“But words are things, and a small drop of ink falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.”
- Lord Byron
 
One of the strangest things a writer can experience is being host to a cast of characters day and night! I suppose it serves me right for embarking on a multi-generational saga that starts in Norway in 1867 and ends in Madison in 2020. There’s bound to be a lot of people. But I don’t welcome them into my bed at 4 in the morning. I wake and my brain is filled with faces, conversations, dramas — all fighting for my attention while I desperately try to shoo them away and get back to sleep. I toss and turn, do yoga body scans, and enumerate the cranial and spinal nerves (remember, I used to teach neuroanatomy!). Sometimes I leave my warm bed and climb into the chilly one in the guest bedroom, firmly closing both doors. But the characters always manage to find me. Some writers find gems in these waking hours, scribbling on a bedside pad for recollection and elaboration the following day. Not me. If the stories are compelling enough, surely they will resurface in the morning. Then the characters are welcome to crowd onto the page, and we can have a proper party!
 
Recently someone asked me to describe the shape of my new novel. Usually people ask about theme, so I was flummoxed. After some consideration, I’ve settled on a Maypole. The pole is set deep in the ground and represents a 14-year-old boy who fetches up in Wisconsin in 1867 after a harrowing voyage from Norway. This boy is at the heart of my story and his journey to the New World is written in the form of a novella. Throughout his life he dreamed of building a mansion, and finally in 1920 he succeeds. The mansion is the above ground part of my Maypole. Now, imagine 10 ribbons hanging from the tip of the pole. Each ribbon represents a stand-alone short story, one per decade from 1920 to 2020. But just like the ribbons, the stories are linked. In sum, I’m writing a novella and ten chapters. If the walls of this mansion could only talk…
 
I best get back to writing!
 

September, 2024

“Think of this — that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.”
A.S. Byatt


I’m not a disciplined writer. I don’t devote several hours each day to making progress. Rather, I write whenever the mood strikes me, and when it does, I might get 1,500 words down. Putting that in context, a novel is usually between 65,000 and 80,000 words, so it’s not much of an achievement.

Even though I might not feel like working on my novel, the urge to write is amazingly strong. Fortunately, I have an outlet that gives me enormous satisfaction — writing letters. I’ve always written letters. When I went to boarding school at age eleven, I had to write a letter to my parents every week, so I got into the habit. That weekly letter home ritual lasted for another 40+ years. And it wasn’t just letters to my parents back in Ireland. I didn’t want to lose contact with friends, so I wrote to them too.
I much prefer writing a letter to making a telephone call. I can imagine the person sitting with me, perhaps sharing a cup of tea or a glass of wine, and I write as if we were having a conversation. The best part is that I get to do all the talking! These letters used to be hand-written, but I type faster than cursive nowadays, so I type a Word document, then paste it into an e-mail. Sometimes I print the document and mail it as I still get a thrill from seeing a hand-addressed envelope in my mailbox, and I expect that many of my friends do too.
Another way to avoid feeling guilty at not working on my novel is to read about how to write. There are a million books out there with advice on craft. I have several on my bookshelf (Save The Cat, Letters To A Young Writer, How to Write Dazzling Dialogue, Story Genius). The one I am reading now is called What About the Baby? Some thoughts on the Art of fiction by Alice McDermott.

Last May, I attended a week-long writing workshop in Connemara on the west coast of Ireland led by Alice. Although I wasn’t familiar with her work, I trusted that as a National Book Award recipient who has taught Creative Writing at Johns Hopkins University for 30 years, it would be a good experience. It was fantastic! Reading What About the Baby, I can see Alice in our classroom at the Renvyle House Hotel, hear her voice, and I want to pay attention to the advice she gives. She is a genius at seeing through a mess of words and finding the gems.
Enough of this. I need to get back to writing!
~ Mary

PS. Because my next newsletter will arrive in your e-mail on the Winter Solstice, I want to add a plug here for giving the gift of a book (or two) to friends and family at Christmas. A Measured Thread and the sequel/companion novel, Finding Isobel would make a lovely present. If your friends/family just want a short read, the stories in Kernels will take them from New York to New Orleans, from Ireland to Norway, from Guyana to… well, Wisconsin. These and the memoir I wrote with my sister, Abbey Girls, are all available by clicking on www.mvbehan.com/books. Finally, if you order through your local bookstore they will be forever grateful to you! 
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June, 2024

Even though I know this Solstice marks the shortening of daylight, there’s so much of summer left to enjoy!

My book launch was wonderful. About 60 friends, almost all from within a 15-mile radius, came to enjoy wine and cheese and chat on a not-too-chilly Spring Equinox at my local coffee shop, Crossroads in Cross Plains. All I had to do was sign books and bask in smiles!

After an event like that you feel so accomplished ‘cos you’ve just completed a (four year) project successfully. Phew! You know your friends and family are going to read the book. Most will enjoy it, for it’s a good story with a satisfying ending. Some might even wonder if there’s going to be a sequel to Finding Isobel too. But as for me, I have left these characters behind and am itching to get going on my new idea.
Unfortunately, my job right now is to market this novel. It’s a challenge because inside me is another story begging to be told. Besides, I know nothing about marketing. Having said that, marketing is a great excuse to avoid the hard work of creating a new story. So, I tend to push it aside, and instead organize book events at local bookstores, libraries, and book festivals. Fortunately, I have someone to help me with that, the wonderful Valerie Biel of Lost Lake Press.
After the book launch, the first of these marketing events was an interview with Doug Moe, a local legend in the literary scene in Madison, at a favorite bookstore, Mystery To Me. Half the audience were old friends, many of whom had worked with me at the School of Veterinary Medicine. That evening was the ultimate high, and I will treasure it forever. 
A couple of weeks later I drove to Viroqua, a town an hour or so northwest of Madison (fabled for its organic food) to attend a weekend book fair. I was at the very last table of book sellers, close to the toilets and the coffee station, neither of which were much of a lure. It was a very quiet place, interrupted only by parents with small children needing to relieve themselves. By the end of the day I had sold the grand total of four books! Still, I met some lovely people. Maybe that’s what it’s all about – meeting like-minded writers who do this for love, joy, anguish, necessity, relief… and any other emotion you care to imagine. This is my tribe.
The next day, the following two e-mails popped up.  
“From the first pages to the last, I was attached to Maggie, Isobel, Vic, and of course Oliver. The language, setting, and storyline were magnetic, thought provoking, and real. I can’t wait for the sequel to Finding Isobel as I know there is so much more to her life in the cabin.”
“I've just completed Finding Isobel. It was wonderful. And every time the story had the chance to take a cheesy or a Hallmark turn, it didn't. I truly loved that. It was so interesting to read a book written by someone whom I know. You were writing about your house and our lovely south-central Wisconsin.  I could see your prairie areas, the long driveway, the bookshelves that Vic helped move out of the guest house, your kitchen…”
Comments like these are what sustains writers. The knowledge that someone enjoyed my story, my characters, my creation...it’s an amazing feeling.
I’m attaching a link to the interview I mentioned above with Doug Moe. Doug’s thoughtful questions allowed me to talk about how I started to write, and then to write more seriously. He finished the interview by asking about my next book. So, if you are interested in hearing what I am currently working on, click on this link.
Finally, if you read Finding Isobel and enjoyed it, I’d really appreciate it if you would leave a review on Amazon. You don’t need to buy anything from them, or even write a sentence — clicking on stars is sufficient. Getting multiple reviews on Amazon helps enormously when it comes to selling a book by an “unknown” author.
With gratitude,
~ Mary

March, 2024


“Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives!”
~ Abraham Verghese,
The Covenant of Water


Verghese’s quote is a perfect epigraph for any work of fiction. The moment I read the sentence, I knew I wanted to have it at the beginning of Finding Isobel.

I love the feeling of a physical book. All the same, when Kindle readers came along, I was seduced by their convenience. The same with books on tape and CD, which were a godsend on long road trips. Since retiring I no longer have a commute, and as a result don’t listen to many books as opposed to reading them. But many people do — far more than I would ever have thought. That fact persuaded me to record an audiobook of Abbey Girls, the memoir I wrote with my sister Val. The book is an exchange of letters, each of us describing how we saw our childhood days at boarding school in Ireland. Even though we wrote those letters sixty years later, the exchange is authentic, with both of us disagreeing on many of those “truths”. We had so much fun narrating the book!
My first novel, A Measured Thread, is about an elderly Irish immigrant living in Wisconsin, so it wasn’t such a stretch for me to be the narrator. I remember enjoying the experience, perhaps because it took place during Covid when I had all the time in the world. Additionally, the recording studio was an isolated space, with little possibility of my catching anything. When I had finished writing my new novel, Finding Isobel, I thought long and hard about whether I should be the one to narrate it. After all, it’s about a young woman who grew up in Canada, travels to New Zealand, and later finds herself in Bosnia. My voice doesn’t sound young, and I cannot do any of the accents involved. Still, I recognize that an author brings something to the table that a professional, no matter how good they are, cannot. The author has a deep understanding of every character in the story, together with the underlying emotions of every scene. Ownership brings a level of authenticity to the narration that’s hard to match.

Recently I listened to Abraham Verghese read his new novel, The Covenant of Water. I had the physical book by my side, but listening to his voice for over 30 hours brought an extra dimension to his story. It was mesmerizing. Later when I re-read the text, I could hear his voice in my head and it sang to me. After that experience, I arranged to spend a week in February in the recording studio in Madison.
The experience was far more demanding this time — mentally, physically and emotionally. I stood in front of my computer in the studio with headphones on, and read each chapter as if I were living every scene. Sometimes I misspoke and corrected myself. Sometimes Jake, the recording engineer, interrupted and asked me to repeat a sentence. At the end of each chapter (there are 42), I’d sit down and take a sip of water, glad of the short respite while Jake did some edits. Then, standing up and taking another deep breath, I’d continue with the story — for up to 4 hours each day, by which time I was utterly drained. Still, at the end of the week I felt elated, not just that I had finished, but that I had done justice to Isobel’s story. I’m so glad that it’s my voice you’ll hear. 

Finding Isobel is being published today, the Spring Equinox! The paperback and e-book are available immediately. You’ll find a link to purchase information on my website, mvbehan.com.  As always, I encourage you to support your local bookstore and order from them. And if you are one of those people who prefers to listen, the audiobook should be available in the next month or so. As soon as it’s ready I’ll post something on Facebook (Mary Behan Writer) and Instagram (@marybehanwrites).

And now, back to writing!
~ Mary

December, 2023
My husband gave me this framed quote from Gustav Flaubert for my birthday. It sums up perfectly what writers experience — on the good days!

“It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.”

Telling people about my latest writing project reassures me that the writing life brings far more joy than angst. Having said that, in these past couple of months I’ve had my share of self-doubt.

Most books you pick up these days have flattering quotes either on the cover, or inside under the heading “Praise for…” But how do you get these endorsements? As I don’t know anyone on the New York Times Bestseller list, and Oprah doesn’t live next door, it means some considerable leg work. I watched a great webinar from the Women’s Fiction Writers Association on the topic and went to work. I tried a few “cold calls” — requests to well-known writers whose books I enjoy, via their websites. This met with zero success. I wasn’t too surprised, as someone like Ann Patchett must get thousands of such requests.


The next tranche of email requests went out to friends who have written and published books. These are people I met at a writing conferences and events at my local bookstores and libraries. Others I met at a writing class (how I miss the Write-By-The-Lake retreat that used to be held on the UW-Madison campus each summer), and in a critique group (a shout out to Wisconsin Writers Association for making these available.) They all understand what I need from them, but even so it’s a big ask. First of all, they have to read my book in a timely fashion, then write an authentic blurb that will engage potential readers. It’s far more difficult than you think, and I have nothing to offer them in return except my undying gratitude.  
In addition to requests for endorsements/blurbs, it is recommended that you choose a few professional review organizations (Kirkus Reviews for example) and pay for one of their staff to read your manuscript and write an in-depth review. After a lifetime of publishing scientific papers, I’m accustomed to soliciting arms-length reviews. But this is far more daunting when it’s your creative endeavor that you are opening up to scrutiny, as opposed to your latest experimental findings.

Towards the end of October, the first professional review for Finding Isobel arrived. This reviewer did not like Isobel one bit and wasn’t shy about telling me! I was stunned. Over the course of several years, I’ve come to know my protagonist intimately and I like her more and more as I watch her cope with what life throws at her. It’s a bit like watching a graduate student over the course of their PhD program. By the end you know and understand them, and you want them to have every happiness as they leave your orbit.

Fortunately, two days later I got a glowing blurb from a writer I know, followed by four more in quick succession in a similar vein. I am rich in generous friends who write wonderful endorsements! Next, a five-star arms-length review came in giving my confidence another boost. There are still several requests for blurbs and reviews pending, but at least I know there will be something on the “Praise for Finding Isobel” page when the novel comes out on March 19th, just in time for the Spring Equinox!

~ Mary

When I was getting close to finishing my new novel Finding Isobel, I began to fret about the cover. If you put “cover design for a novel” into a Google search, an overwhelming number of sites, blogs, videos and advertisements pop up. Ever cautious, I emailed a few other writer friends asking what they do. One person uses a sort-of lottery design website where you describe your book’s theme and make some suggestions as to style. The query then goes out to artists all over the world, and any of them can submit a cover. If you like one, you fine tune the concept with that artist, for a fee of course. It’s a great idea, but I found it hard to come up with a concept that I could put into words. Another suggestion was to go to Amazon and look at covers for recent best sellers in my genre (contemporary fiction, literary fiction, women’s fiction). This is particularly helpful when you realize that most people will only see an image measuring 1x2 inches or even smaller on their computer or iPad. I liked the suggestion of going to a bookstore and checking out covers that caught my attention, perhaps even photographing them. Arcadia in Spring Green, Wisconsin is my go-to bookstore — a truly wonderful Independent local bookstore, plus they have great coffee and cookies! Sadly, I liked almost none of the covers I saw on display with the exception of a poetry collection which is definitely not my genre.

It was during one of those 3-hour sleep interruptions in the middle of the night that it dawned on me: What about the artist who did the cover for A Measured Thread? The moment I saw that painting hanging on the wall in our local coffee shop, Crossroads in Cross Plains, I knew it was perfect. Two years later when I was finishing A Measured Thread, I tracked down the artist, Gina Hecht, and purchased the painting and rights.

Gina’s website showed several beautiful abstract paintings, but most of them were listed as “sold” by the gallery in Chicago where she shows her work. Back to square one. I decided to reach out to Gina personally and see if she had anything in the works. Her response was immediate and encouraging; she had three pieces recently finished. All of them were lovely, but one in particular, a small abstract piece titled “Finding Joy”, lifted my heart.

Gina and I met over coffee in Waunakee which is near where both of us live, to conclude the transaction. We had the most wonderful conversation about painting vs. writing. She talked about what it felt like to shift from painting small to large pieces, as she did during Covid when demand for large landscapes was high. In contrast, during Covid I shifted to writing short stories (Kernels). It was only afterwards that I had the energy to begin writing another novel. I came away from our meeting with a precious box containing what I know will be the perfect cover for my new novel which will be released in March, 2024. I’ll keep you posted. 

​Well, November is over and with it NaNoWriMo – that ridiculous artificial challenge that requires you to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. I had heard about NaNoWriMo several years ago but had carefully avoided it. Something changed this year though. I’m not sure why, but perhaps I saw it as a lifeline to finishing something I started on April Fool’s Day, 2020!
 
I came across mention of NaNoWriMo several times in early October. Paging through various websites about it, I learned that only 10-15% of people succeed with the project. Mind you, I also read lots of other stuff that led me to question those numbers. Most websites wanted to sell you something to help you achieve your goal. Nonetheless, the thought of being one of those 15% was a challenge.
 
I can be very goal-oriented. The other thing is, I happen to love deadlines. Add to that the fact that I have been sitting on a writing project for almost two years now with little to show. It’s a sequel to my first novel, A Measured Thread. I hadn’t planned to write a sequel, but I was curious about one of the characters, Isobel, and wanted to know what became of her. Funny how that works. The characters become very real over the course of writing a novel, and you don’t want to leave them in limbo.
 
I hadn’t planned any major trips in November nor was anyone coming to stay. My latest short story had just been sent out to Beta Readers, and I hadn’t come up with an idea for the next one. No excuses. I decided to do NaNoWriMo, and immediately looked around for partners-in-crime amongst my Book Club (all writers), and a few other writer friends. Valerie Biel of Lostlake Press agreed to join me, and she recruited Silvia Acevedo. These are two amazing women, both successfully published and prize-winning authors, and two of the best companions one could ever have in NaNoWriMo.
 
Val is the queen of organization. She set up a shared calendar where we could “confess” our word count every day. She also organized a Zoom call each Tuesday morning where we chatted about much more than just writing… and laughed a lot. Finally, we had a Facebook Messenger spot for those instantaneous outbursts when we were in the midst of a frustrating piece of composition that drove us to more than expletives!
 
And I succeeded in writing a novel.
 
In fairness, I had 15,000 words in the bag when I started, and the final tally was 60,000 words. So, I suppose technically I’m one of those 85-90% who failed. But I really do have a novel — one that I like and think people will enjoy reading, especially those who liked my first book.
 
Why did NaNoWriMo work? First, I am retired and have (almost) complete control of my time. I refused invitations and made none. Also, I made sure all the outdoor projects were finished, and put aside books I was reading. Next, I stopped reading/watching/listening to all news. My habit each morning over breakfast is to check four or five news websites from Ireland, England, Europe and the USA. It’s amazing how that alters your day; it’s a distraction — one that you cannot shake easily during the day’s writing. And it’s an addiction. So many times during the month, I found my fingers drifting to those Apps on my iPad and had to chastise myself before a relapse. I’ve missed nothing. The world continues to spin.
 
Another reason NaNoWriMo worked, at least for me, was the piece of advice I read on one of those websites: do not edit. Most of us are inclined to re-read the previous day’s work in preparation for moving the story forward. Unfortunately, we tend to get bogged down in editing which is much easier than creating. But it can suck up a lot of time. Sure I’ll edit the manuscript, but later.
 
In case you are wondering if I outline stories or just go by the seat of my pants, it’s a bit of both. I had an outline — something written during my last failed attempt last February. I had written the beginning of the story, knew where it should go in the middle (albeit with few details), and I was certain of how I wanted it to end. I even had Chapters laid out — all 27 of them. As it turned out, I followed that outline reasonably closely, but finished with 39 chapters. Along the way, I took a couple of detours, and met a few wonderful characters that literally waltzed onto the page, leaving me excited in anticipation of what they might do the following day. That’s the fun part of writing a novel: when you get in a zone and things just flow and you genuinely are having fun. But have no illusions; there were many days when it felt like digging a trench in muddy clay. I called those my “digging potatoes” days. You get something out of the effort, for sure, but it’s only later you realize you were still making progress.
 
Having a story bouncing around in your head for 30 days and nights is something of an obsession, but fortunately friends and family are very forgiving.
 
The last few days of writing were wonderful because I could see the finishing line. Plus, all along I had wanted my characters to be happy, and finally they were going to achieve that. It’s amazing to hold people’s fate in your hands like that. Power, control, kindness, sympathy, understanding. And that’s just the writer!
 
I’m still a little dazed by having wrapped up the story. My plan now is to leave the manuscript alone for at least a month. No more disciplined days and sleep-interrupted nights. Sometime in January I’ll embark on the next phase: editing. I have no illusions about how long that takes; it will keep me (and my Editor and Beta Readers) busy for several months. Getting a novel into the best shape it can possibly be before finally letting the world see it is a long haul.
 
Expect to see “it” (no firm title as yet) around November 2023, just in time for Christmas.

​I had a wonderful time at Milwaukee Irish Fest this year. It’s an amazing 4-day event on the shores of Lake Michigan that celebrates everything Irish, including music, dancing, writing and heritage. I had a table for my three books in the Writers’ Corner along with with five other wonderful authors whose books all have Irish themes. Over the course of the festival I sold nearly 100 books! But best of all were the conversations I had with people who came by. A big shout out to the members of the CelticMKE Book Club who made a special effort to come to my table because they were reading “A Measured Thread” as their book choice for August.

I woke around 3 AM last night and spent the next 3 hours working on a short story in my head! I thought I was finished with short stories, at least for now, but this one popped up and kept getting better and better. Of course, it started with a vivid setting – a place I have spent many wonderful days called Kemp Station. It’s a property belonging to the University of Wisconsin situated on a lake in northern Wisconsin. The driveway is three miles long, and when you arrive it’s as if you stepped back into the early part of the 1900s. The log lodge was gifted by the Kemp Family to the university and it’s now used as a field station for research as well as a place to host small research gatherings.
 
I had this image in my mind of some students jumping off the roof of the boathouse into the lake, like lemmings. Fleshing out the story, I ended up creating a rather ho-hum protagonist. In none of my other stories is there a wishy-washy female, but she seemed to fit in this one.
 
I gave up trying to get back to sleep and got up around 7AM. Sensibly I opened up my computer and began to tap-tap away, fleshing out an outline. I’ll find it again sometime and finish the job properly. It's a good story.