If you liked the essay, you’ll love the book:
“This Is Not The Story You Think It Is”

After so many people, literally millions, read my Modern Love essay in the New York Times in 2009…and after so many people didn’t receive its message, it is just plain manna for this writer to listen to the fantastic, spot-on, podcast that the NPR Boston station WBUR, the editor of the column, Dan Jones, and the actress Alysia Reiner put together.  That essay, called “Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear,” was reproduced all over the internet, and to date, it is the #2 Modern Love essay and the #1 most read article in the history of The Week.  And now…it has the kind of support and integrity that I always wanted it to have.  My deep gratitude goes out to the whole team who gave their hearts and elegant minds and voices to my essay.

What many people don’t know is that the essay was the short version of a memoir I wrote in real time, during that six month period, called This Is Not The Story You Think It Is:  A Season of Unlikely Happiness.  While the essay was written in hind-sight, the book shows a woman going through a deep time of rejection with a very different, and in some ways counter-intuitive, approach to well-being.  My book shows a woman, in her daily life, working with what it is to live in the moment, right there at her kitchen sink, driving her kids to school, in the mundane…with a commitment to emotional freedom.  How?  By becoming aware of the way the mind works, recognizing how it does and doesn’t serve me, and choosing to claim responsibility for my emotions.  Whether they were fear-based, or joy-based, confused or ashamed, I learned in that time of my life, that nobody can control my mind or my heart and that I have choices in response to the things people say and do to me.  Emotionally, that is.  My message was never a strategy about how to stay married.  It was always a philosophy about how to live your life, no matter what hardship you face.  Thank you for listening, and thank you for receiving this message.   Click here to listen to the podcast!

To buy the book, click here.

To learn more about my Haven Writing Retreats, click here.

Now Booking our Fall Retreats:

September 7-11 (only a few spots left)
September 21-25 (only a few spots left)
October 5-9
October 19-23

And now booking our full 2017 Haven Writing Retreat calendar: