SALT LAKE CITY, August 7, 2019
WiDo’s Managing Editor, Karen Gowen, was stuck in a tire shop waiting for her car when she started reading the submission from Marilyn Woods. “This is the kind of submission that makes my day,” Gowen says. “Where everything around me fades away, and I’m completely sucked into the story, the characters, the setting. The tire shop disappeared and I was in California with Marilyn and Jack, living their dream.”
On the brink of middle age, Marilyn and Jack Woods did a one-eighty, leaving their world of big city radio and broadcasting to take on a new adventure with the purchase of a Southern California farm. As they stumble and succeed over the two decades that follow, they experience losses, failures, and stunning successes as they craft a life among orange groves, lavender fields, and vineyards in San Diego County.
When the devastating, unexpected death of her husband leaves Marilyn alone with a shattered dream, she must reclaim the inspiration and courage that led them to their country life in order to find a new way forward. This story is a portrait of the grief, joy, courage, and hope of a life lived boldly, and an ode to the solace that can be found in nature and art.
“It’s a love story between two people and a Southern California farm,” the author says. “In the beginning, scared to death in the dark of my husband’s hospital room, I wrote to calm myself. I wanted to document what was happening for him. As the saga drew out and came to its unthinkable end, I wrote more. I felt like talking about him would keep him with me.”
When Marilyn began to come out of the trauma five or six months later, she enrolled in a personal narrative writing class. “For the next year and a half, I wrote with no clear end goal,” she remembers. This cycle of writing did foster her healing, for which she is grateful. And then she decided to take her book to the next level.
“It’s trite to say, but a year ago my book actually spoke to me. I listened and what evolved is I hope so much more than a grief and healing story. I hope my story will inspire readers to embark on quiet adventures of their own.” During this time, Woods read The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, a book that New York Newsday called “A kind of family album made into a work of art.”
“From the first tears-falling-on-the pages to my reading it over and over for solace after my life shattered, I have been so inspired by the author’s telling of Cuyler and Mercy Goodwill’s love story,” Woods says. “Especially the simple stone mason building a memorial stone tower to her when he loses his wife. Each day he carried one or two small stones, which he set without mortar, from the quarry where he placed them at Mercy’s memorial site.”
Throughout the process of writing her memoir, Woods “felt like Cuyler, building my monument of stories and memories to memorialize an extraordinary man, my husband.”
About writing: “I get my best ideas while driving. Sometimes, when life gets too hectic, I take off and check into a hotel to focus. Thankfully, I am pretty darned prolific and dedicated, especially to the development of my blog and author platform.”
She also has a passion for art and art history and reads widely about it. A couple other books she reads often foster expertise in two other passions, bridge and gardening: Points Schmoints: Bergen’s Winning Bridge Secrets, and Prick: Cacti and Succulents.
A woman of many talents and interests, Marilyn enjoys eating out, spending time with her seven grandchildren, working at the art museum and drawing salon, her writing group, and walking. Her guilty pleasure is “returning to Texas. I love all things Texas, especially the people. I keep in touch with so many even though I’ve been away for decades.” She is currently working on a parallel lives story about two girls from Texas.
After signing her contract with WiDo Publishing™ Marilyn Woods received two other offers to publish her manuscript. Wondering, did she act too hastily, her response is: “Absolutely not. I’m flattered with this interest, but I did so much due diligence on this company and try as I might, I could not find anything other than a glowing review. In my ten days under contract with WiDo, I have been treated with such respect and kindness and am confident this is going to be a most rewarding experience!”
Marilyn Woods is an artist, teacher, and matriarch of a family of fifteen. She holds degrees in journalism and psychology. Marilyn began her career as a broadcast journalist. After earning her BA in Journalism from Texas Technological University, she and her husband became pioneers in radio syndication, which lead them to live in major cities around the country, including Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC, and Dallas. Her life changed when the pair gave up big city life to purchase a small farm in Pauma Valley, California, population, 980. Read more about the author at her website: https://www.marilynwoodswriter.com/