This group, these wicked awesome authors, we six – we’ve talked offline about how we’re each other’s lifeboat. We communicate by email, by phone, by ESP, it sometimes seems. We share advice, support, and cautions about pitfalls. Stern words about not getting discouraged, and hugs, in person or virtual, when needed. We laugh together and cry together.
So Wickeds, who else is your lifeboat besides us?
Sherry: I’m very lucky to have a group of sorority sisters that are my other lifeboat team. We try to get together at least every other year. When we aren’t together it’s a lot like with the Wickeds, phone calls, texts, and group emails. Both of these groups enrich my lives in so many ways.
Edith: I’ve been a member of Amesbury Friends Meeting for twenty-five years.It’s my spiritual home, my second family, my support network — a true lifeboat. We share joys and concerns, and the silence is as important as the talking. I’m also blessed with my first family – my sisters, my sons, my beau, and my parents while they were alive: all huge readers, all excited for me, all there for me when things aren’t going well, too. My sister in Ottawa even sent me a screenshot of my books in the Canadian capital’s library system!
Barb: My other lifeboat group is also writing related–my writers group of almost 20 years. Mark Ammons, Leslie Wheeler and I met in an advanced class in mystery writing at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education taught by the wonderful B. A. Shapiro. The three of us formed the core of the group along with the late Marge Leibenstein and were joined soon after by Kat Fast. Cheryl Marceau joined later, as did others who came and went, but who all left their mark. For the last five years, Mark, Kat, Leslie and I have been co-editor/co-publishers at Level Best Books. There is no question that my desire to spend time with and be respected by these people kept me writing even at times when jobs and other obligations made it difficult. I am eternally grateful.
Liz: I’m so lucky to have lots of different groups over the years as other lifeboats. Friends from my original writers group, The Wingate Writers, have been so supportive and are always there to share in news, both good and bad. I also have wonderful friends from the animal rescue community who have truly gone above and beyond for me over the years, especially when I needed friends the most. And of course, my family!
Julie: I have different pockets of friends who are lifeboats for different areas of my life. I have a group that started out as a book club, but we haven’t read a book in years. Another group who I traveled to Egypt with a few years back (none of us knew each other, and we were all travelling alone) and they’ve become good friends. My theater world also has a lifeboat of theater and coffee dates. My other blog, Live to Write/Write to Live, has definite lifeboat attributes. And I am really blessed to have a network of family and friends. But I’ve got to say, the Wickeds have a special place.
Jessie: I feel so lucky to have my family in my lifeboat. My husband, mother, sisters and children are a constant source of encouragement and cheering. There are friends in there too and community members that always ask about life and projects. I am also so blessed to count members of my knitting group as fellow lifeboat passengers. I never though,t when I sought them out at a local library years ago, how much they would become a source of fun and support.
Readers: Who is your lifeboat? Who would you take with you for mutual support if the ship starts sinking?
I would have to say my lifeboat is filled with cousins. We are as close as siblings and have traveled the ups and downs of life practically attached to one another. I am also fortunate to live in a wonderful neighborhood of caring people who stick together in both good and bad times. And, of course, my Wicked friends who have embraced me in their group and kept me afloat in the sometimes murky waters of writing.
I wish I lived closer to my cousins, Kim, of whom I am very fond. But west coast, east, coast, and London keep us from meeting up too often.
Sad to say that many of my original lifeboat friends are no longer with us. I am fortunate to have had others join and to keep in touch via email, telephone, and in some cases occasions trips for lunch.
Glad to hear replacement lifeboats are around, Gram!
My lifeboat would be filled with poets, which is odd because I can’t write a decent poem to save my life. But many of my writing friends are poets, and as one of them likes to say, we are a tribe.
I would also save a spot for my non-writer walking friend. She has saved my sanity more times than either of us care to confess, and vice versa. She also has a non-writer’s perspective on life.
Great question!
Good that the poets include you, then, Ramona!
My family. We’re very close and I truly treasure them.
I also have some very good friends from the last church I attended who I would call on in a heart beat if I needed help, and I’d be there for them, too.
Hit post too soon. I play pick up ultimate Frisbee with a group here in town and have for 4 years now. I definitely would consider them in my lifeboat, too.
It sounds like you have a full lifeboat, Mark! Ultimate Frisbee fascinates me.
Reblogged this on F4l ~ FLECK and commented:
Amazing group of talented women! WCA ROCK!