Writing What Feeds the Heart started as a spiritual journal, full of poems and reflections. Later, one of my college instructors suggested I expand the works into a book. At that time, the writings released stuck feelings and morphed into cathartic expressions. Later, vignettes turned into my MA thesis along with poems and photographs (much didn’t remain in the final manuscript).
I started to see my dysfunctional beginning and recovery from crazy chaos as a way to offer bread crumbs as a service and support to those adult children like myself. The last editorial transformation came when I wrote about my mother’s passing from a drug overdose; it became the framework and plot points that tied flashbacks from age eleven to present time. Included in the novel are prayers and meditations I use as healing devices from the effects of living with addiction, such as “food/ sex/ relationships/ alcohol/drugs / gambling/ spending,” etc.
Raised by people under drugs and alcohol’s spell, my daily life demanded tricky maneuvering. Never learned ‘normal’ developmental skills, I endeavored to rescue my family and failed, over and over. They liked their lives and rejected me for being the “straight-assed conservative one” who, young as I was, shoveled on unwanted help to the lives of psychedelic-loving freethinkers. Never belonging, I numbed emotions and developed a false self to show the world ‘I’m fine’ and reacted as a lost child for fifty years.
In What Feeds the Heart, travel with me through inner and outer journeys that my nature-child instinctively knew how to navigate. Fly with Willothin, imaginary friend/angle/loving inner parent extraordinaire in a story of chaos turned charmed, guarded turned glorious, imprisoned turned independent and free.
How can you support What Feeds the Heart?
- Ask your library to stock and feature the book
- Ask your favorite bookshop to stock and window display the books
- Give as Christmas and Birthday presents
- Leave a Review on Amazon or the website www.darylglinntanner.com
- Include What Feeds the Heart as a reading group read and discuss together
- Create your own reading group either online or in person
- Pay It Forward—nourish friends with What Feeds the Heart
- Buy extra copies and donate gifts to friends, family, hospitals, prison, high-school libraries, etc.
- Carry your copy, and talk about the story with people you meet and on social media
- Ask influencers to feature the book and the author to TV /Magazines /Radio/ Podcasts etc.
Again, I THANK YOU for flying with me.