Leave a comment about the video and you’ll have a chance to win a FREE copy of our audio book “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music”.

Week Six July 6-10

July 6 Molly Lundquist welcomes Janet for a guest post, review, book club suggestions, and Midwestern recipes at Lit Lovers, a well-read community dedicated to books and book clubs

July 8 Janet Muirhead Hill interviews her sister-Janet (there is a club of us Janets!). We chatted about bereavement and childhood.

Janet Muirhead Hill is the author of the Miranda and Starlight series of books for children as well as the founder of Raven Publishing. Check out her two websites at: www.janetmuirheadhill.com and www.ravenpublishing.net. Janet and I are both members of Women Writing the West. Janet has written several guest posts for Riehlife on critiquing and rejection.

July 10 Susan Gallacher-Turner interviews Janet on We chat about my visual art career and creative process.

Susan’s Art & Words where Susan shares insights on living the creative life with essays, interviews, book reviews and articles. Her main website is http://www.susangt.com where you’ll see images of her beautiful work.

FEATURED VIDEO

Title: Sightlines Blog Tour Video #6: Stage 6 (Production & Marketing) & Stage 7 Celebrate!

Description: Stage 6: Production and Marketing. The product arrives: 50 boxes contained 20 audio books. What to do? Janet stacks them in the corner of her upstairs office (the “Cowboy Room”) at Pop’s house. Moving into promotion and marketing stage. Intro to launch dinner in Nashville, Stage 7: Celebration.

Length: 7:23 minutes
Videographer: Scott Kidd

This was recorded in the hospital shortly after the birth of her newest grandson, Liam. Scott Kidd, the sound engineer, for our audio book.

Carol created this slide show from family archival photos I sent her. These photos play over my reading of “Mama’s Suitcase” from “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.”

Wow! Two posts up this Monday June 29th…and a podcast this Friday, July 3rd.

Week Five June 29 through July 3rd

June 29th. Yvonne Perry interviews me on Writers in the Sky this Monday. Then…on Friday, she posts our Podcast interview.

June 29: BLOG: Antona Smith interviews Janet on Pink Latte Publishing…a wonderful little space for a writing journey. Pink Latte Publishing is Antona’s creative writing muse. Check out Antona’s main blog The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life by clicking here.

July 3 PODCAST, BOOK REVIEW:Yvonne Perry interviews Janet with a blog post, podcast, and book review. Yvonne is a Freelance writer, editor, award-winning author, speaker, and owner of Writers in the Sky Creative Writing Services Nashville, TN. Check her main blog by clicking here. Yvonne is a long-time supporter of my work and blogging buddy. Her son-in-law, Scott Kidd was my fabulous audio engineer for “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.”

FEATURED VIDEO

To view all 8 video thumbnails together, go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/daddytrailer.

Title: Sightlines Blog Tour Video #5: Stage 4 (legal) & Stage 5 (production)
Description: Stages 4 & 5 Legal work (licensing and copyrights) and Production. Greg McNey enters the project. Scott and Janet choose Discmasters as the company to produce the physical product…1,000 copies.

Length: 9:56 minutes
Videographer: Scott Kidd
Riehlife link: http://www.riehlife.com/2009/05/27/sightlines-blo…e-5-productionsightlines-blog-tour-video-5-stage-4-legal-stage-5-production/

Here’s an excerpt from her review:

Although Sightlines is very personal, the reader is not left outside to be a distant observer, peering through a cracked door or listening at the keyhole. The reader recognizes the history, the humanity, the process as if they were her own. The experience is both calming and reassuring. But there’s more. Janet moves beyond the physical and emotional loss to grapple with the meaning of the loss.

We’re into week four now, with 1/3 of the tour completed. Thanks for those of you following the tour.

Go to Eden’s site for this week’s TREASURE HUNT CLUE. Then, contact Janet with the answer to win a FREE copy of our audio book “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.”

Week four on June 23rd we have the treat of being welcomed by Artist & writer Eden Maxwell interviews Janet wisely proclaims, “You can’t outsource your soul work.”

Eden has appeared several times on www.riehlife.com on Dharma and Artful Living (http://is.gd/DxXj) and Rejection for artists of all kinds. His useful and soulful handbook An Artist Empowered: Define and Establish Your Value as an Artist—Now is a great book for your reference shelf whatever kind of art you pursue.

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED VIDEO

Title: Sightlines Blog Tour Video #4: Stage 2 (editing) & Stage 3 (technical)

Description: Stages 2 & 3, editing and technical (disc numbering and mastering) How Janet went from clueless on how to produce an audio book and started doing it. Topics: 1) Further into a description of the 7-stage process. 2) Moving from recording (stage 1) into editing and technical side. 3) How the music clips and poetry were woven together.
Length: 8:46 minutes
Videographer: Scott Kidd

Kendra and Matilda introduce the recording like this:

If you missed our informative conversation with Janet Grace Riehl, author of the memoir CD called Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry & Music, you can listen to the recording below. Here are a few of my favorite parts of the interview:

- Janet, as a special treat, sing the 1863 song Dear Evelina, Sweet Evelina, a song that she and her father frequently sang to her mother (Ruth Evelyn Johnston Thompson) in her last years. Then, Janet concludes by reading one of her story poems, Appetite, the final poem in the section of the memoir featuring memories of her mother.

Week Three June 15-19

17 Sharman Apt Russell interviews Janet on the themes of love, place, and meaning on her group blog Love of Place celebrating place and a greater relationship and intimacy with the natural world. She lives in Silver City, New Mexico.

Mary Ruth Donnelly reviews Sharman’s beautiful memoir “Standing in the Light” on www.Riehlife.com this week (see below under views and reviews). Learn more about Sharman and her work by clicking here.

17 Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler presents “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music” on Book Raves, their book reviews for Women’s Memoirs. Matilda & Kendra post their insigtful interview chock full of inspiration and information.

18 Isabella Mori hosts Janet’s guest post in Dialogue with Sarah Luczaj: Who Owns the Poem? at change therapy — making lives better, making better lives

FEATURED YOU TUBE VIDEO

To view all 8 video thumbnails together, go to: Audio book calendar under BOOKSORE top tab.

Title:
Description: Recording Begins, stage 1. Janet and Scott continue chatting about 1) How Scott eased Janet’s initial terror; 2) More detailed information on his studio set up; 3) working process of their 2-day (8 hours) recording session in Nashville.
Length: 8:20 minutes

Videographer: Scott Kidd

3. Sightlines Blog Tour Video #3: Stage 1–Recording

http://www.riehlife.com/2009/05/27/sightlines-blo…ge-1-recordingsightlines-blog-tour-video-3-stage-1-recording/

In Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist, Sharman Apt Russell invites the reader on a quest to resolve the tensions inevitable to one who proposes to live consciously: living in the nature of the beautiful Gila Valley, New Mexico versus maintaining a job and children’s activities in Silver City; being a good Quaker when Quaker Meeting is on Sunday morning, one of two days left to be outside town; the pantheist belief that the universe as a whole is sacred and the existence of evil ; and the comfort of a personal god compared to possible “ontological loneliness” experienced by the pantheist.

Sharman Apt Russell does not offer any pat answers. What she does is a weave of topics from her life history with a chronicle of one year, November 2005-November 2006, the definition of pantheism and its 2500 year old history, biographies and philosophies of a number of historical figures in the tradition (many persecuted for their thought and lifestyles), bird banding in the Gila Valley, ecological activism, Quakerism, its history and her own current group, her friends in the ecological movement and those in the Sanctuary Movement, and more.

She moves so seamlessly that the reader hardly needs transitions. Discussing Marcus Aurelius’ conclusion that evil is just a name for something misunderstood she cuts to herself and her daughter talking a walk in the Gila Valley at the end of college winter break. Her daughter will be graduating, and Sharman Apt Russell writes of her parental concerns for her daughter who will be going out into the dark streets where there may be real evil. Despite the double space between the sections signaling the changing in time and characters, clearly there is no change in topic, and the questions the author ponders aren’t just intellectual games.

Nearing the midpoint of the book, Sharman Apt Russell recounts a long hiking expedition that helps her clarify her goals. “I want rapture and living communion. I want to play like a child. Above all, like everyone else, I want to find my compassionate heart.” Though she allows no simplistic answers to the questions she poses or to the goals she sets, the books ends with her rapturous witnessing of the dance of the sand hill cranes, a rare sight that early in the memoir she mentions hoping to see.

The year that she is chronicling seems to be a transition point in her and her husband’s life. Early in their marriage they lived “in nature,” but family needs occasioned the move into town. Now they have bought another plot of land and anticipate the time when they can return to more permanent residence there. She says she will be better prepared this time and will take her “friends,” books.

I received the publisher’s postcard announcing Sharman Apt Russell’s book, and when colleagues gave me a gift certificate to our local independent book store as a retirement present, this was the first book I purchased to take on my journey. I was not disappointed.

Week Two June 8-12

9 Claire Applewhite interviews Janet on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Book Blog where Claire is a contributing writer. Claire’s most recent and fifth release is The Wrong Side of Memphis, a noir mystery novel. Claire and I are both members of the St. Louis Writers Guild.

11 Kendra Bonnet & Matilda Butler welcome Janet for a conversation on memoir with this special “Memoir Moment” at Women’s Memoirs where everyone has a story to tell. Both live and recorded. Kendra and Matilda are both members of Story Circle Network and we all blog on SCN’s Telling Her Stories.

FEATURD VIDEO

Title: Sightlines Blog Tour Video #2: Studio Tour & Working Process
Description: Getting started. Janet drives toward Scott Kidd’s home and studio in Nolensville, Tennessee. As usual, she gets lost. We meet Scott’s dog Tucker and tour Scott’s audio studio. Introduction to Janet and Scott’s working process, personal bond, and how the project began.
Length:9:52 minutes
Videographer: Scott Kidd
Riehlife Link: http://www.riehlife.com/2009/05/27/sightlines-blog-tour-video-2-studio-tour-working-process/

Don’t forget to join our TREASURE HUNT contest with clues at each stop along the blog tour. This gives you the chance to win a free copy of Janet’s audio book “Sigtlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.”