End of the year...

I know we still have a month to go, but nevertheless, I'm reflecting
over this year. This year holds much significance. I think the
four major "events" include:
* Meeting Carl, the wonder of my life
* Elizabeth starting middle school
* Rachel starting college at ECU
* Rain Song (finally) making her debut

When 2008 entered, I knew Elizabeth and Rachel would make it to
their new schools. I also knew that Rain Song was to arrive in
bookstores by October.

The biggest surprise of the year has been meeting Carl. Yes,
folks, via the Internet. He moved from New York to Durham, NC
in May so he could be close to me.

I am counting blessings. It has been a memorable year...

Inspired by the northern shore

In 2001 I had the privilege of spending a week with Alice Walker ... Actually, it was a writing shed named for her. Inside that tiny space, I spent days working on fiction and non-fiction manuscripts. In the evenings the fire in the large cabin blazed while I read to other writers what I had written. There are some things in life you forget quickly, but the week at Norcroft will never leave my mind.

Outside of Duluth, in Lutsen, Minnesota, a piece of land hugged the northern shore of Lake Superior. The owner of the land opened this space up for women writers from all over the globe. All you had to do was get to Norcroft. Once there, room and board were taken care of.

Nancy Harless also had the gift of time at Norcroft. She was more productive than I was for her days there resulted in her new book, Womankind: Connection and Wisdom Around the World.
Because fellow-Norcrofters find each other and hold this common bond of time spent in this hideaway in the woods, we decided to exchange books. I sent her Rain Song and her book arrived for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure I was able to take as I read about women and places around the world where Nancy visited and worked. The accounts of these ventures are penned in this collection of stories--rich and poignant. These pages record the voices of women, women who don't have it easy, and yet find assurance in connecting with other women.

Many parts of Nancy's book stand out for me. Perhaps one I think of most often comes from the elderly Lillian, a maid in Jamaica, who said, "Oh, I have been very good. I am blessed. I have life, and life is enough." Sometimes, despite all that I have personally been through, I know that life should be enough.

My own novel, Rain Song, came after my time at Norcroft. (What I was working on in that shed during my time there never made it to publication.) I like to think that by spending a week at the northern shore I harnessed the inspiration to years later, develop my novel. Perhaps the encouragement from the women at this beautiful location in Minnesota gave me the desire to write a story that binds the lives of women a little further South---united by what keeps us all strong---family, love, and tradition.

Reflecting on a dream

Missing my Son
~ Alice J. Wisler

I dreamed of you last night
silky blond bandaged head
toddling down the corridor
dragging a stuffed dinosaur.
I dreamed of you last night
as though you were seated on my lap
Laughing at the alligators,
giggling over monsters.
I dreamed of you last night
and when I woke
your smile was woven into my heart.
Eleven years since I kissed your cheek
and heard you call my name
Yet when I dreamed of you last night
it was as though the years had never been
As though we left off just as we were
with shelves of books to read
games and puzzles to complete
Not like ice cream sundaes
melting of hope and promise.

Tell me your thoughts

Readers,

Feel free to post under the comments section
your review of Rain Song.

Thanks!

Not Another Flower

There was a day when the sun ceased to shine. You may have missed it; it didn’t make the headlines of any national paper. February 2, 1997, to most, was only Groundhog Day. For me, it was nothing as trite as whether the furry creature did or did not see his shadow. Forget the promise of spring, what did it matter now? My life as I dreamed it stopped when my four-year-old laid lifeless in my arms.

How I remember those early months after his death. I wanted to be like my Victorian ancestors and wear black, even a veil. Then my clothes could shout to my neighbors, those in the grocery store lines, and the many at church -- look at me, I am a parent doing the impossible: living without her child.

I remember those who helped us as we put one foot in front of the other on the rocky path. My husband, three children, and I couldn’t walk it alone. Friends, with embraces as strong and wide as eagle wings, circled us, cried with us. They brought meals, sent cards, provided listening ears, and took care of our young children.

Then there were those uncomfortable with our grief. During the first weeks they joined our tears, but as the months dragged on, their expressions and subtle hints were shouting, “Get back to normal. Look at the joyous side of life. Heal your broken heart!" For some reason, as you may know, people put a timeline on grief. I think the general consensus is that you’re only allowed two to three weeks of sorrow.

When you are new to grief, even simple tasks can be laborious. Your energy and patience levels are low. But hear a comment or two that is completely out of line for anyone to say, and suddenly, you are propelled by anger. How can I forget the older lady in our church that called me every day for two weeks? She’d start off by asking how I was doing. My guts felt like they were stripped out of my body and my heart, mangled. I’d say, "It’s hard."

One afternoon this woman told me with all the sincerity she could muster, "God needed another flower in his garden in heaven and took Daniel." I nearly dropped the phone. This was supposed to provide comfort? I eventually did hang up, but politely. My frustration flared. I got a lot of laundry done that afternoon -- throwing clothes into the washing machine, banging the lid shut, flinging socks and shirts into the dryer.

I am bolder now. When people tell me certain lines, aimed to help me and they don’t work, I let them know. My new mantra is, "Cry with me. Don’t pretend you understand why my child died. Don’t try to rationalize why my son was diagnosed with cancer at the age of three and died at four."

Those who have helped are the ones who continue to remember his birthday and think of how hard it is to live the holidays without him. I appreciate the friends who join me at the cemetery, named by my children “Daniel’s Place”, and lift a helium balloon into the sky with me. Watch it soar.

I believe my son is vibrant and alive in Heaven now. I hope the balloon reaches him. Don’t tell me it pops when it gets out of sight. Let me be like a child and not know the laws of the stratosphere. Let me wish he knows how much I love and miss him. Let me believe he is alive and touching the face of God.

The sun does shine again in my world. Although the hole in my mother’s heart is always present, I’m grateful for the times I can tell Daniel’s story. Remembering him, writing about him, even sharing his jokes with those I meet, brings healing.

I place flowers at his grave. But Daniel is not another flower.
~ By Alice J. Wisler

Daniel, again

I dreamed of my little Daniel early this morning. He was walking down
a corridor with a bandage and surgical tape sticking out of the back
of his head. I called his name and eagerly, filled with warmth and
smiles, he came and sat in my lap. We talked and laughed as though
we had just seen each other. As though it has not been 11 years
since I grinned over one of his jokes.

I dreamed of Daniel, my son. There are gifts and then, there are
gifts. The joy from that dream is a gift that is impossible to
describe unless you've had the experience to join your precious
child in the realms of a dream... Because once a child dies, the
dreams are all you get.

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

This week Rain Song is featured at the CFBA. Check out the interview and review here at Window to my World.

Novel Journey

Take a walk over to Novel Journey to read my interview by Jessica.
Post a comment for a chance to win a copy of Rain Song.

How Sweet It Is

How Sweet It Is, my next novel, due May 1, 2009, has a cover! I think it's perfect.

Rain Song in The Durham Herald-Sun!

The actual article starts on page one of the Sunday edition of The Herald-Sun and carries over to the Books and Leisure Section and spans to the next page.

The article comes with a large, full color photo of me and Rain Song's cover, as well as a listing of upcoming book events. Of course, being able to see, feel, and breathe in the full newspaper affect adds to the excitement I feel for this piece.




Author's newest story an outlet for her grief

By Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan : The Herald-Sun
dvaughan@heraldsun.com

Oct 19, 2008

"Rain Song"

By Alice J. Wisler(Bethany House, trade paperback, 304 pages, $13.99)

Alice J. Wisler was passing through Mount Olive, N.C., one time and stopped to eat at a restaurant there. The town -- home to the pickle company and annual pickle festival -- became the setting for her debut novel, "Rain Song."

Wisler, who has lived in Durham for 20 years, has previously self-published cookbooks and ran a small cake decorating business. Food is a popular topic for discussion among the "Rain Song" characters as they plan the annual family reunion. And they make and eat a good deal of pineapple chutney. Main character Nicole enjoys her grandmother, great aunts and other quirky extended family.

But it is Nicole's immediate family relationships that cause her pain. Nicole was born in Japan to missionaries. Her mother was killed in a house fire when Nicole was just a toddler. It left a longing and unanswered questions in Nicole and led to a distant relationship with her father. So Nicole takes comfort in her familiar surroundings in Mount Olive, her contributions to the Pretty Fishy Web site and her job as a middle school teacher. Until she connects with a man who has fish too, but more importantly lives in Japan and holds the key to Nicole's understanding of her young life there. As she learns about her past, her comfortable world is shaken.

Like her character, Wisler is also the daughter of missionaries and lived in Japan as a child. She has also dealt with the loss of a close loved one. Wisler's son died at age four. Over the past dozen years she has used writing to deal with grief and showed others how to do so, too. Writing is something she has always done, though she put it on the back burner as she raised her children. She is also mom to a freshman at East Carolina University and two middle school students. After her son died, she was writing for survival.

"It took on a whole new course," Wisler said. "My writing became a lot more realistic. Now it's not so happily ever after."

The ending of "Rain Song" leaves the readers an opportunity to continue the story in their own imagination. Wisler actually finished the novel without the final chapter, which her publisher asked her to write to provide some closure. She doesn't plan to write a sequel, but she does have another novel coming out next year. Her publisher, Bethany House, which publishes Christian fiction, signed her to a two-book contract. "Rain Song" includes church and religious references as part of the daily lives of the characters in the small Southern community.

"I wanted to add the Christian influences but didn't want it to be overly saturated with it. I wanted it to be entertaining, not a sermon," she said. Wisler attends Blacknall Presbyterian Church in Durham.

Her next novel, "How Sweet It Is," takes place in Bryson City, on the edge of the Smoky Mountains. It features a woman from Georgia who moves to a cabin there and teaches cooking at a church-run foster children's program. Wisler has worked with foster children and studied social work in college at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.

She has been part of a writing group in Cary for eight years. Wisler said she had been rejected many times before, and had just three chapters of "Rain Song" completed in 2007 for her soon-to-be agent. The agent asked for the entire book, and Wisler frantically wrote her final draft while her children slept or were at school. She already has a third book in a draft stage -- another novel -- which does not have a publisher yet.

"I want to have one ready," Wisler said.

Copyright 2008
All rights reserved

Rain Song in Dutch -- Regenlied

Well, when I was doing what writer Patricia Fry calls
a fame search, guess what I came across?

Did you guess Rain Song in Dutch? Believe it or not, you are right.

Rain Song, or Regenlied, will have a different cover from the US
cover. The picture is of a little girl in a pink sweater and I think
she looks adorable. The Dutch translation should be out by Christmas.

Okay, so you are curious to see what it looks like?
Head over to this site.

Gotta love this review of Rain Song

Folks,
Head over to Deena's site, A Peek at My Bookshelf.

What an in-depth and fun review
of Rain Song she posted today.

There is nothing quite like the feeling that
a reader gets your book. Thanks, Deena!
I hope we get to meet one day.