Please join me - Book launch party this Saturday 11/21/15 - The Kitten Invasion

A Literary Lion Returns to Santa Fe on November 21st

Vanity the Santa Fe Cat and her dedicated staff, author Peggy van Hulsteyn and illustrator Jacqueline Rudolph will sign their newest book, “The Kitten Invasion” on Saturday November 21st from Noon –2pm at Teca Tu – A Pawsworthy Pet Emporium located at Sanbusco Market Center.  In this beautifully illustrated and amewsingtale, Vanity is faced with a domestic dilemma—her pet humans have rescued two adorable kittens who are (GASP!) cuter than Vanity. Our heroine plots to have the rivals removed and then the fur truly starts to fly. Buy copies for all your friends and favorite felines so that you can discover the surprising ending together.

Where:      Teca Tu at Sambusco Center, 500 Montezuma

When:       Saturday November 21st   Noon – 2 pm

Vanity’s earlier exploits were chronicled in “Diary of a Santa Fe Cat” and “Vanity in Washington” and her newest book has the critical wags wagging:

“Sophisticated, sassy & satirical account.” ---Catmopolitan Magazine

“I always get the latest scoop from her. Vanity has the best nose for news.” ---Rachel Meowddow

“I love her books, I follow her on twitter, I celebrate her celebrity. She’s a real diva.”--- Kim Katdashian

You are invited for Readings, Frivolity and Feline Fun.

Stock up on this purrfect holiday gift for all your friends. It’s the cat’s meow of stocking stuffers.

¡Feline Navidad!

AUTHOR PEGGY VAN HULSTEYN SIGNS HER NEW BOOK YOGA AND PARKINSON'S DISEASE AT THE TUCSON FESTIVAL OF BOOKS AND PRESENTS PUBLIC LECTURE IN TUCSON

February 4, 2014

TUCSON, A.Z.—Award-winning author Peggy van Hulsteyn signs copies of  her new book “Yoga and Parkinson's Disease: A Journey to Health and Healing “ on Sunday, March 16 from 11 am to noon at the Tucson Festival of Books. 

Van Hulsteyn also presents a lecture on how yoga can greatly improve the quality of life for Parkinson's patients on Tuesday, April 1 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. as part of a monthly educational lecture series, at Tucson Medical Center's El Dorado Health Campus, Seniors Classroom, 1400 N. Wilmot Rd. in Tucson. 

Tucson yoga instructor Stephanie Christenson will join van Hulsteyn at the Tucson Festival of Books and the lecture at the Eldorado Health Campus to lead the audience in short and simple yoga poses.

“Yoga and Parkinson's Disease,” endorsed by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, is a practical, how-to guide for using yoga to manage stress, improve mental alertness, increase flexibility, correct posture and improve the quality-of-life of readers with Parkinson's. The book chronicles  the author's own experience as well as research studies that document a correlation between yoga practice and better health after a Parkinson's Disease diagnosis. More than simply an exercise guide, the book is a deeply soothing form of moving meditation and physical activity that provide a safe, effective way to rebuild strength, stamina, and flexibility.

The Tucson Festival of Bookstakes place March 15-16 at the University of Arizona Mall and in nearby venues. It includes  exhibits, author presentations, panel discussions and book signings. Featured authors include Alice Hoffman, Larry McMurtry, Scott Turow and dozens of others.

Van Hulsteyn is the author of six books, including “Diary of a Santa Fe Cat,” “Sleeping with Literary Lions: The Booklover's Guide to Bed and Breakfasts,” “The Birder's Guide to Bed and Breakfasts” and “What Every Business Woman Needs To Know To Get Ahead.” She has published humor, feature, business and travel articles in Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan, Modern Bride, Country Living, Cat Fancy, New Mexico Magazine, American Way (American Airlines in-flight magazine) and newspapers, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Examiner and USA TODAY.  Her work has been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese and has appeared in Australian periodicals.

During her career, van Hulsteyn has been assistant travel editor of Mademoiselle Magazine and owner of an award-winning advertising agency in Austin and advertising lecturer at the University of Texas. She has won the Southwest Writers Workshop Storyteller Award for Best Novel for her murder mystery in-progress and was awarded first place for non-fiction by The New Mexico Press Women for her book “Mind Your Own Business.”

Visit van Hulsteyn's blog for more information: http://livingcreativelywithpd.blogspot.com/. To schedule an interview, please contact Lynn Cline at lyncli@santafe.net, 505.466.6277

Confessions of a Wordsmith

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug”
                                                                                                            Mark Twain


Words, to a wordsmith are like paint to an artist. A skilled author can transport us to another time, make us see what the hero sees, hear what the villain hears, smell what the chef has conjured up. This is not a matter of stringing a bunch of words together; it is selecting the one word, the only word, that will do the job. The truly great wordsmiths accomplish all of this while making it look simple. When I read Mark Twain, it makes me want to sit down and write. It is only then that I come to appreciate what a truly magnificent craftsman he was.

I have just completed a book,  YOGA AND PARKINSON’SDISEASE,  filled with 200 pages of words. My tome is about to hit the stands or more accurately be available on Amazon,  Therefore, bring out the bubbly; it’s time to celebrate.   The simple act of having a book published in 2013 is a genuine event, some would say a miracle. Being an author has always taken a great deal of fortitude. It requires working long hours with little (or even no) pay; it entails endless periods of loneliness, of staring into space while trying to find the right word.

Most of the authors I work with write in spite of the difficulty and frustration because they have some important idea they need to convey and know that they must do this in a beautiful, well-crafted way. They obey the basic rules and pay their literary dues. When they complete a chef d’oeuvre they re-write it many times. They show this work to a tried-and-true writers group for analysis and to chosen literate friends for approval. When the final hurdle has been surmounted, they find an agent who agrees to relay their carefully polished tome to an editor at some prestigious Manhattan publishing house. This was, at one time, the way the noble profession of writing was conducted.

In today’s bizarre book market, being an author is either a valiant act of courage or an absurd act of lunacy. It’s a brave new world when Amazon buys The Washington Post. Journalism and the book trade are forever changed and we are not in Kansas anymore.

Suddenly anyone who can pound a computer key is an author. Today if you have written one blog, then voila, you are a writer. It’s a little disconcerting for those of us who were trained in journalism. In today’s market which is far too equalitarian, anyone can be a writer and everyone is. The new motto is: “I blog; therefore, I am.”

In an insightful article in The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), Adam Gropnik discusses today’s market and income for contemporary authors:

“The future of writing in America—or, at least, the future of making a living by writing—seems in doubt as rarely before. Thanks to the Internet, the disproportion between writerly supply and demand, always tricky, has tipped: anyone can write, and everyone does, and beginners are expected to be the last pure philanthropists....... It has never been easier to be a writer; and it has never been harder to be a professional writer.

Writing used to be a craft; now it’s a tweet! 

I saw signs of this computer-dominated New World Order when I taught writing classes at writers conferences. The questions that beginning writing students asked demanded a universe of “instant gratification,”  lots of luck, and not too much work.  Here are the questions I always got from wannabe authors, along with my answers:

Q: Do you write only when you are in the mood?

A: I‘m usually in the mood. I dislike so much of the promotion, the business, the nonsense, of the writing business, but I love the actual act of writing.
       I keep writing because writing saves my life each and every day. It’s the purest therapy available. I think writing has been my greatest medicine in my battle against Parkinson’s disease.  My first neurologist,  Dr. Paul Gordon, thinks a great passion  can  perform miracles.  During a Skype interview for the book I am about to celebrate, he told me that “some of my PD patients have an unbridled passion that over-rides everything. It makes a big difference!  It helps if there is a goal tied in with this passion." 
      I felt privileged to be cited as one of Paul’s examples. “You’re a good example of how this works --with your books, speeches, and deadlines.  Your mind is in good shape."

Q: You are very funny. How many classes do I have to take before you teach me to be funny?

A: If I could teach people to be funny, my name would be Jehovah and I would be booking acts for “The Daily Show.” Honey, I hate to tell you, but you are either funny or you are not. You can dye your hair but not your personality.

Q: How do you choose a publisher? Do you just call up Random House and tell them you want a minimum of $50,000 for your tome?

A: Wait a minute. You are funny. This bit is hilarious.

Q: Did you start writing because you realized it would be a good way to build a website?

A: I started writing as soon as I could hold a pen! I loved the physical act of putting words together on a page and how they would interact with other words.  Words are my tools and paintbrushes. I love the way words dance, glide, shimmer across the page.
      Making a living as a writer is a constant struggle, but the actual act of writing is a pure joy. It always astonishes me how putting the right words in the perfect sequence can bring so much satisfaction. Words are the music of your soul and your completed opus becomes your symphony!

 Favorite words of admired writers are always bouncing around in my head---Sentences that pop to make the book come alive for me.The ‘ah-ha moment of reading.

To wit:

--When F. Scott Fitzgerald says of Daisy and her husband in “The Great Gatsby:

“.........  They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” 

--Or Ernest Hemingway's perfect line to describe the cynicism of the Lost Generation in “The Sun Also Rises:”

“Oh Jake," Brett said, "We could have had such a damned good time together."
. . ... .........   Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?”

---Or a small expression Harper Lee uses in “To Kill a Mockingbird” to describe the deep respect for a man who defies an entire town to do what he feels is right -- Atticus Finch, the last good lawyer in fiction:

“Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.”

As a humor writer, I appreciate the crisp, clear zing of the master, Mark Twain:

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
 
And nobody can make me smile more than one of the great wits
of all time, Oscar Wilde
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”

“I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live nor the smallest instinct about when to die.” 

I also admire the patter rhymes in Gilbert and Sullivan, the cleverness of a Cole Porter tune, the inventiveness of a brand new language in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books.

I am constantly searching for the show-stopping sentence that takes my breath away! I like to read them, but I prefer to write them.

So let’s hear it for words, sentences, for paragraphs galore. Let’s celebrate writers and readers, independent book store owners and librarians.   I revere books so I’m thankful for both  Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I applaud quality paperback and E-books. (My book is both)

 The point is I've got a new book coming out and I’m excited!   Cheers!
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Peggy's book: Yoga and Parkinson's Disease is being released today, 8/28/13. You can purchase her book on Amazon.com or Collected Works Bookstore.

You can reach Peggy on Facebook or on Twitter at @PeggyvanH