So Now What?
Laura reads from her book,”Willa’s Grove” for Boulder Bookstore.
“You know… we’re all fluent in this language. In the language of community. And yet we so rarely speak it. It really is our mother tongue.”
Willa’s Grove is now avilailable on Kindle and in Paperback!
Hot off the presses we’ve got five favorite indie eBooks ready for reading! Discover new worlds, catch up with old friends, and take up the case with these trending titles from bestselling authors. Read More.
Struggling to find the answer alone, fiercely independent Willa eventually calls a childhood friend who happens to be in her own world of hurt—and that’s where the idea sparks. They decide to host a weeklong interlude from life, and invite two other friends facing their own quandaries.
Soon the four women converge at Willa’s Montana homestead, a place where they can learn from nature and one another as they contemplate their second acts together in the rugged wilderness of big sky country.
Read what people are saying about Willa’s Grove here.
Four Women. One Week. One Question.
You are invited to the rest of your life.
Three women, from coast to coast and in between, open their mailboxes to the same intriguing invitation. Although leading entirely different lives, each has found herself at a similar, jarring crossroads. Right when these women thought they’d be comfortably settling into middle age, their carefully curated futures have turned out to be dead ends.
The sender of the invitation is Willa Silvester, who is reeling from the untimely death of her beloved husband and the reality that she must say goodbye to the small mountain town they founded together. Yet as Willa mourns her losses, an impossible question keeps staring her in the face: So now what?
Available at any of these bookstores, or your favorite local bookshop.
BestSeller
“This Is Not The Story
You Think It Is”
“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.” Excerpt from my New York Times Modern Love essay,
His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.
He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind….I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn’t.
Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: “I don’t buy it.”
You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to “The End of Suffering.” I’d…decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.
Available in hardcover, paperback, audio and more from your favorite booksellers:
Read The Overwhelming Praise For "This Is Not The Story..."
OVERWHELMING PRAISE FOR THIS IS NOT THE STORY YOU THINK IT IS
“Munson captures, with deepening poignancy and surprisingly good humor, the practical impossibility of remaining jujitsu-cool—denying anger and self-doubt—when her world appears to be coming apart at the seams.”
—Elle Magazine
“Laura Munson takes the spiritual stuff and the personal stuff and the love stuff and the pain stuff and she brews them all together in a very fun and touching memoir. I’m a fan. This is a wonderful book.”
—Marianne Williamson, author of “The Age of Miracles,” and “A Return to Love“
“Ever hear about the power of positive thinking? Ever wonder what it looks like in real life? Ever run up against some rocky places in your relationship that scare the crap out of you? If you answered yes, read this book. Now. I for one devoured it in 24 hours. It’s pure real-life illumination.”
—Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom”
“THIS IS NOT THE STORY YOU THINK IT IS is true to its title. The book took me by surprise. I read it in one sitting and loved Munson’s tone,
wit, wisdom and writing.”
—Anita Shreve, author of “The Pilot’s Wife”
“This book is fabulous. Laura Munson’s noble quest to become the source of her own happiness will take you by the hand and heart as it guides you through the steps to living a life without suffering. Her story pulls back the curtain on the only magic we ever need to know: how to make the shift from fear to love.”
—Arielle Ford, author of “The Soulmate Secret”
“If there is justice, it will do very, very well. I like this book so much that I don’t want to quote, summarize, interpret—I just hope, if you’re in any kind of relationship, that you’ll get it and read it.”
—Jesse Kornbluth, The Huffington Post
“Quirky and surprisingly wise.”
—Vanity Fair
“Let me tell you what this book is about. This is a book about saying yes. It’s the story of Laura Munson’s alchemical ability to create abundance and bounty in the face of scarcity and abandonment—no small triumph. Munson’s account of the summer her marriage nearly fell apart is filled with gems big and small, from her Italian grandmother’s cooking advice (don’t stir backwards . . . you don’t want to undo the sauce) to her commitment not to suffer. Munson is a wonderful guide-wise, brave, and tenaciously honest.”
—Melanie Gideon , author of The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After
“Laura Munson’s powerful and buoyant book gives us wisdom in generous slices. But it is Munson’s abilities as a storyteller that show us how to discover how to find and feel the real wisdom that may arise from our lives, as messy and heart-breaking as they may be. Woman, wife, mother, neighbor–this fine writer converts her own life’s journeys into a series of vignettes so focused and compelling, so heart-breaking, sometimes so funny, that they resound with the force of parables.”
—David Baker, Poetry Editor of “The Kenyon Review,” author of “Never Ending Birds”
“I loved this book. It’s unusual, memorable, and wry; laugh-out-loud funny too.”
—Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of “Crazy Love” and “Mommy Wars”
“It’s rare to read a story that is so deeply personal, so fraught with heartache, so nakedly honest, and at the same time infused with such astute wisdom. In a world that is increasingly disposable, plastic, where our self-worth is so often determined by external factors, Laura Munson has served up a whopping portion of sanity. This book has the potential to start a cultural revolution.”
—Leif Peterson, author of “Catherine Wheels” and “Normal Like Us”
“With amiability, wit, and a modicum of self-pity, Laura Munson’s memoir reminded me of the twenty-one jars of organic tomato sauce she and her children hand-made. A chapter is like a jar lid: if it doesn’t pop as the contents cool, the seal is faulty and the sauce is worthless. Exhausted from their all-day effort, mother and kids sipped hot chocolates and listened as twenty-one jars cooled. To their satisfaction, they counted twenty-one distinct pops. In reading this brave memoir I counted about the same.”
—David James Duncan, author of “The Brothers K” and “God Laughs & Plays”
“Laura Munson’s memoir is a passionate, funny, and painfully honest account of how, in the midst of emotional crisis, one always has a choice between peace and suffering. Soulfully written and full of humor–this is a wise, wonderful book!”
—Kirk Farber, author of “Postcards From a Dead Girl”
“I cried and laughed so hard through these pages-often at the same time that I thanked God I was alone in the privacy of my bedroom. Laura Munson is my new heroine. The wisest, most soulful, kick-ass friend any woman who’s ever had grenades launched at her self-esteem or her belief in love could ask for. Read every page. To the end. And let it heal you to the bone.”
—Linda Sivertsen, author of “Lives Charmed” and “Generation Green”
