I step in a new direction…
Some of us live in the same house we were born in. The rest of us eventually move — sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Into a new neighborhood, or another state, or even a different country. By the time I was eight, I’d lived in eight different homes. Mountainous Swiss landscapes morphed into the wheat fields around Wichita, Kansas, and so on.
As our outer landscapes change, our inner geography changes too. Point your life in a different direction, start a new job, end a marriage, go to rehab, you will feel it. The inner landscape always shows us where we are. And where we’re headed.
Underneath that landscape there is a wellspring we all carry — a consistent aspect of ourselves that keeps us alive on this journey.
Mine is writing. I have always been a writer, no matter what else I was doing. Journaling has kept me grounded through glory times, hellscapes, gut punches and awakenings.
But I’m in new territory now. Writing with a capital W:
I’m publishing a collection of poetry. I’m publishing a fantasy novel.
And it’s happening this year.
The collection of poetry is the closest I’ve come so far to writing memoir. It’s thirty-eight poems that cover six decades of my life.
The novel is a fantasy set in StoryEarth, the birthplace and residence of all stories. It follows a young woman navigating the conflicts between her family’s culture (rooted in nature and community) and her dream of working in the Preservation Precinct (the central metropolis where all Stories are embodied and kept alive).
There are no dragons or epic battles. But there are healers who wield light and faeries who prank. There is magic, and moral confusion, and humor and messy decisions with devastating consequences. There is also heartbreak, the kind that every family knows in one way or another. This story examines prejudice, dogma, and the perils of inflexibility — eventually ushering us into the mysteries of the unseen world, and its possibilities for redemption.
If any of this interests you, and you want to be notified first when the books become available, here are some secret excerpts of what you’re in store for.
Tina Lear is a writer, composer/lyricist, former yoga teacher, and always mother of three really interesting humans. She is currently navigating the liminal world between her past and her future. Doing her best to be in the present. She lives in Floral Park with her beloved wife Elena and their big little dog, Ruby.
