After nearly ten years of writing a community
column for the Union Recorder, I decided that I might possibly
have enough material to fill a manuscript that could eventually
become a book to publish. I began studying articles on the
internet, increased the amount of fiction, biographical and
non-fiction books that I was reading, and eventually started
doing research on local and regional authors.
The amount of information on publishers was
overwhelming so I decided to focus on published authors who
might be willing to give personalized advice. During this
complicated journey I discovered Rosemary Daniell who offers
writing assistance in the form of monthly gathering sessions at
her residence in Savannah, Georgia and at the home of her sister
near Atlanta.
I was intrigued that even though she is an
accomplished author, she is also accessible and welcomes
comments and questions via the internet. During my initial
contacts with her by email and then by telephone, she encouraged
my attendance at one of her coming sessions, and promised that
even though our writing styles were greatly different, that her
group included lessons for all genre of literature.
Late one Friday,
after a long work week at Georgia Military College, I gathered
copies of my columns from the Union Recorder, a brand new
writing journal, a bunch of notes from future columns and headed
toward the Georgia coast.
Otto volunteered to make the trip, I am at times
directionally challenged but he had a great sense of direction,
and he also enjoyed the great seafood we always discovered in
the Savannah area. Because he knew that I might continue
gathering with the writers in the following months, he insisted
that I drive the route and learn the way, with his assistance of
course.
Years ago you actually had to get directions to
addresses and use a paper map to find an exact location. Early Saturday morning
I left our motel and located Rosemary’s house in record time; we
were actually staying only a few miles away so I returned to the
motel and Otto and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before my
greatly anticipated meeting.
The group is known nationwide as Zona Rosa, where
Rosemary guides her followers to and through the challenges of
being a writer. This is where I met countless other
enthusiastic journalist and published authors to include Lisbeth
Thom and Carolyn Siefferman, who were my original friends from
the group and after all these years, we continue to stay in
contact through Facebook.
I learned more from this group of writers and
dreamers than I can express in a few words, Rosemary read
countless columns I had written and encouraged all of us to
climb new mountains and seek the goal of being a published
author.
Rosemary Daniell is the novelist of countless
books, a writing coach, a cheerleader and author of “The Woman
Who Spilled Words All Over Herself. “ I am mentioned in her
chronicle named, “Secrets of the Zona Rosa”, thank you Rosemary.
