In my former life, I was a health educator, gave lectures, seminars and wrote two health books: "Healing with Water" and "Sauna, The Hottest Way To Good Health". The first one, "Healing with Water" is available in four languages. (English-Italian-Polish-India) After a presentation on Remembrance Day a few years ago at the Probus Club Lantzville about my survival of WWII, the attending people wanted to know if I had a book. "No", I said, "I don't have a book." "Then write one, they asked. I did.: "We Don't Talk About That." This book made it through 90 countries, almost around the world. "We Don't Talk About That" tells how life under the Nazis was for ordinary people. It tells of the end of the war and the Russian invasion, the establishment of two Germanys (West and East...) the educational system, the mass escapes, the Berlin Wall; abuse of women by persons in power and more...
Readers were asking "And then, what happened?" So I wrote, "Flight Into the Unknown - Dreaming of Life and Love in Canada." Another escape? My story as an immigrant with limited English, smartly manipulated into marrying an 'unknown' penfriend with a daughter, the trials and tribulations to make a go of it. Desperation lead to success in business, from radio and TV to an international speaker. Through divorce losing all and almost driven to suicide.
My memoir developed into a trilogy. After another new start, I thought it was time to "Set Sail for Life After 50." This book will appeal to singles, women or men, divorcees, disappointment in midlife, trying to find balance again. It is a book showing that 'age is really just a number.' This book is a work in progress.
My life as a writer was never a business, it was and is a labour of love. Sharing with readers all over the world who "never talked about it" - receiving their emails and messages telling me their stories and thanking me for the chance to finally "open up" and now want to know more of what their parents/grandparents went through, this is what motivates me to carry on. I love giving talks, readings, discussions in book clubs, high schools. I am astonished by how little people on the North American continent know of war and the history associated with it.
