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

Death sometimes brings about a radical swing in the way the survivors look at life. Janet Grace Riehl, an award-winning author, has written a poetry book Sightlines (iUniverse Inc., Lincoln, 2006) that expresses her feelings about the beauties and frailties of daily life after the death of her beloved sister Julia in a road mishap.

Linking the abstract pieces of life’s jigsaw together, Janet Grace Riehl connects the presence and absence of loved ones, the things they do and the way they do it, the places they used to live, and the vitality of belongingness that makes life going. The book is written in a dominantly nostalgic poetical mode that sometimes points to the countryside and simple old ways of peaceful life.

Using free verse for expressing her thoughts and feelings, Riehl has touched on core human emotions like companionate love, parental love and care, grief and its remedy, and the feeling of continuity of life via bloodline. The first few pieces of verse in the book are by Riehl’s father, Erwin A Thompson whose lines are emotionally moving and literarily inspiring. Some of the entries have spiritual implications especially Pope In My Bedroom and there are messages about love of nature e.g. Loving Liberty and Up Under The Pine Rows. The author has also shared photos of her family to make the reader’s ‘sightlines’ clear for looking at the poetic scene at hand.

Sightlines will appeal to any lover of nicely-written free verse that is expressive of universal existential codes: love, peace, grief, belongingness, fear, and all that makes ‘life’ beautiful.

For those interested, the phases in creating and producing your own audiobook are:

1) creative phase: recording, editing, fileswapping, decisionmaking, "notes" back and forth
2) technical phase: mastering and disc spanning
3) mechanical licensing: copyright, permissions in the print publishing world
4) production: making the discs, pricing, packaging, delivery
5) big celebration!
6) marketing & distribution---see if anyone wants one

I continue to be completely smitten with Scott Kidd as a collaborator. He's a consummate professional. As someone whose career was as a generalist—with the skill of professionalism at the core of that—I truly appreciate that core when I encounter it. I am bragging on him all the time...even offering him as a case study for what really works well. Thanks again for connecting us.

CLICK HERE to read about my Nashville visit on Yvonne Perry's blog WRITERS IN THE SKY when I began work with Scott and met Yvonne and Hal Manogue, two steadfast blogging buddies, for the first time.

The poetry collection "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary" by Janet Riehl is a soaring, poignant homage to family, sorrow, and the rebirth that comes with pain and loss. Written after the death of her sister in a tragic automobile accident, Riehl cobbled together her father's mournful poems as well as her own and set out to document the ties that bind and the things that matter most.

Interwoven with collections of family photographs are meditations on the importance of family and the comfort of kin. Using memories and recollections as her foundation, Riehl's poems are heartwrenching and triumphant. Many of the poems read as journal entries, and diary submissions. There's no belletristic prose or coruscate syntax, it's simple, it's original and straight from the heart.

Though the book obviously caters to those who have experienced a similar loss, there is a resounding conviction in her writing that allow her words to enter into the hearts of the reader. Much like Jane Brox's family memoir "A Thousand Days Just Like This One," Riehl retraces family steps while revisiting classic bits of dialogue. An example of this is in "Catechism":

Mother: "Dad Died?
Janet: Yes.
M: When?
J: Maybe forty years ago.
M: Why didn't I know about it?
J: Maybe you forgot.
M: That's possible. What else is possible?
J: I don't know, Mom.
M: Where are they now?
J: Up in heaven, I guess."

Though the book's center is initially Riehl's mourning of her lost sister, it's the pieces about caring for her ailing mother and her recollections of her Midwestern childhood that leave an indelible mark.

One of Riehl's better poems is "Praising Mother":

Your magnolia petal soul bobs down the creek
Navigating shallows and peering into depths
Delicate titmouse feather Mama, same as those
Miniature birds you feed
Before they dart into ground places.

No, Riehl's book isn't a New York Times bestseller and no, it probably won't garner glowing reviews from the folks at Harper's and Kirkus Review, but Riehl's work is both reflective and significant, and those two aspects are enough to earn this book a positive recommendation. More information on Riehl is available at her Web site www.riehlife.com.

Marcy Burns has been a "friend of the book" since Sightlines: A Poet's Diary" came out in 2006. She found it through Dan Poynter's list, reviewed it, and set about becoming a friend of the book, my work, and me. On my trip to Riverside last winter [click here for audio of talk and music], I met Marcy for the first time in her lovely home in Oxnard, California. This morning she sent me this heartening note:

The Ventura UU Book Group begins each session with chalice lighting and an opening reading. Yesterday, just as I was ready to leave home to go to the session, the group leader telephoned to say she couldn’t be there, and she asked if I would be the leader for the day.

Marcy

Like three other friends of mine, I'm now, Saturday, 11 a.m., to appear on Blogtalk Radio's Authors Read program hosted by Lillian Brummet (Conscious Discussions talk radio).

Folks, this is a great resource and readily available to any of you authors out there who wanna read from your books!

For my show, what I'm excited about, is that I was able to send files from the audiobook we're making of my poetry book.

So, if you're able to catch the program or listen to the archive afterwards, you can get a preview of the "Sightlines a Poet's Diary" audiobook!

Click here to hear downhome music recorded in my father's parlor mingled with poems from my mother's section of "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary."

The call-in Number for the show is: (347) 215-8319.

So, love it if you check out our music and poetry reading...and make use of this resource yourself!

What's particularly great that I was able to send the files beforehand.

Because this afternoon my father and I are anchoring a major program at the Godfrey Congregational Church for "Gems of Yesterday: The Poetry and Philosophy of Bee Lewis," our tribute book to my father's mentor that contains 274 poems.

We'll have 5 poetry readers, music, stories...and will be donating all proceeds from book sales to the church where Amelia Lewis, Bee's wife, was so active.

Because we had the audio files available, I won't have to stress about calling in and being in good voice.

I'll be there de facto in the pre-recorded files. It's such a freeing way to work. I love it! A brave new world for me.

I love using the new technology to bring out the truth, beauty, and wisdom, of the past.

Click here to read Yvonne Perry's report "Janet Riehl's Nashville Visit" on Yvonne Perry's Writers in the Sky blogspot.

The Riehl Family on the Homeplace...everyone played music or wrote poetry as a matter of course. Anna Riehl, my grandmother, in foreground, wrote the poetry collection "On the Heights."

ADVENTURES IN CREATIVE COLLABORATION

Collaboration means to work together. When I chart the "greatest hits" of my life, many of these experience revolve around rich working collaborations. One of my greatest joys in life is collaborating with friends. I count good ones like the time with sound engineer Scott Kidd on one hand. (Click here to read Scott Kidd's credits on All Music.) He's one of the greats, and so humble. This time working with him was beyond anything I could have imagined or designed.

Recording the audio for "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary" in Nashville with Scott was both collaboration and peak experience. Essentially, I commissioned Scott to work with me in creating an audiobook and the audio for a multimedia ebook (text and links that take you to audio, video, or external locations...an ebook that functions like a website or a blog) for "Sightlines" in what turns out to be a very active collaboration.

Scott is a dream collaborator because he's skillful, relaxed, fun, responsive, and on point. For this project, I couldn't have imagined anyone more right to work with. My father would say, "He has a good touch on it." He understood about the importance of family stories, history, heritage, and legacy. That's the undercurrent of my upbringing, my current collaborative life with my father, and the five sections of "Sightlines" 90 poems. A sound editor like Scott is comparable to a film editor who pulls a project together like a collage.

At the core of Scott's talent for collaboration is his talent for sharing his humaness. I cannot say enough good about the man, truly. At only 31, Scott is a man of heart...a man of soul...a man of quiet, efficient action. He sees the big picture and get the details right while making it all easy and fun. He's an engineer with an artist's sensibility and intuition. He really understands what collaboration is.

ADVENTURES IN COMPASSION

"Sightlines: A Poet's Diary" is a downhome family love story beyond death that won a DIY honorable mention in 2007. My sister's death in 2004 launched the spiritual process that gave birth to the book, but "Sightlines" is more than a dead sister book. It's a book of homecoming...to my family, the homeplace, and to myself and a larger sense of family.

Early in our work together Scott shared that his family had also experienced a sudden death (his uncle) and that he had found "a soft spot that wasn't there before." This statement so struck me becuase it's the very essence of the Tibetan Buddhist teachings on compassion: "The times when you are suffering can be those when you are open, and where you are extremely vulnerable can be where your greatest strength really lies. Say to yourself: I am not going to run away from this suffering. I want to use it in the best and richest way I can, so that I can become more compassionate and more helpful to others. Suffering, after all, can teach us about compassion. If you suffer, you will know how it is when others suffer. And if you are in a position to help others, it is through your suffering that you will find the understanding and compassion to do so."

In his own direct and honest way, this is what Scott has done. He's infused his technical expertise with such gentleness that you may enter as a client, but walk away feeling as if you've made a friend. Scott said that in the beginning of his career he'd tried to model someone who was extremely businesslike. But, that just wasn't him and caused undue stress. "I just had to be myself," he told me. That's been the cornerstone of his success in working with many of Nashville's music royalty.

Our work sessions were bookended by playing with his Boston Terrier Tucker, eating Sushi together at Peter's, and marvelling over the pro-quality wedding album his father-in-law gave them as his present.

What I learned about doing business in Nashville from working with Scott, listening to his stories, and lunching with Hal Manogue and Yvonne Perry at the Yellow Porch (where it felt like we were just hanging out on our front porch, jabbering, watching the world go by) is that it's very relational...very old school...old world.

BLOG DUET WITH YVONNE PERRY OF WRITERS IN THE SKY

Click here to read Yvonne Perry's report "Janet Riehl's Nashville Visit" on Yvonne Perry's Writers in the Sky blogspot.

Find out:
1) Why I wanted to make an audiobook of "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary"....and how long I've had this dream.
(Yvonne is one of the folks who inspired me in that direction when I appeared on her January 12, 2007 podcast)
2. Audiobook and multimedia ebook products from the recording session...what's next?
3. The music and poetry and stories and humorous asides used.
4. The recording session and process.
5. Did I practice?
6. Why go all the way to Nashville? Relational business as a way of life.
7. Hints for tackling an audiobook project

"Sightlines: A Poet's Diary" shares good company with these other Independent Author Guild Members and their books.

Floyd Orr
Kevin Thompson
Shirley Mahood
Lynn Osterkamp
Shannon McRoberts
Joy Collins
Linda Gould
Laurel Osterkamp
Trudy Schuett

Find out more about Dianne K. Salerni's prize-winning book "High Spirits" by clicking here.

First Place Winner in the 2007 Reader Views Literary Awards

"A delightful discovery, mixing the right combination of gothic mystery and conspiracy." ~ Brian Trent, author of Remembering Hypatia

"Gone With the Wind meets The Titanic ..." ~ Rick Barber, 850 KOA in Colorado

Some time back I phoned in my 6-word memoir:

Country girl roamed.
Home grazing sweetest.

and my 6-word description of "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary"

A downhome family
lovestory beyond death.

for the May Story Circle Network Podcast. Frankly, I'd forgotten all about it. Then, this morning on the Independent Authors Guild listserve, Bobbi Chukran mentioned hearing my voice on the podcast, so I went to check it out, never having heard the podcast before.

My short portion of the May SCN podcast--my own 6-word biography and how it can be applied to book marketing--can be heard towards the end...along with other listener contributions from SCN Internet Chapter e-circle members who responded via the Listener Line as I did.

The main podcast on memoir is also excellent, and I encourage you to enjoy that as well.

Here's the description:
Author Linda Wisniewski talks about her recently published memoir, "Off Kilter: A Woman's Journey to peace with scoliosis, her mother, and her Polish heritage." Linda tells us about her experience with writing as healing, and she gives us some great tips on how to pursue
publication.