Our modern, fast-paced world can be an overwhelming place. Every day, we’re bombarded with messages telling us that in order to be happy, fulfilled, and worthy, we must be better, do more, and accumulate as much material wealth as possible. Most of us move through our busy lives with our minds full of these ideas, multitasking as we strive to navigate the responsibilities and expectations we must meet just to make it through the day. But what if there is another way? What if, rather than letting the busyness of life overtake our minds, we learn to be heartful instead?

Based on Daaji’s own combination of approaches and practices for the modern seeker—which draws from the teachings of Sahaj Marg, meaning “Natural Path”—Heartfulness is a contemporized version of the ancient Indian practice of Raja Yoga, a tradition that enables the practitioner to realize the higher Self within. While many books describe refined states of being, The Heartfulness Way goes further, providing a pragmatic course to experience those states for oneself, which, per the book’s guiding principle, is “greater than knowledge.”

Heartfulness meditation consists of four elements—relaxation, meditation, cleaning, and prayer—and illuminates the ancient, defining feature of yogic transmission (or pranahuti), the utilization of divine energy for spiritual growth and transformation. Using the method, detailed practices, tips, and practical philosophy offered in this book, you’ll reach new levels of attainment and learn to live a life more deeply connected to the values of the Heartfulness way—with acceptance, humility, compassion, empathy, and love.

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Review:

Before I begin my review, I want you to know I take meditation and anything holistic very seriously. With that said, I can certainly say that The Heartfulness Way was one of the most comprehensive, interesting and enlightening books on the subject I have every read.

Internal health is nothing to laugh at or ignore. The Heartfulness Way takes you at the beginning of your spiritual quest to find wholeness, happiness and peace. It takes you through what meditation is and how to go about it the right way. It helps you understand why gurus are so important. What I loved about this is the dialogue between the two gurus helping us to understand the process without it being text-book.

After reading The Heartfulness Way, I can honestly say I was filled with a euphoria that one can only feel when they are totally stress-free and at peace with oneself. I highly recommend if you have questions that have gone unanswered about creating a spiritual peace within! Looking for spiritual guides, this book is for you!

The Nazis invaded Salonika, Greece in April 1941. Within two years, the city’s Jews were shipped by cattle cars to the Auschwitz death camp. There were just three families who stayed in the city and survived because of the courage and kindness of Greek citizens who risked their lives and hid these Jewish families in their homes. Among the survivors were Andrew “Andreas” Algava, who was three years old at the time, and his family. They were five of 56,000 Jews who had lived in Salonika.

Algava, who moved to the United States at the age of seven, has written a gripping account of his family’s experience of survival titled 600 DAYS IN HIDING (600DaysInHiding.com). His memoir stands beside such classics of Holocaust literature as THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, Elie Wiesel’s NIGHT, Primo Levi’s SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ, and Nechama Tec’s DEFIANCE.
Two excerpts from 600 DAYS IN HIDING dramatically illustrate Algava’s intention to “communicate the humanity or inhumanity of how we choose to respond to each other.” The first scene takes place in a graveyard:

“Henri stood at the edge of the massive Jewish cemetery sprawling before him. The crypts and headstones extended for thousands of meters in all directions, a vast city of gravestones marking the remains of Jewish men, women, and children buried here during the past 450 years. At one end of the enormous cemetery a small army of several hundred Greek workers were busy with shovels and pickaxes, tearing up the gravesites, pillaging for treasure. Henri watched with a mix of astonishment and horror as Thessaloniki’s Jewish history was being destroyed before his eyes, forever.”

The second excerpt describes the family’s first perilous night as they go into hiding from the Nazis:

“Marcos looked at Allegra. ‘I think the most danger we will face tonight will be from Andreas.’
 ‘What do you mean?’ Allegra asked, taking a short breath.

‘We agreed he should come with me so if you are caught, he will have his freedom. Is he prepared to play the game we talked about? Being quiet and not paying attention to you?’

‘I think so,’ Allegra replied. ‘He’s old enough.’ Marcos looked at the sleeping child and knew their fate rested with him.

…‘Remember,’ whispered Marcos, as they were about to open the apartment’s door, ‘stay in three separate groups. We’ll gather at the trolley stop on Martiou Street. When you’re out of the ghetto, tear off the stars and put them in your pocket. We’ll get off at Saint Sophie as planned. Whatever happens, just stay calm. We’ll be all right.’ He looked at each of them, and made his face relax with a little smile to reassure them. ‘They look ready,’ he thought.

…A knock on the door and a thin narrow face greeted them quietly. Quickly the six travelers entered. Allegra saw it was a small room in a poor house with a dirt floor. …‘Welcome, welcome,’ said Pachis. ‘It isn’t much, but we can shelter you. Your room is over here,’ and he walked to a room with a curtain as its door. ‘We have some blankets you can use,’ Pachis said, indicating a small pile of old wool blankets. 

…‘Good night,’ said Marcos. ‘You’ll be safe here, for a while at least.’

‘Thank you, Marcos,’ Allegra said. ‘We are grateful.’

‘I’m glad to help.’ Turning to go, he said softly, ‘I’ll return tomorrow with a few of the things you said you wanted. It may take a few trips, but I’ll get them here. Get some sleep,’ and he stepped through the open doorway, drawing the drape across the opening.

Quickly setting up a sleeping area, soon everyone had settled down. Henri took his place beside Allegra and his son, and though he was very tired and drained, he stayed awake, still edgy. Eventually the sounds of slumber lulled him to sleep as the night yielded to the dawn of their first day in hiding.”

600 DAYS in HIDING is well-positioned for adaptation as a film. Such a production would provide a powerful thematic counterpoint to news stories about current political upheaval and the drumbeat of dehumanization in the United States and throughout the world.

Algava also notes that he is writing a sequel to 600 DAYS IN HIDING that will address “how as individuals and as society we came to be.” He adds that writing his inspiring story “absolutely energizes me. It’s the fulfillment of a dream.”

Review:

Ever had a movie come to an end and it's in your thoughts forever? That's what I came away with after reading Andreas Algava's new memoir, 600 Days in Hiding.

My interest in the Holocaust is uncanny. I didn't have any ancestors perish during it. I wasn't related to anyone on either side of the fence as far as I know, but since reading The Diary of Anne Frank and having it affect me at such a young age instilled a compassion and a reverence for a group of people who were persecuted just because of their faith. How can anyone hate so many people enough to do the horrific things they did to them just because they didn't agree with their faith? Happens all the time unfortunately and this is something that we need to address until we're blue in the face.

What I found interesting is the fact that I learned so much from Algava's book. The story is about his family and how they dealt with the horrors during the time Germany invaded Greece, their homeland. What I didn't know is that Italy was an ally of Germany and that's where the story began - Mussolini had ordered troops to invade Greece and fortunately the Greek army pushed them back. This infuriated Hitler who as you know was in charge of the German forces. We all know that Hitler was a horrible person and all that but how did he convince everyone that Jews were filthy beings and not meant to be on this earth? It just boggles the mind.

So Hitler retaliates and before you know it, the German army has invaded Algava's hometown and taken over. Andreas was but a baby so I imagine this book was based on stories his father told him. What I also learned about this book is that Hitler didn't take over the Jews right away...it was a slow process involving humiliating them, taking their houses from them and forcing them to live in the ghetto and work in the camps and it was after he had misled the Jews telling them that they would be going to 'New Israel' in cattle cars that the story really gets heartbreaking. Some of the Jews including Andreas and his family knew that it was a trick so they fled off in the middle of the night from their self-appointed Ghetto apartment to stay with people who agreed to hide them for an amount of money. Not all of these people were honest people either.

This story was so gut-wrenching and nerve-wracking at the same time. In hiding, would the Gestapo find them and shoot them all? Would they ever find enough food? How would you like it knowing that your life now became one harrowing moment after another?

Read 600 Days in Hiding if you want to feel what the Jews felt and live the lives of a people persecuted. It'll change your life.

One more thing I'd like to add to this. Andreas, if you are reading this, the world is so proud of you for taking the time to recount your father's story and hope this book will be on everyone's reading list.

“Judge Blair modified the contempt penalty imposed on Louise to time already served. Detective John Reeves, eager to inform her that she was free, was surprised when she insisted on serving the entire seven-day sentence. He hesitantly asked if she would mind him calling on her, once matters settled, but she did not respond. He reproached himself for such an untimely and selfish intrusion, and vowed to never again disturb her, to spend his time instead searching for the man with the dent in his forehead.”
--From Brimstone by John Allen


John Allen was born in Long Beach, CA. An engineer “by education, training, and experience,” he describes himself as “a recovering engineer.” He left engineering to become the junior partner in Allen & Allen Semiotics Inc., a corporation that his wife, Lynn, launched for their diversified home business. Their projects include designing databases for mid-sized companies. John Allen holds a BS from the United States Air Force Academy, an MS from the University of Southern California, and an MA from the University of California, Riverside.

Book Description:

Author John Allen has a theory about the creator of Sherlock Holmes:

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not create Holmes. It was Doyle’s wife, Louise Hawkins Conan Doyle, who gave birth to the beloved sleuth.

Allen has put his beliefs to the test, writing and publishing the first of a projected 12-novel series of Holmes mysteries titled BRIMSTONE. His detective is Louise Hawkins Conan Doyle, and Allen names her as the author of the tale he presents, set in 1879 Bristol, England.

In a previous book, SHADOW WOMAN, Allen set out to prove that Louise was the true creator of Sherlock Holmes. The inspiration for his startling and controversial theory of authorship was a 1980s essay by Martin Gardner called “The Irrelevance of Arthur Conan Doyle.” Gardner claimed that

Arthur was “too gullible and to easily duped to have created Sherlock Holmes.”
Allen determined that Gardner was correct, but Gardner identified no alternative author. Allen continues, “So I decided to give it a try. I came to suspect Louise as the actual author, but I lacked the knowledge and tools to make a solid case.”

Then the Internet came along, giving Allen a valuable research tool. He became convinced that Louise did in fact create Sherlock Holmes. Allen presented his case in SHADOW WOMAN, which was published in 2017. To further advance Louise as Holmes’s creator, to give her the credit he believes she is due, he is now featuring her in a series of mystery novels, the first of which is BRIMSTONE.

As if Allen hadn’t set the bar too high already, he has added a subtext to BRIMSTONE that explores contemporary wrongful convictions through his Victorian thrillers.

BRIMSTONE brims with appeal to multiple audiences, from lovers of detective stories to those interested in justice for the wrongfully convicted. Sherlock Holmes would be proud.

Interview:

What’s inside the mind of a mystery author?

Front and center in my thoughts, of course, is telling a compelling story. In that regard, I suspect I'm no different than my colleagues. Beyond that, however, I suspect my thoughts are unique in substantial fashion.

I'm fairly confident that I'm the only author writing a mystery series that features the woman who actually created Sherlock Holmes, presenting to the public in Brimstone even before she met the man who would take credit for her groundbreaking mystery writing. And I'm equally confident that none of my colleagues are basing Victorian mysteries on actual wrongful convictions from today's America.

My thoughts, therefore, are frequently upon how Louise Conan Doyle might have investigated the wrongful convictions that I have investigated. Alternatively, my thoughts are on how I might have investigated my cases had I been a woman in Victoria England. Either way, the thoughts can literally cause me to lose sleep.

What is so great about being an author?

I've written five non-fictional books, four on wrongful convictions and one on Louise's authorship of Sherlock Holmes. (That last book, by the way, is called Shadow Woman: The True Creator of Sherlock Holmes, and it is available on Amazon.) Brimstone is my first work of non-fiction, and the first book of twelve planned for the Louise Conan Doyle Mystery Series. Each book in the series combines my insight into the Holmes authorship issue with my insight into the sordid world of wrongful convictions.

I find that I prefer writing fiction, particularly when the story takes control of me, rather than vice versa. Those are the magical times when my writing is at its best, when even I am surprised to read what I'm writing, when the characters use my fingers to convert their thoughts and dreams to pixels on my screen. That is just one great aspect about being an author.

When do you hate it?

As I just noted, I frequently find writing non-fiction to be a slog. The writing becomes something that I need to do rather than something I want to do. That's when I most dislike writing.

What is a regular writing day like for you?

On an idealized day, my fingers are on the keyboard by 8, and they are busy writing of Louise solving mysteries in Victorian England until noon. During lunch, I'll research or watch a documentary, except on Wednesdays, which is date day with Lynn, my wife of 22 years. After lunch, I research and write to free innocent people, most of that writing never being made public. Lynn and I spend the evenings together, giving each other our attention. Approaching midnight, my thoughts are back to my writing. I fall asleep with plot twist or legal theories rattling around in my head, and I sometimes wake up with encouraging new thoughts.

That's an idealized day. Real life, though, manages to intrude so frequently and in such unexpected fashion that no day is typical.

How do you handle negative reviews?

Since I spent many years arguing, on my Skeptical Juror blog, that specific convicted murderers are actually innocent, it should come as no surprise that I have been subjected to harsh criticism. I know that my work is controversial and disruptive, and I know that it will engender negative reviews and comments. The more unhinged the comment or review, the easier it is to laugh it off. The more thoughtful and insightful the review, the more likely it is to cause me to think about my work, to try harder to get things right.

How do you handle positive reviews?

Being human, I much prefer the positive reviews to the negative. After the initial flush of satisfaction, which may last longer than I'd like to admit, I get back to work.

What is the usual response when you tell a new acquaintance that you’re an author?

I find that the new acquaintance is not as impressed as one might hope, more honestly as I might hope. Even if provided a copy of an impressive non-fictional book, any excitement seems feigned. However, having recently published my first fictional work, people seem sincerely excited about Brimstone, and seem sincerely thrilled if handed a print copy.

The difference in behavior is discernable and remarkable. I guess it's not surprising that people, in general, prefer a diversion from reality rather that another harsh glare of it.

What do you do on those days you don’t feel like writing? Do you force it or take a break?

I have a hypothesis that writers don't actually like to write. They like everything else that goes with being a writer: the prestige, the allure, the interview as they sit in a wingback chair, smoking a pipe, an impressive library at their back, an Irish Setter at their feet. The sole evidence for my hypothesis is that nearly every writer has some scheme to force herself or himself to write. Nearly every one of them has some thought on how to, using an indelicate term of art, get ass in seat. For me, I find it best to have a scheduled time for AIS. That's the hardest part. By my first carriage return, I'm in the groove.

It's rare when I don't want to dive into my Louise writing. It's much more common that circumstances prevent me from doing so.

Any writing quirks?

I like to have a nice cool glass of diet Mt. Dew, on the rocks, at the ready, on my left hand side, in the same beat up, battered, plastic glass I've so long used. Does that count as a quirk?

What would you do if people around you didn’t take your writing seriously or see it as a hobby?

Since I believe in what I'm trying to accomplish, to bring long overdue credit to Louise Conan Doyle and free innocent people from prison, I would continue to write with the hope and expectation that some day my work will take hold.

Some authors seem to have a love-hate relationship to writing. Can you relate?

Yes, assuming love-hate is used in the metaphorical rather than literal sense. I much prefer fiction to non-fiction. With respect to my non-fiction writing, I like that I'm trying to set right a terrible wrong, but I dislike the circumstances that force me to write of such matters. With respect to Louise Conan Doyle, it is more of a love-love relationship, in the metaphorical sense. I have become quite fond of her. I hold her in exceptionally high regard for her achievements and her character, and I am feel honored to bring her to the public consciousness.

Do you think success as an author must be linked to money?

If, through my writing, I can stop the execution of an innocent person, or free an innocent person from prison, or keep an innocent person from being convicted, then I am successful, even if no one in the general public has read a single word I've written, even if I've not earned a penny.
With the Louise Conan Doyle Mystery Series, on the other hand, I have recruited Louise to help me bring attention to a few of the wrongful convictions. For the two of us, Louise and I working together, success means public attention, and that means sales, and that is linked to money. The money would, of course, be wonderful, but it is far from the end all.

What has writing taught you?

Everyone is capable of both wonderful and horrible acts.

Leave us with some words of wisdom.

Each of us should carefully consider the possibility that we might be wrong.

“Every day we heard practice rounds of artillery fire and ordinance on the near horizon. We knew what all this training was for. It was to keep the world from ending. Our father was one of many Dads who sweat at soldierly labor, part of an arsenal kept at the ready to scare off nuclear annihilation of life on earth. When we lived on post, my sisters and I saw uniformed men marching in straight lines everywhere. This was readiness, the soldiers rehearsing against Armageddon. The rectangular buildings where the commissary, the PX, the bowling alley and beauty shop were housed had fall out shelters in the basements, marked with black and yellow wheels, the civil defense insignia. Our Dad would often leave home for several days on maneuvers, readiness exercises in which he and other men played war games designed to match the visions of big generals and political men. Visions of how a Russian air and ground attack would happen. They had to be ready for it.”
--From Fighter Pilot’s Daughter by Mary Lawlor
Mary Lawlor is author of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War (Rowman & Littlefield paperback 2015); Public Native America: Tribal Self-Representation in Casinos, Museums and Powwows (Rutgers UP, 2006); and Recalling the Wild: Naturalism and the Closing of the American West (Rutgers UP, 2000). She lives in Allentown, PA and Gaucin, Spain.
Her latest book is the memoir, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War.
Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War tells the story of Mary Lawlor’s dramatic, roving life as a warrior’s child. A family biography and a young woman’s vision of the Cold War, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter narrates the more than many transfers the family made from Miami to California to Germany as the Cold War demanded. Each chapter describes the workings of this traveling household in a different place and time. The book’s climax takes us to Paris in May ’68, where Mary—until recently a dutiful military daughter—has joined the legendary student demonstrations against among other things, the Vietnam War. Meanwhile her father is flying missions out of Saigon for that very same war. Though they are on opposite sides of the political divide, a surprising reconciliation comes years later.
Interview:
Thank you so much for this interview, Mary. Can we begin by having you tell us why you wrote your book, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter?

Mary: I thought about writing a memoir during the last several years I was teaching at Muhlenberg College. I’d long since gotten used to the fact that I had no place to call home and to not knowing where in the world I belonged, but I felt that writing the story of all the moves my family made would help me better understand my roving girlhood. Therapy, talking to other military kids, and finally settling down in one place helped, but not quite enough. I needed an account, a narrative, of what had happened to me and my sisters during all that shifting around. Our father was away for long periods of time, in very dangerous situations. Our mother was always worried. These weren’t easy things to live with. I felt if I could write out the sequence of moves and try to get back inside the feelings that came with them I might be able to make better sense of what being an Army kid did to and for me.
During my last few semesters at Muhlenberg I taught a course on the literature and film of the Cold War which brought the idea to the foreground. Partly this came from the questions students asked and my efforts to get back inside memory to answer them as clearly as I could. But it was also driven by all those questions I’d lived with for so long. So I sat down one summer and wrote the first sentence. The story kept going, and I didn’t want to stop. Even when it was finished I kept going back into that past. It was a very good experience for me to write the book.

What was it like being a military brat?

Mary: Almost every day we saw soldiers doing drills and marching along the roads that ran through the posts where we lived. You could hear ordinance explosions in the distance.
Dark green army school buses picked up my sisters and me and a lot of other kids every day to take us to the Catholic school we attended off post. They would bring us back home and leave us in the housing areas where we all lived. All of us went to the same movie theater, bowling alley, teen center, swimming pool and so forth because there was only one of each.
But the sense of class difference was very strong: enlisted and officer corps families lived in separate housing areas, belonged to different clubs, and tended to socialize separately.
Children were expected to behave very well, and parents were expected to discipline them. So my sisters and I and all the other kids acted and spoke and probably thought as we were supposed to. If you were out of line, your father had to answer for it and could be demoted. Kids knew that. You felt like you had a responsibility to not let your father look bad.
So there was a lot of following the line that was drawn for you, and then knowing who you were in the pecking order.
My sisters and I were close and liked being with each other. That was a good thing because all the moving meant we didn’t have any other friends. At new places we’d meet new people, but soon enough they or we would move and we’d never see each other again. Sometimes we’d write letters but that didn’t usually last very long.
It was in many ways a lonely experience, but it was also very, very interesting. You never knew where you were going next or what the new assignment would be like. New places meant new landscapes, sometimes new languages and totally new things to do. We moved from Alabama to California to Germany and many other places. Although we were strangers, life was always exciting.

Of all the places you lived out of the U.S., what your most memorable and why? What was it like?

Mary: I loved living in Paris during my first year of college. It was my first time away from home; my first chance to make myself someone apart from my intensely close family. And the city was so unbelievably beautiful. It was incredible to be eighteen and have that at my doorstep. I met wonderful young people that winter and spring and the following year. Hemingway called Paris “a moveable feast,” and he was right. To get to live there when you’re young is a great gift that stays with you ever after.

You call yourself a warrior child. Why is that?

Mary: Growing up as a dutiful, devout daughter in an Irish Catholic, military family I had my life mapped out in detail for me by my parents, the Church, and the patriotic military culture. When I got to college and met people who had other perspectives and different ideas for the future, I was very amazed and fascinated--by what they said, the books they were reading, and the politics they were involved in. Soon I joined them and had to face the resistance of my family to the changes I was going through. I had to “fight” my parents’ will to bring me back home, so to speak, and think again like they did. It wasn’t easy. The tension between us lasted a long time. I had to fight with myself too, because my parents’ vision and ideology were deeply ingrained in me: just because I was attracted to other peoples’ politics and philosophies I couldn’t simply chuck all the ideals I’d been nurtured by. Those battles and the ambiguities that fueled them raged throughout my late teens and through my twenties. I made peace with my parents before they passed away. I like to think I’ve made a few treaties with myself by now, but new fights do turn up to take the place of the old ones. I struggled for a long time to give up academic writing and start producing the fiction I wanted to write since I was very young. I’ve finally done that but new challenges come with the new kind of writing. I have to keep soldiering on.

Demonstrating during the Viet Nam War was a given being as most of America were enraged we were involved in a war that was killing our young men and women in the military, plus it became something that left a bad taste in our mouths. What was the part you played in the demonstrations? How did your family feel about that?

Mary: Yes, fifty-eight thousand Americans died in the Vietnam War, but in 1995 Vietnam released the totals of Vietnamese dead: two million civilians, 1.1 million soldiers of North Vietnam, and (the US estimate) between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers. It was a huge nightmare for the Vietnamese people and fueled a raging civil struggle in the US. I was fairly oblivious to the horrors of the war although I should not have been. My father was fighting in it. There was no good reason for me to have been as ignorant as I was of what the war meant, even though much of what my Dad was doing was officially secret. I could have had a better picture of what was going on if I’d taken the trouble to read the newspapers and pay closer attention to the nightly TV news. But I wasn’t interested; and in our family we didn’t talk about these things.
This all changed very soon after I arrived in Paris. New roommates and new friends my age were all talking about the war. Everybody was against it. They were reading political theory and philosophy and spiritual books that helped shape their arguments. I was impressed and influenced by them. In the winter of that year, we met a group of young men who had just come to Paris from Madison, Wisconsin. They were nineteen and twenty years old and had fled the country to avoid the draft. At that time Charles de Gaulle, President of France, was granting political asylum to US resistors. France had its own history in Vietnam, and de Gaulle had reason to sympathiz with the young Americans who did not want to go there to fight and possibly lose their lives. The Madison guys formed a union and got a lot of support from political figures and intellectuals in Paris. I was very moved one night when Jean Paul Sartre, the great philosopher of existentialism, came to one of their meetings and claimed they were all vraiment existenialistes. Their bravery—for all they knew they were never going to be able to go home—was quite startling, and I found myself immensely impressed. I joined them along with other friends in the demonstrations that spring that became know in history as “May ’68.”

After writing your book on your experiences, what was going through your head?

Mary: Lots of things were on my mind at that moment. The process of writing it was like an experience in self-therapy. When Fighter Pilot’s Daughter was finished I felt like I knew a lot more about myself and my family than I had before writing it. I worried about whether my sisters would be offended by anything I had written in the book. I sent them the manuscript and told them I’d be interested in their thoughts, but they objected to nothing and in fact were terrifically supportive. I also worried about whether the book would have any appeal to people outside my own family and perhaps some of the military kids I knew. As it turned out the book did rather well and came out in paperback two years later. I’ve had lots of good feedback from people of my generation who told me they recognized themselves and the world in which they grew up in Fighter Pilot’s Daughter.
As soon as I finished writing the book there were business matters I had to think about. I needed to find an agent—that was very much on my mind. It took several months, but I was very happy to sign with Neil Salkind. He placed the book quickly with Rowman and Littlefield, a great publisher to work with. My editors there and the vice president, Jon Sisk, were very helpful.

What’s next for you, Mary?

Mary: Since Fighter Pilot’s Daughter I’ve been writing fiction. My first novel, The Time Keeper’s Room, is in the hands of an agent in London right now. It’s set in Spain (where I live half the year) and focuses on a young woman who’s half-American, half-Spanish. She’s trying to find her identity and stumbles into a kind of visionary history in interesting, dramatic ways that help her come through many challenges she faces.
At the moment I’m working on another novel, as yet untitled, set in the 12^th century, about a monk who walks to Spain from England to learn Arabic so he can read Arab star lore and the wisdom of ancient Greece. He has to dodge the Church, which watches his moves with suspicion and jealousy. I won’t say more, but it’s a combination of literary fiction and thriller.