Proceeds from the sale of “40 Years for the Kids” will benefit the Greater Lakes Region Children’s Auction

LACONIA— The Janice Beetle Books team of the 2021 Challenge is developing a book about the Greater Lakes Region Children’s Auction to celebrate its 40th anniversary this year. Proceeds from sales of the book will benefit the 2021 Auction. 

You can order a copy of “40 Years for the Kids,” a paperback that sells for $25, at https://janicebeetlebooks.com/product/40-years-for-the-kids/. Books will be delivered later this fall. 

The Children’s Auction was the brainchild of Warren Bailey, a DJ for WLNH back forty years ago, when Bailey hosted the first live event in downtown Laconia.

Today, four decades later, the auction has hundreds of volunteers, dozens of corporate sponsors, over forty Community Challenge teams, and countless committed community members who donate and bid on Auction items. Together, these people helped the organization raise the over seven million dollars it has distributed to over eighty nonprofits that serve local children and their families.

“40 Years for the Kids” presents feature stories on the some of the Auction’s many volunteers and the nonprofits it serves. 

Beetle works with writers of all skill levels to help them with publishing needs and/or coaching services.

For more information about Janice Beetle Books, visit janicebeetlebooks.com.

The post The Janice Beetle Books 2021 Challenge Team is Preparing a Book to Raise Funds appeared first on Beetle Press.

Note: My client Vincent “Vinny” Valetutti has published “If I Were President: 29 alternative ideas for solving global problems” in the days surrounding the presidential election to get Americans thinking about solutions—rather than controversy. Vinny is not a candidate for any office. His book is intended not as a platform for a campaign but instead to raise awareness and offered frustrated voters some food for thought. It is interesting and earnest. I wrote the Foreword for the book, which appears below. Learn more about Vinny and “If I Were President” here.

Vincent “Vinny” Valetutti is my friend Becka’s partner. I met him several years ago when he offered to drive our entire book group to a vineyard in a van so we could all relax and enjoy. Meeting all of us for the first time, Vinny was friendly and pleasant, and also a good driver!

This year, I assigned a student intern working with me in my public relations business to interview Vinny and write a press release on the traveling, thirty-foot-high, mock Sea Level Rise Ruler he created to raise awareness about rising sea levels. When standing next to the ruler, one has a close-up, dramatic view of how high the sea would rise if only five to ten percent of Antarctica and Greenland were to melt. 

Vinny towed his ruler on a trailer and parked it in a lot in downtown Northampton, Massachusetts, so people could visit it and learn more about one impending circumstance of climate change. He later towed his giant ruler to Washington, DC.

Helping get some media attention on this innovation gave me a deeper view into the mind that is Vinny’s. So, when he contacted me a few months after his initial outreach and asked for help with this book, I was interested in working with him. I have since learned much about the man behind the ruler.

Vinny grew up in Westchester, just north of New York City. He was the oldest son of seven children who were raised by an at-home mom and a father who worked alongside his own father in the perfume delivery business. Vinny’s grandfather founded the company in the early 1900s with a horse and buggy.

As a child, Vinny felt different from other children. He was bullied a lot and withdrew into himself. He spent his afternoons and weekends tinkering with toy cars and trucks. As he grew up, he continued to enjoy working with his hands and was always fascinated with mechanical devices and how things worked. 

As a teen, Vinny worked in a bike shop, doing repairs. He once dismantled an entire grandfather clock to see how it worked; in taking it apart, a spring sprung and damaged the teeth on some of the gears for the gong, which he couldn’t repair. Vinny got the time piece back in working order on his own, but the clock never sounded again. At seventeen, he tinkered with his first car, replacing the clutch, his biggest project with that vehicle. 

A mild Asperger’s diagnosis in 2011 helped Vinny understand why he preferred to spend time alone, and why his mind works as intently as it does. He learned why emotions or body language had never played into his psyche. By that time, Vinny had amassed a great deal of experience as an engineer, and he’d worked extensively in energy conservation, aircraft structures, nuclear piping, moveable bridges and with heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in office buildings. 

In his first job after graduation from the Academy of Aeronautics in Queens, he worked for a company called Republic Aircraft, helping to design the moveable surfaces on the wings of the Boeing 747 aircraft. 

During the 1970s, after the first Arab oil embargo, the nuclear industry was planning to build a thousand nuclear plants by the year 2000, and engineers like Vinny were being recruited. He began designing piping systems, but after a partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island in 1979, Vinny’s love of the environment won out. He worked for an energy conservation company that performed energy audits in schools and hospitals and later ran his own firm, which included working for lawyers on accident cases. 

Vinny also spent some years working on movable and retractable bridges—like those over canals—and had a team of iron workers, machinists, electricians, and carpenters under his charge. He also spent time working to solve systemic problems in buildings in New York City. Vinny was the guy who was called when an old city high-rise had significant problems with rainwater leakage, also when there were problems with the air conditioning system in a major public train station. 

As Vinny says, “My brain is wired to figure things out.” This is likely because Vinny absorbs information. He surveyed the Twin Towers ten months before 9/11, for instance, and had intricate knowledge of the building’s structural integrity. So, after having many conversations about the cause of the collapses, Vinny read the structural section of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report to fully understand what happened—why the buildings came down the way they did. That was not out of character for a man who once went to a New York public library and read the entire ballistics section of the Warren Commission’s report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 

In 2004, Vinny retired from his work as an engineer and travelled literally all over the world to points that included Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, the Galapagos, and much of Europe. He saw how people live in other countries—lower standards of living, open-air markets—and how the world is changing rapidly, even in undeveloped countries. He once spotted a woman in Africa lugging water in a jug on her head on a dusty road, talking on a cell phone.

Vinny’s career and his travels inform and inspire ideas. As he imagines, he meshes his deep passion for the environment with his knowledge of history and politics, his global savvy, and his lifelong experience as a pragmatic, creative problem-solver. 

Perhaps due to his Asperger’s, Vinny sees the world differently. He doesn’t consider himself a Democrat or a Republican. His lens doesn’t focus solely to the left, or the right, and it also doesn’t land in the center. “I consider myself a realist,” he explains. “Think of a line. At one end, you have the left—liberal, Democrats. At the other, you have the right—conservative, Republicans. In the middle, you would have the Independents, who sometimes go to one end or the other. I like to think of my mind where the line is simply the diameter of a sphere, where I can find ideas anywhere within the sphere.” Sometimes, I also think outside the sphere—kind of like thinking outside the box. I’m a warehouse of spheres, and sometimes, I think outside the warehouse.”

While Vinny attended a Catholic high school for a time, he does not think of himself as religious. He describes himself as an agnostic because he cannot prove there is or is not a god. His thoughts on religion are like his other musings—outside the warehouse. At times, he quotes the bible, recalled from his religious education as a child, as he explains an idea because a word or a phrase has caught his attention.

As he talks, Vinny often punctuates his sentences by saying, “Okay?” As in, “Are you following me?” In our interviews, I always was; if I wasn’t, I asked a lot of questions. This book holds the ideas Vinny described to me. They are his original thoughts on how to solve some of the problems that plague the United States and the world.

“These ideas have been forming in my brain over decades, certainly not just something that popped in the last couple of months,” he says, adding, “I’ve always had ideas, and they’ve changed from time to time.”

Vinny offers the disclaimer that his proposals are not intended as fully formed concepts, and they are not intended as facets of a presidential platform. They are simply food for thought for all of us to create a better world.

I offer the disclaimer that the Janice Beetle Books indicia on the book jacket does not signify an endorsement of the specific ideas within but rather wholehearted support of the author’s innovative thinking and global compassion.

The post Client’s Book Offers Look at Solving Global Problems appeared first on Beetle Press.

Beginning tomorrow, I’m launching a 20-day series of free podcasts on Janice Beetle Books, called Poem Pods, for children and families. They are low-tech broadcasts that aim to give children home on school vacation—without the benefit of summer camps and swimming pools—some encouragement, entertainment, and inspiration. (Read more about the substance of Poem Pods here.)

I host Poem Pods with my 11-year-old grandson Eli, and in addition to reading poems and talking about writing, we interview people about such things as friendship, family, asking for help, and the importance of inspiration and discipline. 

The following is a schedule for Poem Pods, indicating each day’s topics and guests. If you would like to receive an email each day with links to the audio and a written script, sign up for my blog on Janice Beetle Books here.

Pod One: Meet Janice, Eli, and the Family
Airing on June 23
In Pod One, you’ll meet your narrators, Janice (known as Grammy in Poem Pods) and her grandson Eli. They explain what Poem Pods are, and Grammy reads a poem to introduce you to people in her family—who you’ll meet later in interviews about their work and their writing! 

Pod Two: Poems About Pets
Airing on June 24
In Pod Two, you’ll hear what inspired Grammy to start writing when she was six and hear Grammy and Eli’s poems about pets. The activity is to write down some thoughts about your pets and share them with us in the comments on social media. 

Pod Three: More Pets, and Eli Interviews a Writer
Airing on June 25
In Pod Three, Grammy talks more about her inspiration to write as a child and reads more poems about pets. Eli interviews a local writer, Craig Fear, and Craig tells a story about his dog and talks about the books he writes. 

Pod Four: More on Inspiration, and Meet Auntie Molly 
Airing on June 26
In Pod Four, Grammy talks about the typewriter her grandmother gave her that was an inspiration and reads two poems about imaginary things. We interview Eli’s Auntie Molly, a preschool teacher, who talks about children learning to read and write and the importance of creativity and inspiration. 

Pod Five: Meet Eli’s Brother Darrian and Hear How He Learned to Draw
Airing June 27
In Pod Five, Grammy and Eli talk about reading and keeping a diary, and Grammy reads two poems inspired by water. Grammy also reads a poem Eli wrote when he was very young, about his Auntie Molly. And Eli interviews his brother Darrian, who is a budding illustrator who is drawing pictures that will go with some of Grammy’s Poem Pods, in a book she is working on. Eli asks kids to think about who they look up to—and tell a story about that person. 

Pod Six: A Clown Poem, and an Introduction to Shel Silverstein
Airing on June 28
In Pod Six, Grammy talks about writing for her high school newspaper. Eli talks about learning how to interview people, and Grammy reads two silly verses. The day’s activity is to read a book by Shel Silverstein, who wrote wonderful poems. 

Pod Seven: Thinking and Writing about the Things We Don’t Want to Do!
Airing on June 29
In Pod Seven, Grammy talks about writing for her college newspaper, and she and Eli talk about when you have a total lack of inspiration and don’t want to do anything! The activity is to think about the things you don’t like to do, and brainstorm rhymes about them! Use RhymeZone.com if it helps!

Pod Eight: When We Need Encouragement, and Writing About Our Feelings
Airing on June 30
In Pod Eight, Grammy and Eli talk about when we sometimes need encouragement—or inspiration from others—we hear a poem about a gymnast, and then we meet the gymnast! She is Grammy’s daughter and Eli’s mom, Sally. Sally talks about why and what she wrote when she was young. Sally also talks about sharing feelings and her work now as a medical assistant! The activity is to read a book by Dr. Seuss, who was a master of rhymes! 

Pod Nine: Masks, a First Reporting Job, and Rhymes
Airing on July 1
In Pod Nine, Grammy and Eli talk about their masks. Grammy talks about her first job as a reporter, and she reads a poem that is her and Eli’s favorite. Grammy and Eli have fun making rhymes together! The activity is to think of things in the world around you and make up words that rhyme! 

Pod Ten: Illustrators, Snitfits, Being Vulnerable, and a Healthcare Hero
Airing on July 2
In Pod Ten, Grammy talks about reviewing picture books for the newspaper. Grammy and Eli talk about bad moods, snitfits, and feeling vulnerable. Eli interviews an EMT, Amanda Roberts, who talks about her work and what it’s like to wear a mask all day! The activity is to write about a time when you felt sad or mad. That’s a lot harder than writing about when you were happy!

Pod Eleven: Ladybugs Poems, and Making a Healthy, Ladybug Snack
Airing on July 3
In Pod Eleven, Grammy and Eli talk about Grammy’s work—including helping the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. They also talk about what Eli wants to be when he grows up, and Grammy reads two poems about ladybugs. Then, Grammy walks Eli through the process of making a healthy snack that looks like a ladybug!

Pod Twelve: Talking About Grief and Humor
Airing on July 4
In Pod Twelve, Grammy talks about the memoir she wrote about grieving, and she and Eli talk about what people can do when they are feeling sad. Grammy reads a funny poem to Eli, and Eli and Grammy talk about humor and act out a funny story from when Eli was young. The activity for the day is for parents and children to work together to record a funny story about their child—in a story, a video, a drawing, or in audio recording only on a smartphone.

Pod Thirteen: Talking about Listening, Grace, Compassion
Airing on July 5
In Pod Thirteen, Eli and Grammy talk about listening to others’ feelings, and having grace and compassion. Grammy talks about her work in helping people turn an emotional experience into a book. Eli and Grammy act out a conversation they had years ago that demonstrates Eli’s compassion as a tiny boy. (It’s also so silly.) The activity is for parents and children to tell a funny story and write it down or create a video to preserve it and to also record their COVID-19 stories.

Pod Fourteen: Why Family is So Important—All the Time, and Especially Now
Airing on July 6
In Pod Fourteen, Grammy talks about her friend Judy Kelliher’s book, which is about Judy’s brother Bobby and will be available soon. The daily poem is also about family. Grammy interviews Eli and his mom and dad about why family is important—all the time, and especially now. The activity is for children to interview someone in their family about a funny family story!

Pod Fifteen: Telling Other Peoples’ Stories and Interviewing Best Friends
Airing on July 7
In Pod Fifteen, Grammy talks about her work, helping people publish their own stories in the form of books. She reads poems about friendship, and then Grammy interviews Eli and his best friend, Miggz; they talk about what they look for in a friend and why friends are important. The activity is to write a story about your good friend! 

Pod Sixteen: Finding Inspiration in the Woods
Airing on July 8
In Pod Sixteen, Grammy reads two silly poems that are among her favorites, and Eli interviews his Uncle CJ; CJ talks about his canoe and camping in the woods with Auntie Molly, and what inspires him about being outdoors. The activity is to take a walk, look for wildlife, and observe nature!

Pod Seventeen: When You Need Inspiration from Others
Airing on July 9
In Pod Seventeen, Grammy reads poems about boys and girls, written from her perspective on gender. Eli interviews writer Judith Kelliher, who has recently published a book about her brother Bobby’s service in Vietnam; Judy talks about how she sometimes needed others to inspire her to finish her book. As today’s activity, children are invited to listen to Judy read an excerpt from the beginning of her book, in which she talks about who inspired her to keep writing when she felt afraid.

Pod Eighteen: Meet an Air Traffic Controller at Bradley and Learn About Highways in the Sky
Airing on July 10
In Pod Eighteen, Grammy and Eli talk about love. Grammy reads a poem about love, and then our co-hosts bring Grammy’s husband, Steve, on to talk about Steve’s work as an air traffic controller at Bradley International Airport. Today’s activity is to watch the sky to see what planes are flying over your heads, and to search on Google for the aircraft Steve describes to see what they look like!

Pod Nineteen: Talking and Writing About Age
Airing on July 11
In Pod Nineteen, Grammy and Eli talk about a person’s age and also responsibilities. Grammy says she is writing a book of children’s poems about the ages one to 18, and she reads a poem about the age of three. The activity is to write a poem or a story about the age you are at now!

Pod Twenty: Three Final Poems, and a Talk on Learning Discipline
Airing on July 12
In Pod Twenty, Grammy reads three final poems, and Grammy and Eli talk with Eli’s father, Tommy, about karate and also discipline—how you learn it, and why we need it. The final activity is for children to inspire yourselves and think about what to do that will be creative.

The post Fun Poems and Stories for Fun People: The Poem Pod Line-up appeared first on Beetle Press.

Free podcast intended to give children home on summer vacation encouragement, entertainment, and inspiration

EASTHAMPTON—Janice Beetle of Janice Beetle Books will launch a 20-day series of free podcasts for children and families on her website at JaniceBeetleBooks.com starting June 22. 

Called Poem Pods, the homegrown broadcasts are narrated by Beetle and her feisty 11-year-old grandson Eli.

A blog that will post on June 22 will offer a complete Poem Pod schedule, outlining posting dates, the names of interviewees, conversation topics, and that day’s activities. The pods themselves will begin on June 23 and post daily through July 12.

“As Eli and I say in our homegrown broadcasts, Poem Pods are fun poems and fun stories for fun people,” Beetle said. “My hope is that they give children encouragement, entertainment, and inspiration to get them thinking creatively as a summer without camps and public swimming pools begins.”

Poem Pods are theme-based and explore concepts like family, friendship, inspiration, vulnerability, fears, and asking for help. When the day’s poem is about family, for instance, Beetle and her grandson discuss the importance of family, and they interview a family member. 

At the start of each segment, Beetle and her grandson talk about Beetle’s writing inspirations and education, starting when she was six years old, and her grandmother gave her a notebook. 

The poems, written by Beetle years ago for her two daughters, are short and silly and cover topics from dogs and cats to family, raindrops, love, and friendship. They follow the introductory conversation and are in the middle of the podcast. “Much like a pea is in the center of a pea pod,” Beetle said.

After the day’s poems are read, Beetle and her grandson have lively and interesting conversations on that day’s theme and offer children an activity. And in 11 of the pods, they bring on a guest, and Eli conducts an interview that extends the discussion. 

The interviews also offer a closer look at the inspirations of others along with an education into what it’s like to be a writer, a medical professional, or an air traffic controller, for instance.

Along with each audio post, each episode will also feature a written transcript in the blog feed for those who would rather read than listen. Or, some could choose to listen while reading along.

To receive an email when the Poem Pod schedule posts, and to receive each day’s new Poem Pod post, sign up for the blog at JaniceBeetleBooks.com.

Beetle is a longtime writer and editor from Western Massachusetts. Janice Beetle Books LLC centers around book development and publishing and is based in Easthampton.

Through Janice Beetle Books, Beetle works with writers of all skill levels—as well as nonwriters—to help them carry a book idea through to publication. She also offers writing coaching services.

Beetle, of Easthampton, holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Westfield State College. She also runs Beetle Press, a PR firm offering writing, editing, and digital marketing services to business owners and leaders of nonprofit organizations.

The post Janice Beetle Books to Launch Poem Pods appeared first on Beetle Press.

Judi Lundh is a retired English teacher who lives not far from my home in the Lakes Region of Laconia, New Hampshire. She has written a few books and contacted me after seeing an ad I run in the Laconia Sun for Janice Beetle Books.

One piece Judi penned was about her mother, Virginia, and Judi had in mind to have it edited, designed, and printed in book form as a gift for Virginia’s 90th birthday. After we discussed the process and how it would all work with technology bridging the gap between Western Mass and Laconia, I started helping Judi in December 2019.

Because the book existed then only as a PDF, my intern Teresa Adams typed the work. Then, Judi wrote a half dozen or so more chapters, fleshing out an end and bringing the content up to date with the year 2020 and Virginia’s impending birthday. I copyedited the piece, asked some pesky questions, and—because we were in a hurry to complete the project—I also did the book design.

It was printed by Off the Common Books in Amherst in early March, and I drove the box with Judi’s 50 copies up to New Hampshire to deliver them; Judi’s mother, sisters, and other family members—all guests at the March birthday gathering—were to receive a book.

Judi was thrilled, as she should be! She is proud and felt certain her mother would be honored by her words and efforts.

The Last of the Matriarchs begins with Virginia meeting the man she would marry in the early 1940s and offers glimpses of special moments in Virginia’s life as a wife and mother—raising three daughters, working hard, spending time with her dear friend Eleanor.

The book ends with a poem Judi penned, called “Sonnet of Love.”

Judi is a fine writer, and the work is sweet and sentimental. I can’t imagine a nicer tribute.

Girls. (My girls, Sally and Molly.) Are you reading this? Paying attention? This would be a wonderful gift for YOUR mother. You know. Some day.

Nicely done, Judi, and thanks very much for letting me help you bring your mother’s story to life!

The post Last of the Matriarchs appeared first on Beetle Press.

What many of my clients with Janice Beetle Books have in common is that they are retired and have a deep passion to preserve something that’s precious to them in the form of a book. Their story might, for instance, focus on a collection built over their lifetime.

Or they may want to record some aspect of their life—becoming a parent, losing someone important, building a career. Sometimes, people want to put down the story of their entire life for their children and grandchildren.

A client I began working with last fall falls into this latter category. Because she is modest and doesn’t want anyone besides her children to know that she has asked me to prepare her memoir, I can’t use this client’s name. I will call her Mary.

While her life has been joy-filled and rich with family and new adventures, Mary has also faced challenges—many of them health-related. She has approached each new problem with humor, grace, spirit, and faith.

Mary’s children know their mother is strong and stoic, and they have learned well from her to be resilient and grateful. But they want the generations to come to hear from Mary directly, so they can experience her and learn from her too.

I am thrilled to be telling the story of Mary’s life.

The early phase of the process has revolved around interviewing Mary about her life and processing documentation made available to me—everything from personal notes to medical records to newspaper clippings.

I am enjoying my one-on-one time with Mary the absolute most. An octogenarian, she has the brightest, warmest disposition, and we have in common that we like to mock ourselves. Mary and I both enjoy cracking ourselves up.

At least once in every interview, Mary says something that gets her laughing so hard she can’t speak for a few minutes. This, of course, gets me going.

Last month, I had a final interview with Mary. Now, I need to review everything I’ve gathered to organize it and place it in a chronology. I also need to evaluate what I still don’t know; what I still need. And then I will interview Mary’s children to hear their stories and recollections of their mother.

Then, finally, I will start writing.

Except for the fact that this project takes time, you can’t really call it work. It is so enjoyable—so delightful to sit with Mary, laugh with her. My respect for her, and the connection I am making with her, will make the process of writing about her enjoyable, and it will be fueled by my own passion to do well by Mary and her family.

My relationship with Mary is one I know I will continue after her project is through.

She’s the kind of person I’ll want to keep visiting so that I can smile and laugh with her!

The post Telling the Story of a Blessed Life appeared first on Beetle Press.

Gerald “Gerry” Hass is a retired pediatrician with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work over the past few months through Janice Beetle Books.

A man who is as gracious and compassionate as he is productive and intelligent, Gerry has created a book about his experience as the co-founder of a health center in the South End of Boston. I have fully enjoyed helping him develop the book’s content and usher it into the print phase.

“The Story of the South End Community Health Center: The Early Days” tells the story of the founding of the South End Community Health Center, which opened its doors in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1969.

Back in 1968, Gerry was offered a position as chief of Ambulatory Pediatrics and associate professor of Pediatrics at Boston City Hospital. His administrative support was Mel Scovell.

As a teaching and research fellow at Boston University School of Medicine’s Home Medical Service in 1961, Gerry understood the need for primary health care services for the underserved and multi-ethnic population of the South End of Boston. Mel had been a senior executive in a large international chain of shoe stores and factories, and he understood business finance.

Together, they imagined and then created the South End Community Health Center to provide care for all South End residents, including recently arrived Latino families. They encountered many hurdles, and they leapt over them.

There were no private doctors in the neighborhood, so residents wanted their own local clinic, where the health needs of their children and families could be met. The South End Community Health Center gave personal and continuous care to thousands of inner-city families, and its staff members were sensitive to the lives and the needs of all South End residents, including recently arrived Latino families.

Last year—2019—marked the 50^th anniversary of the center. Gerry and Mel hosted a reunion in Boston, and Gerry also wished to honor that celebration with a book on the center’s founders, staff, and patients. In 2019, he visited these former colleagues and friends, interviewing them—about what they valued, what they remember, what they felt the center’s importance and legacy was in the community.

Gerry then developed one chapter based on each interview, and he brought that collection of material to me. Together, we determined the order the various entries would be presented. I created a manuscript, compiling all the material, and then I offered content edits. Finally, I copy edited the final work and supported Gerry through the design and print process with Off the Common Books in Amherst.

On March 17, Gerry will read from his book at the South End branch of the Boston Public Library. I will be in Florida and will not be able to attend, but I have much pride and faith in Gerry. He will lead this event in the same determined, elegant manner he has used to walk through the production process.

Key in the center’s growth and popularity was its staff—people like Gerry who were sensitive to the lives and needs of the Latino families they served, who took the time to speak their language, and learn and meet their varying health care needs.

This book is dedicated to the thousands of families who were patients of the South End Community Health Center in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts. It is also dedicated to the wonderful and caring medical and support staff, who loved working together for decades.

The heart and soul of the Center was the late Inez Washabaugh Ward, RN, PNP, the center’s first nurse. Many people who were interviewed spoke of Inez as a woman who was hard-working, respectful, kind, and full of good humor. I feel as if I know her!

Likewise, Gerry is my kind of person.

He is soft-spoken, and he is all about people and their stories. He is the kind of person who will speak aloud of a friend or acquaintance of his, and then tell you something about that person—making him or her real.

Gerry is also a major scholar and physician.

He came to Boston in 1966 from London, England, with his late wife, Terry. He graduated in 1958 from the London Hospital Medical College and did residencies at the Royal London Hospital and also the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street in London. He came to Boston in 1966 to teach at Boston University School of Medicine.

I am privileged to have had the chance to work with Gerry, to learn his stories and those of his friends.

I will be proud to have his book on my shelf, and I will give a copy to Jacques’ daughter, who is studying to be a physician assistant in Boston, and my daughter Sally, a medical assistant here in Easthampton.

Excellent job, Gerry!

The post Helping a Pediatrician Develop His Book appeared first on Beetle Press.

While I don’t feel at liberty at this time to talk openly about the people whose stories I am helping bring to life through Janice Beetle Books, I will give you a glimpse of the range of topics and services I’m providing. 

I can tell you I am helping my dear friend, Judith Kelliher, take the final steps to bring her manuscript to life. For the past five-plus years, Judy has been working on a book about her brother Bobby’s two tours in Vietnam—and life after.

As you might imagine, “A Wartime PhD: One soldier’s story of Vietnam and learning to live again,” is a powerful story with moments that hurt the heart. Judy’s writing is clear and wrenching, and also loving.

The manuscript is now in my hands. I have copy edited it—as has another friend of Judy’s—and now it is time to design the book and work with Levellers Press and its Off the Common Books division to get it printed. I adore both Judy and Bobby, so this work is a labor of love. 

I am so proud of Judy—and Bobby as well; it is often not easy to share such a deeply personal story. I am also proud of these clients, whom I am helping at this time:

• A retired pediatrician, who founded a health center in the South End of Boston in 1969 and is telling the story of the center’s founders, staff, and its 50th anniversary last year. 
• An octogenarian, for whom I’m writing a memoir that tells the story of various crises she faced in her life, including polio and breast cancer diagnoses, and how she overcame those challenges. 
• A local entrepreneur, who’s story centers on a system she devised and uses in coaching her clients to become stronger leaders and employers. (I will use my systems in coaching her to write this book.)
• A retired English teacher, who has written a clever and loving story about her mother’s life, which I am editing. 
• A retired engineer, for whom I’m editing a fictional who-dun-it.
• A nurse, who wants to share the story of a brutal beating she suffered at the hands of a patient and how she believes change is needed in health care management.

I hope to tell you more about this work as time passes.

The post Covering a lot of Ground appeared first on Beetle Press.

I have been having trouble finding time to write blogs once a week because Janice Beetle Books has exploded! I am currently working on eight different manuscripts for clients—in addition to my PR work with clients of Beetle Press. The work is fascinating and incredibly rewarding, and that is an adventure of a different kind, is it not?

Before Christmas last December, I worked on a project for a woman in Western Mass whose adult daughter died in 2016, leaving behind an over-300-page manuscript she had completed, but it was unedited and unpublished. 

My client wanted to finalize her daughter’s work and present the gift of a printed, bound book to her two other children, and her late daughter’s children, for Christmas. So, I hustled to make that happen, as did Levellers Press in Amherst, which designed and published the fictional tale through its self-publishing division, Off the Common Books.

My client told me her two grandsons were overwhelmed with the present—a solid piece of work that offered them peace of mind and pride. One held the book to his chest; the other wept. They both said it was the greatest gift they had ever received.

And that makes me weepy. 

What follows is the foreword I was honored to write for the book. I have changed the author’s name and have not used the name of my client, her mother, to protect their privacy. This book is not for sale on the market. At this time, it is a family treasure only.

Foreword

When I work with an author to copy edit a book, there is a good deal of back and forth. I ask questions, poke holes in ideas, and question material that doesn’t make sense to me. The process is rewarding. I value the dialogue and the chance to get inside another writer’s head.

Sadly, I was not able to have literary conversations with the late Mary Writer, the author of this book. I tried my best to channel Mary instead as I copy edited her manuscript, though. I would talk with her as I worked: “This is what you meant, Mary, right?” My main guiding principle was like that of a physician’s—do no harm. 

As I worked, I edited for grammar and style only, adhering to the Chicago Manual of Style. When I caught discrepancies, I fixed them with the lightest touch possible. After my first read-through of the entire work, I let Mary’s mother know that page 327 of the manuscript was missing and that the book—a murder mystery—ended abruptly, mid-sentence in chapter 106.

Mary’s mother and I were disappointed about this fact. She assured me the missing pages were not at her house. While Mary’s mother did not actively search for another version of the manuscript, about a week later, she emailed me to say that she had come upon a plastic tote in her home; a second, intact copy of the manuscript was within. It was meant to be. I scrambled to transcribe and edit page 327 and the remaining chapters. How satisfying to know the ending that Mary had imagined! 

The book is set in Madison, New Hampshire, in the northern part of the state, near Silver Lake. I think the story takes place roughly between 1996 and 2007; those were the years during which Motorola’s StarTAC flip phone was manufactured. One of the book’s characters owns a StarTAC.

One important yet subtle subtext of the book is education. At least a half dozen of the major characters wrestle with alcoholism; those who are in recovery educate about what the disease is, and what it is not. 

I am grateful to Mary’s mother for allowing me the honor of working on her daughter’s manuscript and shepherding it through the design and print process. Mary was a very skilled writer. Her characters are well-drawn and engaging, and the storyline is gripping. 

I know from correspondence I unearthed in the plastic tote Mary’s mother brought me that book agents and editors agreed with me. Back in 2002, Mary had worked diligently to find an agent or publisher to bring her book to life. I am so pleased that Mary’s mother and I have been able to do just that, and I hope this story brings pride and pleasure to Mary’s family.

The post Storytelling Adventures appeared first on Beetle Press.

Through Janice Beetle Books, I had the privilege to stand up in public and talk about Flight of Integrity with my client, Peter Cichon, in the audience with his wife and family. It was a thrill second only to the privilege of helping Peter tell his story in the first place.

As I explained to an audience of about 40 at South Hadley Public Library—which graciously hosted the talk—Peter came to me about four years ago, referred by my friend and colleague Fran Fahey of Fran’s Fine Editing in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Peter sat down in my office and told me the story of a trauma he experienced while working for an airline at Bradley International Airport in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

At the time I met Peter, those events were at least a decade behind him, but I could see the angst and turmoil still on his face and in his body. He said he needed to tell the story because that would help him to feel some sense of closure and peace. I felt honored that he chose me to be his storyteller.

We agreed early on that we would tell the story as a work of fiction based on fact to protect Peter and his family, his colleagues, and the airline itself. My friend and colleague Judith Kelliher helped me interview Peter several times, and Judy also interviewed Peter’s wife and some of his friends and colleagues.

Peter delivered to me several large cartons filled with documentation that included transcripts of court depositions, police reports from the Connecticut State Police, personnel records from the airline, and recommendations and commendations about Peter.

Together with the material gathered in interviews, the information informed my writing. I prepared a manuscript, which Peter and I subsequently edited together, until it fully resonated with him. (Since Jacques is an air traffic controller, I had him read the book as well, and took his good feedback into account.)

Then, my friend and colleague Lisa Stowe of Florence, Massachusetts, designed the book’s jacket and inside pages, and it was printed by Off the Common Books in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Flight of Integrity is the story of a different time in our history and focuses on troubled race relations and incidents of sexual harassment at the airline for which Peter worked as a ramp agent, or baggage handler.

The ongoing drama centered around three employees who had been known to harass female employees and intimidate other colleagues. Peter took on the role of advocate and defender for those employees who were targets. It was his belief that he could make the airline a better place, where people would want to work. Instead, the situation went in a direction Peter never could have seen coming.

At the reading, I heard feedback from people who have already read the book and described it as a page-turner they could not put down. I particularly appreciated that a woman who worked with Peter, speaking directly to me, said I had done a good job in the writing because the book rang true for her. 

Peter talked about how hard it was to feel persecuted and misunderstood, and he thanked me for bringing his story to light. He said he feels relief now, as if he has had his day in court.

Read Peter’s story, and see what you think!

Contact me if you’d like to plan a cozy reading for a book group or at a public venue in your area.

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