New to reading in front of her peers, despite being a 30-year professor of English
and Spanish—Diana Aylward showed courage also, for reading at all—from her
newest book (she has two—or is it three?—other books published and doing well
out there), 32 Ways to Raise Your Frequency, and by so doing, raised ours!
Since it has already garnered yeses from four publishers, adding my assurance
that it will fly is hardly a major intuitive prediction.
Before the event (and a couple at the last minute), the authors had offered to give
away some fabulous prizes, and were raffled off sprinkled throughout the
readings. The prize-giver got to come up to the mic, swish around in the
Halloween pumpkin bag, and call out the winning number. It was great fun! Up
front and even during, we sold raffle tickets at $5 each (Kellyʼs suggested price)
Ruth Klein read beautifully from two of her six books: De-Stress Diva and Time
Management Secrets (they ain't a secret any more!) for Working Women. What
she explains is so key, so important—a source that everything else flows from.
This is a truth she knows, and is a living example of. Ruth is an author, speaker,
humanitarian, but her foremost passion is helping others get their workout or
further out there.
On June 27th at WNBA/L.A.'s Extraordinary Bookwoman Day, I bought some
raffle tickets and as some of you have heard umpty-nine times, I won Ruth! A
free hour with her. The homework she gave me to do for that free hour had
already shifted my paradigm. I knew from the second I won her that the teacher
they say will come when the student is ready, had come. For the first time since
last spring Ruth, once again agreed to give away the same free hour (well, not
the same hour; a different one, months later) with her that I won. Syrie James
won it. You wait and see whatʼs gonna happen—with both of us! She has broken
it down into a follow-able system and can magically transmit it to her clients.
Sheʼs got a 100 percent success rate, replete with author bidding wars (not that
we need more of them!) and leaps in success across several career genres.
Thank you to Syrie for giving away two books and for entertaining us with a excerpt
from The Secret Diaries of—in the very lilty British accent that—Charlotte Brontë and
her family spoke with in 1845! It was a “commercial” for more to come.
Actress, turned sitcom director, and in 200, turned passionate humanitarian, after
a Roots-like journey to Russia to find her great-grandmotherʼs gravestone.
Turned out that wasnʼt what she found. Instead, and learned of hundreds of
forgotten, impoverished Holocaust survivors. In 2001, she founded The Survivor
Mitzvah Project and under its aegis, has been sending whatever money she can
raise (with two people and some generous help), and with whom, for seven
years, she has been corresponding. These survivors have written letters to her,
translated now into English, and printed, with stunning photographs, into a book
Zane read letters from. We all welled up…. One week later, Ruth and I created a
fundraiser for Zane that did very well, happy to say!
Julie donated a book and a coaching session worth $125; Brenda Adelman, gave
away the workshop she does around the country about forgiveness. After one
sees Brenda's riveting one-woman show, or reads her almost-out book of the
same title, "My Father Killed My Mother and Married My Aunt: Forgiving the
Unforgivable—you profoundly, deeply get that if she can forgive her father, “I
ought to be able to forgive whoever I haven't for doing a whole less!” The prize,
worth, I am sure, more than her $135 price tag. Brenda is also a talented actor,
so her reading was chilling. Well, what a story she has to tell!
Thanks to you, Pamela, for giving away a teaching session with you; my friend
Diana won you! And isn't a songwriter. I think the Universe makes no mistakes,
so let's talk, both of ya, to figure out what it had in mind connecting you two.
Thanks to everyone who gave away prizes and gifts of your books, and forgive
me, anyone I've forgotten to mention.
Thank you all for your profound vulnerability, opening your souls and daring to
reveal your naked truth to the world, and mostly each other that Sunday night.
They say that artists create their works of art really, for other artists. Who but
each other can really appreciate it, really grok what-all went into it? Your basic
audience member oohs and gasps at Baryshnikov leaping and seemingly defying
gravity—who but another dancer can truly relate and appreciate, because he/she
can understand what it takes to do that. We love what each other does—for the
same reason.
Somehow, as different as each of our books are, they are also similar. A piece of
the magic that they did all blend. In some form or another, they are all
autobiographical, deeply personal—even when, as in Syrie's case, that personalness comes through a character. There was a spiritual bent to everyone's work:
hey, we all live in California…. But it is what can be learned from it, evolved from
it, that turns out to matter most: relationships that failed and it hurt!; even
murder,—even the murder of your own mother by your own father!—forgiven;
frequencies raised, love understood enough to write an insightful, #1-HIT! song
about it; we are reincarnated American pioneers and Natives; and from plumbing
the human depths comes the funny—it all connected somehow.
WNBA READS ITS OWN
THE READERS
1. Brenda Adelman — My Brooklyn Hamlet
http://www.forgivenessandfreedom.com/
2. Diana Aylward — 32 Ways To Raise Your Frequency
3. Syrie James — The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë
http://www.syriejames.com/
4. Zane Buzby — The Survivor Mitzvah Project
http://www.survivormitzvah.org/
5. Ruth Klein — De-Stress Divaʼs Guide to Life, Time Management for
Working Women http://www.RuthKlein.com/
6. Sharmagne Leland-St. John (A Little Hawk) — Unsung Songs, Silver Tears
and
Time, Contingency www.quillandparchment.com
7. Pamela Phillips Oland — The Art of Writing Great Lyrics
http://www.pamoland.com/
8. Paul Ryan — The Art of Comedy —
http://www.PaulRyanProductions.com/
9. Estherleon Schwartz — Tears of Stone
http://www.estherleon.com/
10. Margaret Karlin — Virtuous Women
11. Julie Spira — The Perils of Cyber-Dating
http://www.CyberDatingExpert.com/
12. Lisa-Catherine Cohen — Iʼll Love You Unconditionally, IF…
Producer / Moderator http://www.Lisa-Catherine.com/