her, nor how lonely she was.

Ruth was my husband’s cousin. I was intimidated the first time I met her– not because of her appearance ,she was petite and frail – but by her assertiveness. .I later heard that when her husband left her, she was so devastated she felt she had to get away . So she moved all the way to Italy, where she unexpectedly found a new career. American directors were filming in Rome by then and since she could speak fluent Italian, she was hired to coach some of the stars. The people she worked with – Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, among others – became friends. But my greater memory is her supportiveness after my husband died. In a series of letters across the ocean, she encouraged me to believe that my life wasn’t over, that just as she had gone on to make a new life for herself, I could, too. She invited me to visit her in Rome, a feat I couldn’t imagine. Get on a plane by myself? But after three years I did go, inspired by her courage to be a woman succeeding on her own.

Three women who have not only inspired me ,but still insist on walking into my pages, for they have all shown up in in my stories and books. It heartens me to keep them alive that way.

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME AND GO – available through BookBaby.com, WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY– available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

There was a surprising upset at the Beijing Olympics, when the young Russian touted as “the greatest skater in the world” dramatically toppled from her perch. I hadn’t seen Kamila Valiera skate in her initial triumphant performance. That was before the news erupted about her having taken a performance-enhancing drug. I’m fascinated by drama, so I stayed up late the final night to watch her skate onto the rink, her expression already distraught. I could imagine what she’d been through the past week, with athletes around the world resenting her being allowed to compete once the news about the drug became known. It would have been too heavy a burden for anyone, much less a 15-year-old on a global stage.

I know too well how stress affects your ability to think clearly or – in this case – to stay in control of the skill that skating demands. So I was saddened but not surprised when Kamila fell during her performance – not once, but twice. With the eyes of the world on her, she tearfully managed to continue after her humiliating falls. Within minutes it was over, any podium appearance shockingly beyond reach now.

Why, I ask myself, did this scene affect me so much? I guess it was the close-up of that tearful face – a child’s face. She was clutching her stuffed rabbit afterward, while being harshly berated by a coach who should have been comforting her. I leave it to the authorities to determine whether Kamila took the drug deliberately or, as most believe, she was the victim of adults who were supposedly looking out for her.

I have no idea what Kamila’s future will be, or whether she will have the will to skate again. Her adolescent view may equate her Olympic failure to total failure in life. It takes a certain amount of maturity– and courage – to understand that one failure, even an internationally publicized one, need not be the end of the story. Former two-time gold medal skier Mikaela Shiffrin, who was unable to even finish some of her runs this time, summed it up best: “You can fail but not be a failure.” It’s a lesson that I and many of my writer friends struggle with, when we receive rejection after rejection from publishers. Yet it’s legendary how many books that became famous had been repeatedly rejected, eventually succeeding because their authors had enough belief in themselves to continue.

Of course, it isn’t only athletes and authors who need this perseverance. A friend whose marriage has just broken up confided that she’ll “never get over it,” certain she’ll never be able to love or be loved again. I’m betting she will, for she has the quality I most envy: resilience. Life is so full of twists and turns, it’s foolhardy to surrender to the feeling that one or a dozen turns in the wrong direction mean you’ve reached the end of the road.

That road to success is rarely a straight line, as Nathan Chen can verify. As a young child he began reaping medals from all the top skating competitions. But his awesome leaps cost a price. In 2016 he injured his left hip so severely it required surgery. End of his career? After months of rehabilitation, he put on his skates again. Then during the 2018 Olympics, he gave a shaky performance and his rating fell to 17th place before the free skate. End of the road or rink? He says, “That experience helps me retain some resiliency.” Enough to enable him to go all the way to Olympic gold.

Too often we waste time and energy berating ourselves for a “stupid” mistake or saying we can’t succeed because we’re “not who we used to be.” Maybe we’re not, but what we can become is more worth setting our sights on. As Chen found and Valeira may realize, giving up on yourself should never be an option.

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME and GO – available through BookBaby.com, WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY– available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

I added to my growing list of losses this week. A longtime friend died.

We didn’t begin as friends, but as supervisor (Warren) and insecure editor (me). I had gotten a job as editor for Weight Watchers by vastly exaggerating my experience. Warren was given the task of overseeing the newsletter. When I put my first issue together, I anxiously asked the printer if I could still make changes. He told me to make as many as I wanted. Being an addictive reviser,I practically rewrote half the issue. But no one had explained to me that there’s a difference between correcting PE’s (printer’s errors) at no charge , and the AA’s (author’s alterations)  which the company has to pay for! The huge bill exposed my inexperience and would have gotten me fired if Warren hadn’t assured the powers-that-be I was going to do a “fine job.” (He gave me his own warning in private.)

I continued as editor for the next 18 years, sustained by his faith in my ability. Corporations can be cutthroat settings, but I never knew him to undercut anyone. He was that rare being, a gentleman. But his orderliness intimidated me. I’ll never forget the day we were having a brief conference and I borrowed one of the pencils lined upright in the leather cup on his desk like soldiers awaiting their marching orders. When I put the pencil back, he told me to replace it point down because it had been used. I’m glad he managed not to comment when he saw my cluttered desk!

I finally left the job in order to freelance and we fell out of touch except for routine holiday cards. When he retired, he and his wife, Helene, moved to Florida and I lost contact with him for several years. Then one day I had a moving phone call: Helene had died and Warren was in desperate need of help. He knew I’d written a memoir about my husband’s death and how I’d made a new life for myself. I gave Warren as much encouragement as I could from my hard-earned knowledge. He, in turn, encouraged me when I began writing blogs. He insisted on reading every one and  gave me enthusiastic reviews, sometimes combined with his savvy PR knowledge. I told him he was my Number One Fan .

We finally met again after many years when he and his companion, Gloria, came to New York for a visit. My partner and I met them for dinner. I was afraid I might not even recognize Warren, but the moment they walked in the years evaporated. The four of us became a lively quartet, meeting on each of their visits for the next four years.

Then the visits stopped because, tragically, Gloria died, too. Warren and I continued our long-distance friendship, and in what I didn’t realize would be our last conversation he volunteered that I was an “important person” in his life. I can’t think of a better memory to be left with, except for one: his book.

You see, he wanted to write a memoir. Since he didn’t consider himself much of a writer he found a clever method. His father had saved every letter Warren wrote when he was in the army during World War 11. He found the cache in his parent’s attic and brought the letters with him to Florida. He selected the most interesting ones and pasted them on separate pages, along with some memorabilia. Then he wrote descriptions of the memories each letter evoked; like standing on Omaha Beach two months after D-Day and seeing it covered with the “detritus of war.” And being greeted by white flags of surrender when his battalion marched into a German town – “flags” that were actually towels, sheets, tablecloths, even petticoats – whatever the inhabitants could find.

He titled the 300 pages “Looking Back” and brought them to a local copy store to be inexpensively bound. I received one of the first copies and others went to family and friends – including his sole remaining “buddy” from those long -ago Army days.

Warren died a day before his 96th birthday. Yesterday a neighbor asked me why I was grieving. When I explained she said, “It’s not as bad as when your sister died.” I was unable to even answer. On what scale do we measure loss? In what way should we judge how much grief Is allowed ? And how can we ever measure the depth of a friendship?

As I write these words Warren’s book is on the desk beside me, and I hear again his proud voice when it was published. It helps to have sunlit memories on dark days.

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME and GO – available through BookBaby.com, WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY– available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

I envisioned this new year as a book of blank pages where I could write happier experiences than in 2021. What a naive hope! For a horrific event at the end of last year darkened the start of this year, as well. I’m talking about the fire that devastated two towns in Colorado. My son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren were in the path of the advancing flames. Thankfully they escaped in time.

It was late that December evening when I found out that their town, Louisville, was on fire. I tried to reach my family, but no answer. I didn’t know they had already fled. I sent a frantic text, but it was 3:00 am before I got words that let me breathe again: “We’re safe.”

I spent the next two days staring at the terrifying images on TV – flames devouring buildings I knew so well from my visits there, parents clutching their children as they struggled to open escape doors against the hurricane force winds,

Amazingly, my children’s house is intact and they have sent survivor messages. “The heat’s back!” “Power’s on! ” And finally, “Potable water!” I should now feel calm, able to turn my attention to other things. So what’s with me that I feel as if “safe” is a temporary word?

I realize what this is about: the capriciousness of fate. Why did the fire take an erratic path that left my son’s entire block untouched, while nearby neighborhoods were reduced to smoldering embers? Why did those two towns burn when residents in other towns were able to sleep peacefully? Why… anything? I remember that when my husband was diagnosed with cancer I cried,”Why us?” He said, “Why not us?”

How helpless we are to what fate deals out. Using superstitious images to placate fortune doesn’t really work. ( I wear the same shirt when seeing a doctor that I wore for visits when I got a good report, as if this will ensure it’s happening again.)  Obviously a doctor’s – or fate’s – verdict doesn’t depend on what we wear or token we carry.

I think our mental survival means accepting the limits of what we can control. The world is frightening these Pandemic and global warming days, but it’s aways been dangerous. Fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis are nothing new. Neither, I’m certain, are a mother’s (and grandmother’s) obsessive anxiety about her children’s welfare.

Someone once told me that being a writer must feel “powerful” because I could lead my characters to whatever fate I chose. If only I had that power with the real people in my life! The inescapable truth is that we can’t determine whether our loved ones will be free of future disasters. All we can do – for their sake as well as our own – is try to control our seismic anxiety and to have faith that fortune will be mostly kind to us. And if it often isn’t, to believe we have something beyond the clutch of fate: our strength to rise again.

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME and GO – available through BookBaby.com, WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY– R available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

The logical part of my mind knows that superstitious habits can’t control fate, but I cling to those tricks anyway. That’s why I buy a new address book each year. (I still use paper rather than digital, which more efficient people utilize.) There’s always at least one – or more – names that have to be deleted, since family and friends aren’t immune to death. There might also be a friend who’s alive, but the friendship isn’t.

For the first time I don’t want to delete one of the obsolete names, for the list now includes my sister. I look at the page where her name, street address, land line and mobile phone numbers are written, and suddenly I don’t want an address book that doesn’t have this information. It’s not that I’m deluded enough to phone those disconnected numbers, although I still know them by heart. But they provide a deeper connection to someone I’m not ready to part from.

How many of us do this, not necessarily through an address book, but some memento – an item of clothing or jewelry worn by the person we’re missing. It’s our effort to preserve what we were unable to keep. Isn’t this what we all do, in one way or another? It reminds me of my childhood, when I built elaborate sand castles at what I hoped was a safe distance from the encroaching tide. But the sea always won and I was left with just the memory of my castle.

Sometimes the memento we choose is one no one else understands. When my niece asked what I wanted of my sister’s multitude of possessions I said, “the kitchen witch.” She’s a small figure hanging from a cupboard hook, and she’s far from appealing with her grotesque face and stringy gray hair. The first time I saw her hanging in my sister’s kitchen I joked, “She looks like me.” My sister said, “She sure does,” and we both laughed. That’s what I’m really trying to hold on to, the sound of our laughing together.

The reality is that probably we will all have to delete more names before the end of this new year. Even if we write them in indelible ink we’re not the ones who will decide the story. Fate is a more merciless author, one whose verdicts we’re unable to revise.

I have a small quartz rock on my desk, a gift from my partner, who is gone, too. On it, the single word, ACCEPTANCE.

We can’t escape our inevitable losses. What’s important is what we are able to save within ourselves ¬ – or are strong enough to surrender.

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME and GO – available through BookBaby.com, WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY- available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

The “season to be jolly” has been undermined by the discovery of another Covid variant. It reminds me of the ad for the movie ”Jaws” – Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water. Yes, we thought we were nearing the turning point in this Pandemic, so the emergence of Omicron throws a frightening pall over the holidays.

I’m a believer in the famous prayer to “change what I can” and “accept” what I can’t. Certainly we can’t wave our hands and make the virus disappear. But perhaps we can find ways to make our way through this season – and beyond – without being handicapped by fear. Aside from the obvious lifesavers – get vaccinated, get a booster, wear a mask – what is there we can do? For one thing, we can find other topics to focus on. I say that because recently I was in a social gathering where the sole topic was Covid, including a recital of “breakthrough” cases. I doubt that any of us left that evening feeling festive. No wonder the national depression rate is climbing.

This doesn’t mean closing our eyes to the reality of the data. It does mean making a deliberate effort to put our attention on things we can control. We can choose to distract ourselves with inspiring books, interesting movies (on TV), and the growing number of (free) online lectures and workshops about any number of subjects.

I’ve discovered it’s up to each of us to know what can raise our spirits. What may work for someone else, isn’t necessarily what helps me. One thing that seldom fails is to phone an old friend for some “catching up.” (Make sure it isn’t one whose view is constantly bleak!) And though it sounds like a cliché, reaching out to someone who’s alone or struggling with loss is invariably a boost to your own morale.

Exercise is another sure-fire aid. These winter days my self-talk is too often along the line of “I know walking is good exercise but..” So I try to turn that channel and force my body out the door. It helps to give myself a destination (the grocery store, the pharmacy). Actually, indoor exercise is also available online. For instance, Dorit, a New York organization geared to seniors, provides daily exercise routines we can follow along with the visual. So do numerous other organizations, including libraries.

My primary mood-lifter is a daily gratitude prayer. In these dark days when so many plans have to be jettisoned and a better tomorrow seems constantly receding, there doesn’t seem much to feel grateful for. Yet every night I give thanks for whatever was rewarding in the day. It isn’t always easy to find something (a friend once said all she could give thanks for that day was a good breakfast). It’s too easy to overlook the small moments worthy of gratitude – but life is made up of small moments. It’s also strengthening to ask yourself what you did that made those moments possible! It may help you recognize that you have more strength than you realized.

Best wishes to all for a season of hope!

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME and GO – available through BookBaby.com; WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY– available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

Words written many years ago can often  feel as if that distant author is watching us today. That’s how I felt when I finally caught up with The Mill on the Floss,  the 19th century novel by George Eliot.

Describing how depressed the heroine is after a cruel lecture from her brother, Eliot asserts that there must have been “some tenderness” mingled with the harshness in her brother’s rebuke. “But Maggie held it as  dross, overlooking the grains of gold.”

Those words have been resonating in me. How many of us react tike Maggie, focusing on whatever was hurtful in a conversation or written communication. I’m hardly alone in this tendency to shine an emotional spotlight  on angry or rejecting words, while ignoring more benign sentences.

It makes me think of the California gold rush, when the ‘forty-niners” prospected for gold by shaking pans filled with useless gravel  in an effort  to separate the bits of gold. That must have required faith that the gold was there, even buried under the dirt or imbedded in rocks.

Like modern prospectors we can be aware  of the love imbedded in sharp words flung at us. On the other hand, how often we, ourselves, do the rejecting when a friend we’ve put on a pedestal falls off. We make disillusionment the entire picture, throwing away the valuable aspects of the friendship.

If a supervisor criticizes the way we handled a project, we easily fall into  the “I’m a failure” syndrome, expecting to be fired and deaf to ”I know you can do better.” It’s as if we don’t believe we deserve any plaudits. As authors,  how quickly  we’re devastated by an editor’s rejection of our book, but blind to any fragmentary hope in such  comments as “some strong writing…we’d like to see more.” True, those words are usually routine.  But they just might be worth following up, rather than magnifying words that lead to a dead-end.

Maybe we need to learn how to tune out  to whatever makes us feel worthless and accept any “grains of gold.”

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com

BOOKS: COME and GO – available through BookBaby.com; WIDOW’S WALK – iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com;TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY- available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.

I don’t think anyone would disagree that we’re going through a challenging and frightening time – pandemic, global warming, massive fires, catastrophic floods, earthquakes …. Add to these our private crises, especially losing loved ones to Covid.

Not much reason to be happy these days or even optimistic. Yet, what’s the alternative? Waste time being constantly morose ? Be paralyzed by fear? Throw in whatever towel we have left?

My middle name isn’t Pollyanna, but I guess I’m a stubborn believer in “where there’s life….” On the other hand, I’m painfully aware of what the pandemic has cost me in unrecoverable time with my grandchildren, jettisoned travel plans, and lost opportunities to publicize my books since social distancing rules out in-person author talks. Yet from another view, what’s so bad about having uninterrupted time for the work we love without compulsory time-consuming appointments? I’m not talking solely about writers. How many people forced to do their jobs at home have discovered new and fulfilling ways to work, as well as hours saved from traveling? (And how many are reluctant to return to “normal” life in an office!)

In her novel “The Weight of Ink,” Rachel Kadish graphically describes life during the Bubonic Plague in 16th century London. It was almost impossible for families and friends to find out who was still alive, since the only means of communication was by word of mouth and it was dangerous to venture out. The isolation made a horrifying situation far worse. Imagine how they would have felt if they’d had our technical marvels!

So instead of pounding the wall in frustration, I’m folding my hands in gratitude for such connections as phones and Zoom. It’s even brought me new friends. True we haven’t met in person (yet), but friendship blooms surprisingly in technological soil. I’ve also found healthy distraction in the abundant on-line courses that are available and usually free.

Ironically my long-distance relationships feel closer because there’s a sense of our being in this together. I’m more patient with quirks that used to seem important and I feel increasing tenderness not only towards my family, but my friends, students, neighbors. If we have to endure this plague, let’s at least find value in being in it together.

I’m reminded of when my grandson was a wily seven-year-old, trying to bargain his way out of a task he didn’t like. Not even knowing what the word meant he asked, “What’s my option?”

That’s a good question. Let’s opt for good answers.

WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME and GO – available through BookBaby.com;  WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY – Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.