Starting a Conversation - Women in Nature
By Carol Clouse and Carly Attanasio
LOUISE GRACE PUBLISHING
When you publish a book, you enter into a vast and dynamic dialogue.
You may think of a book as a complete and contained package; a stand alone entity of expression and contribution. Every good book has a beginning, middle, and end. It has a front and a back cover, and when you’ve read the last word and closed the cover, you're done with that book. In reality, however, you have just entered into an ongoing conversation. Something one person writes inspires another person’s thoughts, and it might invoke that person to even write a similar story from a completely different perspective.
Books feed upon books. Writing reaps and sows more writing. Readers discuss the content of books they’ve read in casual conversation and in organized reading groups. Books create a wide-reaching dialogue between writers and readers, weaving a conversation of words in time and space.
The idea for the WIN - Women in Nature book series came from a recognized void in the conversation between women in regard to their relationship with the earth. With the ever-growing human population and the ever diminishing supply of natural resources, we feel that the state of planet earth is a matter close to the heart. Although many people are concerned about the natural environment, their sentiment is lost in the hectic day-to-day logistics of living in our 21st century society. They don’t know what to do, and they aren’t even aware of what other people are doing.
Wit this in mind, we decided to offer a place for women all over the world to share a conversation about their relationship and experiences with the natural environment. The most rewarding and enriching aspect of researching authors and compiling stories for the first book in this series has been meeting all these varied and amazing women through their personal stories. And despite most communication with our authors taking place virtually over email or phone, the entire process felt profoundly intimate.
Each story offers a glimpse into the experiences and values of women all across the globe. They are small but plentiful windows from which we can view angles of the world that we never knew existed. The act of reading these stories constitutes an opening up and launching into all new states of awareness of our earth and the women who cherish it.
When you read someone’s story, does it resonate with you? Do you feel like they are talking to you personally? And when you write, are you aware of how your story fits into the ongoing dialogue of thought, words, and expression? Are you starting a new conversation or reviving and reinventing an existing conversation?
WIN invites you to join a dynamic group of women who fearlessly explore their relationship to the natural world - and challenge you to also hold a voice in the conversation about our Mother Earth.
What conversation stirs your passion? Does your writing enhance the dialogue? Do you see your writing as a contained package of thought, or do you see it as a unique piece of fiber woven into an eternally spun ‘yarn’ of many assorted textures and colors?
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Women in Nature : An Anthology launches May 9th, and will be available in kindle format on Amazon, as well as in printed paperback in natural grocery stores, outdoor retail stores, and small book stores. For more information (and for story submission) go to www.louisegracepublishing.com.
Thank you for your comments Karen. One of our books in the series will be Women in Nature - on Healing. Keep tabs on our website and consider submitting a story. I truly believe that women have a plethora of wisdom and understanding to share with each other and the world.
Carol, your post is very thought-provoking. Right now I am writing a story that touches on the human relationship to the earth on both a physical and spiritual level. There are both female and male characters in need of healing and find it in nature on various levels. There is so much work to be done on the MS, so much to develop, but reading the writing of other women on the subject would be invaluable to me.