Author Name:
Marjorie Turner Hollman
Book Title:
My Liturgy of Easy Walks: Reclaiming Hope in a World Turned Upside Down
Website URL:
Link to book page on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Liturgy-Easy-Walks-Reclaiming/dp/B0BT76MVNN/
What is your book about?
After facing sudden loss of mobility after brain surgery to save her life, Marjorie has now regained much of her ability to walk (with support). Writing about her outings and lessons learned along the way are at the core of this story. She captures the kind of moments so many of us fail to notice while never forgetting to savor the miracle of being alive.
These short meditations (liturgies) in this topical memoir invite you to take a welcome respite from a world turned upside down. The “easy walks” of the title reference both the Easy Walks book series she continues to add to as well as the small and larger insights she shares with us.
What inspired you to write your book?
I began writing this memoir as a series of essays, emails really, to friends and family. Homebound by continued limited mobility and other medical challenges, I began to write when few other options were open to me. The essays that are now the heart of the book were an effort to relieve my isolation. More importantly, they offered a way for me to document the process of regaining stability in a world that, for me, had been turned upside down.
If you have a business related to your book, tell us about it:
My series of “Easy Walks in…” trail guides continues to expand as I work with collaborators in New England and beyond. Trail guides in the series document outdoor spaces that provide safe access for those with mobility and other challenges. They also offer hope to those who might believe the outdoors is off-limits because of mobility and other life challenges.
Speaking engagements about outdoor accessibility and resilience are part of this business.
Book coaching and developmental editing are an area of expertise I have developed over the twenty-plus years I have dedicated to developing my writing and editing skills.
What is a typical day like for you?
Writing in the morning, taking a break, then more writing and marketing into the early afternoon. Managing my Easy Walks on-line Facebook group (13,000+ members). Writing accountability groups on-line are a regular part of many days. Meeting on-line with editing clients. Local walks and bike rides on our adaptive tandem as weather allows. Evening reading. Cooking, household chores, and visiting my garden.
What do you most enjoy about what you do?
Meeting and spending time with the amazing people who have come into my life in the course of my work.
What are some favorite books you’d recommend to our readers?
I really enjoy historical fiction/mysteries. The Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear especially.
What advice do you have to offer our readers?
What you write is a gift. Learn to ask for help to make that gift the best it can be before sharing it with the wider world.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
I may appear serious, earnest even, but I love (need) to laugh. Even at the hard things—especially life’s absurdities. Laughing with me in the midst of hard stuff is a gift that will make you my friend for life.
What’s next for you?
I am in the middle of a project, assisting a client to finish his book and move it to publication. I am also collaborating with family members to get several different books written. One is based on the 1000+ letters we have that were written by our great-great grandmother. She was a widowed mother and stage actress who supported her family with her stage work. Her work took her cross country multiple times in the 1870s to 1890s.
Another book focuses on my siblings and I growing up with cousins and extended family at our grandmother’s beach house.
A third is an overall family history.
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