Thank you for your visit. Please come back for up-to-date book news, great giveaways, and author goodies to come.
Stay well. Wear your mask and get your vaccines!
Eleanor x
ABOUT ELEANOR PARKER SAPIA:
Puerto Rican-born Eleanor Parker Sapia is the author of the multi-award-winning novel, “A Decent Woman”, published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2019. Eleanor’s debut novel, set 1900 Puerto Rico, garnered awards at the 2016 and 2017 International Latino Book Awards. Eleanor is featured in the anthology, “Latina Authors and Their Muses”. Eleanor is working on her second novel “The Laments” set in 1926 Puerto Rico. Her debut poetry collection, “Tight Knots. Loose Threads. Poetry” will be released on April 29, 2021 by Winter Goose Publishing.
The writing life can be a pretty sedentary life. It’s my life and a personal passion that involves heavy thinking, research, learning, hard work, and sitting. Lots of sitting. I can’t recall as sedentary a year as 2020. My body craves movement. My heart desperately needs to hug and kiss my children and loved ones. My soul dreams of beautiful vistas, a gorgeous beach, a turquoise ocean, a pool bar, new adventures, good times.
The year of the plague. Prolonged stress. Managing emotions. Emotional well-being.
Older people surveyed in the first couple of months of the pandemic showed a higher resilience to the pandemic lockdown. It’s not that older folks were not suffering at the same levels as younger folks, they were and they were more at risk. It appears older folks coped better with the stress of living and surviving a global pandemic.
Why is that? I believe it’s because older people have more life experience. We have better coping skills and resilience gleaned from a lifetime of challenges and difficult experiences along with a good dose of wisdom thrown in that only comes from experience.
For two weeks now, younger tourists and spring breakers in Puerto Rico, my birth place, are losing control and forgetting themselves and others. Friends and family members on the island say it’s been a nightmare dealing with tourists and young people ignoring mask mandates, running amok in cities and on beaches, and being rude and violent with the police and with locals. Seriously?
We’re all dreaming of a beach vacation with a fully-stocked pool bar and dancing under the stars. Come on!
If you can’t behave like a civilized human being during a global pandemic, stay home. If you can’t show respect and obey the rules while on vacation in destinations, such as Hawaii, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, where people live, work hard, wear masks, and try to keep their Covid-19 infection rates low, stay home. Period. Yes to stricter laws for dealing with such ridiculous behavior.
Run amok in your own neighborhoods and cities. Don’t ruin it for others. I want to get home soon.
Stay safe. Wear your mask. Practice safe distancing.
Eleanor x
ABOUT ELEANOR PARKER SAPIA:
Puerto Rican-born Eleanor Parker Sapia is the author of the multi-award-winning novel, “A Decent Woman”, published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2019. Eleanor’s debut novel, set 1900 Puerto Rico, garnered awards at the 2016 and 2017 International Latino Book Awards. She is featured in the anthology, “Latina Authors and Their Muses”. Eleanor is working on her second novel “The Laments”, set in 1926 Puerto Rico. Her debut poetry collection, “Tight Knots. Loose Threads. Poems” is due for release in April 2021.
Over the weekend, I opened the upstairs windows to air out the house and enjoyed the birdsong streaming throughout my home. With the first cup of coffee in hand and the sun warming my face on the kitchen porch, I smiled. Welcome, Spring.
Fully caffeinated, I pushed open the shed door and like a wizard, I twirled, swirled, and captured copious spider webs with my broom before entering. Sorry, spiders. I took inventory of pots and potting soil, brought them outside, and checked the vegetable and herb seed packets. I cleaned off my garden spade and inspected the vegetable and herb plots for new growth from last year. The celery I planted at the end of summer has new green growth, and the rosemary, thyme, and oregano plants wintered nicely. I snapped off brown twigs and turned over the rich, dark soil in my garden plots, praying my area is past the possibility of snow flurries, for on this day, two years ago, we had a few inches of snow. Nope, none of that, please. I’m ready to get my hands dirty in the garden and to feel the sun on my bare shoulders.
On Sunday morning, I perused the first Burpee catalog to arrive in my mail box–my sign that spring has arrived. The catalog brought back joyful memories of the day the Sears toy catalog would arrive at my home before Christmas. There was no greater joy as a kid than to pore over the pages and dream of the perfect toy, doll house, or Barbie doll. I feel the same way about gardening catalogs.
I finalized my first gardening order of the year: an apple trees, two Concord grape twigs, and lettuce, kale, spinach, and Swiss chard plants because I want a head start this year. The seedlings did well from seed to garden, but I want instant gratification, smile. I added a white clematis I hope will take over the kitchen porch by early summer.
The Concord grape vines I found when I bought this old house have sadly not produced healthy grapes for three years. I held off pruning the vines for eight years (afraid I’d make a mistake) and had healthy harvests year after year. The first year after I pruned back the vines, not a harsh pruning as I’d been instructed, a virus was introduced. It was devastating. The healthy, heavy bunches of Concord grapes of the past were not to be.
I still enjoy the gorgeous growth and welcome shade of the grape vines over my courtyard dining area, but I must do what I don’t want to do–pull out the old vines, which I doubt will be easy to do. I find that heartbreaking. People passing by have told me the vines have been in place since the 50s. Heartbreaking. So, I’ve decided to prune the vines back to the first major knot and like a good haircut, I am hoping for new, healthy growth before I am forced to pull out the vintage vines.
If you know about growing and pruning grape vines and can offer tips, please let me know. Thank you!
This morning, I’m starting the vegetable and herb seeds in the two trays I purchased last year. I have two large bags Miracle Gro Vegetable Soil and dozens of plastic pots in many sizes for later. Of course, I’d prefer clay pots, but they are expensive and heavy to ship. Plastic pots aren’t used that long before the baby plants are in the garden, so that’s not quite a rush at this time.
I’ve often thought of how much gardening resembles the writing life. There is research involved, preparation, learning the basics, and just doing it. I’ve met writers who do the necessary research, join writing groups, learn, buy the books, and still don’t write. Or they begin and then stop for many reasons. I find it sad how many beautiful and important stories are never told and shared with the world.
Pruning resembles editing, rewriting, and proofreading. The most difficult phase of writing, but my personal favorite. As my writing mentor says, “Art is in the rewrite.” That’s where I am with my second novel The Laments and with my grape vines. I will do my best with what I know. If that means pruning hard or cutting out unnecessary or redundant portions of the novel that don’t sing, that’s what I will do.
To the fear of failure or fear of doing it “wrong”, I say–there is no right or wrong way to garden or to write. Seeds of creative inspiration and vegetable seeds want to grow! They will grow. Your role is to do it.
Stay safe. Wear your mask. Practice safe distancing.
Write and/or start your garden today by taking small, steady steps. Good luck to you.
Eleanor x
ABOUT ELEANOR PARKER SAPIA:
Puerto Rican-born Eleanor Parker Sapia is the author of the multi-award-winning novel, “A Decent Woman”, published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2019. Eleanor’s debut novel, set 1900 Puerto Rico, garnered awards at the 2016 and 2017 International Latino Book Awards. She is featured in the anthology, “Latina Authors and Their Muses”. Eleanor is working on her second novel “The Laments”, set in 1926 Puerto Rico. Her debut poetry collection, “Tight Knots. Loose Threads. Poems” is due for release in April 2021. Fingers crossed.
I’m heartbroken for my Asian sisters and Asian-American Pacific Islander communities in the United States and abroad for the brutal killings yesterday in Georgia. Women went to work to provide for their families during an ongoing pandemic. A married couple sought to share a couple’s massage. The husband escaped the shootings. His wife, a new mother, died.
Then this happened during a press conference in Georgia…
“Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.” – Jay Baker, Cherokee Sheriff spokesman.
A bad day? Not acceptable! Why did Jay Baker think it was okay, useful, or appropriate to give us his two cents on the killer’s state of mind before, during, and after he slayed eight people? Think about that. Who asked him to volunteer that information? The mass murderer massacred six women. Two men. I don’t have to know him. Stick to the facts, Baker. Are you still wearing your anti-Asian T-shirts?
In that same news conference, awesome Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms reeled it back, focused our attention, and spotlighted where our attention belongs– Six women of Asian descent and two men were brutally massacred. This year, 3,800 reports of anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly involving women, have been reported in the US.
The crimes were committed in three locations. It makes sense they were planned, premeditated. I can’t believe we are here again. It looks like a hate crime against Asians because it is. It’s a hate crime against women. It’s domestic terrorism.
My thoughts on what I’ve read about this case. Now, I’m not a police detective nor a lawyer, but…
1. I don’t give a flying duck about the mass murderer’s day, his sexual problems, temptations, and fetishes. Another question forming in my mind is about male fetishes of Asian women.
2. Quit showing the mass murderer’s face in developing news stories.
3. Spa, not massage parlor. (NYT, CBS, NBC, CNN)
4. Massage therapist not masseuse.
5. What is not relevant to me at this time is whether the Spas were allegedly on “illicit” websites. We are talking about a man who brutally murdered six women and two men. Stick to that story.
6. Another question for later is whether one or more women were victims of human trafficking at these locations.
7. Did Hitler have a bad day? Manson?
8. “That the Asian women murdered yesterday were working highly vulnerable and low-wage jobs during an ongoing pandemic speaks directly to the compounding impacts of misogyny, structural violence, and white supremacy.” – Phi Nguyen of @advancing_justice_atl
10. “Patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it’s more than a chat about race. It’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality. Except it’s history, politics, literature, and mass culture on their side, proving that you don’t exist.” – Cathy Park Hong, Korean-American poet, writer, professor.
Eleanor x
ABOUT ELEANOR PARKER SAPIA:
Puerto Rican-born Eleanor Parker Sapia is the author of the multi-award-winning novel, “A Decent Woman”, published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2019. Eleanor’s debut novel, set 1900 Puerto Rico, garnered awards at the 2016 and 2017 International Latino Book Awards. She is featured in the anthology, “Latina Authors and Their Muses”. Eleanor is working on her second novel “The Laments”, set in 1926 Puerto Rico. Her debut poetry collection, “Tight Knots. Loose Threads. Poems” is due for release in April 2021. Fingers crossed.
MY DEBUT POETRY BOOK IN THE PIPELINE: TIGHT KNOTS. LOOSE THREADS.
March 17, 2021
I hope you and yours are well and soon, fully vaccinated! I am anxious to hug and kiss my kids and my loved ones! I’m excited to travel again! I’m dreaming of lying on a beach in Thailand and Puerto Rico! Four exclamation marks and I don’t care! Spring is right around the corner. I’m happy and hopeful.
I’ve been crazy busy since the beginning of the year. In January, my publisher suggested it was time to publish my debut poetry collection with an April 2021 publication date, just in time for Poetry Month. I am thrilled and grateful to her for taking a chance on me, a new poet.
As my publisher had an old copy of the draft manuscript (I was in the cue for a bit of time) and I like to think I’ve grown as a writer, I did a heavy edit on the collection. I rewrote many of the poems and included several new poems. Half of the poems were written between 2000 and 2007, the rest between 2011 and last month. We decided on the title, Tight Knots. Loose Threads. I love it. It’s the perfect title for this collection. The tentative book cover is wonderful, too. I can’t wait for the cover reveal and to see Tight Knots in print, in reader’s hands, where it belongs.
I am anxiously awaiting the editor’s second pass and trying to keep busy with my second novel, The Laments, which is coming along nicely. It’s such a great story if I do say so myself, smile. I am, however, finding it incredibly difficult to keep my editing pen in the drawer and away from the poetry collection. The word obsession comes to mind…
Reviews from wonderful and very generous advanced readers filled my heart with big emotion, gratitude, and hope that readers will enjoy my debut collection of love poems. I say love poems, and they are love poems with a reminder that love can also feel expansive, sexy, confusing, hopeful, painful, and at times, hopeless.
After my debut poetry collection, Tight Knots. Loose Threads. is published, I will order a big box of books, and by then, I will be able to mail signed copies of the book to readers from a real post office. What a great thought.
Now I understand why the Roaring 20s were so wild–it was the end of the Spanish Flu epidemic. I won’t be that wild (or maybe I will!) but I sure plan on celebrating big when we can travel, dance, and make merry with our families and friends again. Amen!
Stay safe, wear a mask, and continue to practice social distancing. Get your vaccines. The end may be in sight.
Eleanor x
ABOUT ELEANOR PARKER SAPIA:
Puerto Rican-born Eleanor Parker Sapia is the author of the multi-award-winning novel, “A Decent Woman”, published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2019. Eleanor’s debut novel, set 1900 Puerto Rico, garnered awards at the 2016 and 2017 International Latino Book Awards. She is featured in the anthology, “Latina Authors and Their Muses”. Eleanor is working on her second novel “The Laments”, set in 1926 Puerto Rico. Her debut poetry collection, “Tight Knots. Loose Threads. Poems” is due for release in April 2021. Fingers crossed.
A brief recap of early 2020 as I peek around the corner in 2021.
In February 2020, my son and his girlfriend, who live and work in Bangkok, Thailand, called to inform us of a virus outbreak in China. When my son called with the concerning news, I was reading David Quamann’s Spillover:Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic about zoonotic diseases (diseases spread from animal to human).
That phone call was all it took for me to pay full attention and remain hyper alert for news out of China. My immediate anxiety was fed by my fascination with books, films, and documentaries of the pandemics of the past, disease, and outbreaks of deadly viruses. A decade prior, I’d read Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone and Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs & Steel. I was obsessed with documentaries on the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. Like many others, I was convinced we were about to experience the first pandemic since 1918.
As news began trickling out of China, I grew more anxious. When brave Chinese doctors leaked reports to the world of their fears and the inability to contain the deadly virus, I knew we, citizens of the world, would be affected–our lives would never be the same. When those same doctors, COVID-19 martyrs to me, were detained and soon died of the disease, fear gripped my heart. Tragically, the virus was proven to be as deadly as they’d predicted and feared.
As news reports of infections began to surface in Europe, the UK, then Washington State and New York City, everything I’d read in the book Spillover became real, immediate, and terrifying. I called family begging them to prepare. I ordered face masks, disposable gloves, and bottles of hand sanitizer and spray bottles of Clorox.
Interesting note and proud Mom moment: In 2020, the Thai company my son works for, Open Dreams, won the annual MIT Solve Competition with their incredible and timely app called PODD, Participatory Onehealth Disease Detection, that specifically traces zoonotic diseases in animals throughout Thailand.Amazing~!
So, with my passion for history, reading diaries and journals written during the Spanish Flu of 1918, and my love of writing mixed with a fascination of the great pandemics of our world, I did what came naturally–at the end of March 2020, I began to chronicle my daily life in lockdown.
The end of March also marked the last time I hugged and kissed my daughter, my sister, and my nephew. We’d gathered at my sister’s home on a warm Spring day to enjoy a wonderful al fresco lunch on her sunny deck. I took a group photo to commemorate the day, unsure of what lay ahead.
The year 2020 will be long remembered.
I was vaccinated with the first vaccine in early March. My second vaccine is scheduled for March 30. I have no fear of these life-saving vaccines. I feel hopeful, for the first time in a long time. I can’t wait to hug my kids and loved ones!
My one regret…and it’s a huge regret that revisits me as we peek around the corner in 2021– Trump didn’t do what he should have done in regard to rushing the roll out of COVID-19 vaccinations across the nation. The unnecessary, tragic deaths of over five hundred thousand Americans weigh on my heart and they should weigh heavy on his mind and heart.
Stay well. Wear your mask. Practice safe distancing. Get your vaccines.
Eleanor x
ABOUT ELEANOR:
Puerto Rican-born Eleanor Parker Sapia is the author of the multi-award-winning novel, “A Decent Woman”, published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2019. Eleanor’s debut novel, set 1900 Puerto Rico, garnered awards at the 2016 and 2017 International Latino Book Awards. She is featured in the anthology, “Latina Authors and Their Muses”. Eleanor is working on her second novel “The Laments”, set in 1926 Puerto Rico. Her debut poetry collection, “Tight Knots. Loose Threads. Poems” is due for release in April 2021.
Eleanor is the mother of amazing adult children and currently lives in Berkeley County, West Virginia with her Chihuahua Sophie.
I hope you and yours are well. I also hope you’ve received your first vaccine. Even better if you’ve had the second shot. If not, I hope you’re on a short list. That’s a lot of hope!
Two weeks ago, I received my first vaccine. I will admit to higher than normal blood pressure that morning and it rose as I stood in line in a gymnasium with hundreds of folks after a one year lockdown. But what a happy day. A few hours later, I had a sore arm and maybe two hours of a low-grade fever, mild chills, and a dull headache. No big deal! As a person with autoimmune disease, I thanked my body for doing what it does best–fighting disease. I imagined my immune system filled with tiny She warriors with spears at the ready! I joked with my kids that somewhere in my compromised, but beautiful immune system stood Gandalf The Grey on the bridge, shouting, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” Yes, I have an active imagination and I’m a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, smile.
Like many folks, I’d been on several vaccine lists. While it took two months to be notified with an appointment date, West Virginia has had one of the most successful and efficient vaccine rollouts in the nation. Some friends were surprised at that news because West Virginia is a red state. I don’t know about all that–I am thrilled with the vaccine roll-out in my adopted state!
My appointment for the second vaccine is scheduled for March 30. I’m a bit nervous about the reaction(s) that may occur with the second shot, but like Dr. Fauci says, ‘It’s certainly better than getting COVID.’ Amen. Get your vaccines.
March 11, 2021 marked the first anniversary of our US coronavirus-related lockdowns. To say 2020 was horrible doesn’t quite do our experiences justice, does it? I don’t know if there is one appropriate, all-encompassing adjective to accurately describe 2020 as our experiences are so different.
In my January 25, 2021 blog post (I can’t believe it’s been that long since I blogged), I said I wouldn’t rehash all that happened in 2020. Months later, I realize it wasn’t a matter of ‘I wouldn’t’, it was more like I couldn’t rehash all that had happened. At that time, I hadn’t processed it all, not even a little bit.
It’s often impossible to process the past if we’re in the thick of what ails us…and we are still living in a pandemic.
Yesterday, as I began this blog post, 548,058 Americans had died from COVID-19 and worldwide the number of deaths was 2,674,597 million. This morning, 549,484 Americans died. The worldwide number is 2,685,458. The numbers are heartbreaking and difficult to grasp. What my brain (and heart) has difficulty processing is how quickly the numbers rise, within minutes, seconds.
Families and loved ones of poor souls around the world who succumbed to the novel coronavirus have experienced a year of unadulterated hell. 2020 was a year of immense grief, paralyzing fear, perpetual anxiety, and unspeakable suffering. Although the number of deaths continues to rise, the number of cases is slowing down in the US, in large part because of President Biden and the government’s successful vaccine roll-out, and the quick turn-around of vaccine production and distribution. Thank God, Trump is gone.
Earlier in the month, it was reported that a staggering one in five Americans had experienced a death in the family. The suffering and exhaustion experienced by doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and caregivers is unfathomable. I don’t know how they do it day after day after day. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Stranger or friend, I don’t know one person who hasn’t been affected by COVID-19 in one way or another. Most of us still worry about the safety of our children, our loved ones. Unless, of course, you are a loyal MAGA follower, who still believes COVID-19 is one big hoax. In that case, I feel sorry for you.
Doctors and nurses across the US share story after story of patients on their death beds, who at the ends of their lives, still don’t believe in the reality of the virus. I would imagine a medical professional must feel enormous frustration, disbelief, and yes, anger as they care for and intubate non-believers and anti-vaxxers on their death beds.
I cannot fathom this mentality, this selfishness, this madness.
Stay safe, friends. Continue to wear your masks. Continue to practice social distancing and get your vaccines as soon as possible. I need to hug my children and my loved ones.
Eleanor x
ABOUT ELEANOR:
Puerto Rican-born Eleanor Parker Sapia is the author of the multi-award-winning novel, “A Decent Woman”, published by Winter Goose Publishing in 2019. Eleanor’s debut novel, set 1900 Puerto Rico, garnered awards at the 2016 and 2017 International Latino Book Awards. She is featured in the anthology, “Latina Authors and Their Muses”. Eleanor is working on her second novel “The Laments”, set in 1926 Puerto Rico. Her debut poetry collection, “Tight Knots. Loose Threads. Poems” is due for release in April 2021.
Eleanor is the mother of amazing adult children and currently lives in Berkeley County, West Virginia with her Chihuahua Sophie.
The Writing Life Blog 