It is said that all things come in their own time.  Well, I'm terribly proud to say that the time has come for my first published work, Elephant Kisses, A Novel of Sweden Told In Five Stories.  It's here!  Or, rather, it's there -- in select bookstores and tourist bureau offices in Sweden.  Soon, we promise, it will be available in bookstores here in the United States.  If you can't wait to get your hands on a copy, contact me or go to the shop website managed by the publisher. Read more about the book at www.ElephantKisses.com. 

     Writing, for me, is a labor of love, filled with joy and angst and desire and revulsion.  This particular book made me feel like a voyeur -- peeking into the lives of people who had lived, or were still living in that far-away land which has become my second home: Sweden.

     "This is the ditch where they found the man, under his tractor..." said my mother-in-law, Margareta, as she cautiously maneuvered the curve on our way into town.  Later, the Old Farmer whispered his story into my ear as I sat at my computer ... 

     "On that farm there used to live a woman. She never left it until her husband died.  Now she's in Europe, somewhere, traveling..." Margareta slowed to allow a tabby cat, mouse in mouth, to dart across the road and disappear into a field of golden wheat.  Before my eyes I saw the woman, walking hand-in-hand with a stranger on a similarly colored beach... 

     "He's just shy," said my brother-in-law as my newly-met nephew hid behind his mother's skirts.  I wondered if his shyness had less to do with his personality and more to do with the fact that we were speaking English.  So my computer keys clicked, and Aunt Melissa stepped into the room and threw the little boy's life into turmoil...

     Thus was Elephant Kisses created -- each story weaving itself into the fabric of my imagination, threads dyed with the colors of fleeting comments, brief moments, and fragments of memories.

     What comment have you to make that will weave itself into my tapestry of imagination?

Beside the Visby Wall, Gotland, Sweden.  June, 2005.

Future Reading

I continue to work on a novel with the working title "Promises".