Wendy Welch is Juggling

LUCY BURDETTE: Though we've never met in person, Wendy Welch and I have a lot of interesting connections--cats, writing, love of bookstores, to name a few. And, John and I went with her husband Jack last year for a wonderful 2-week trip in Scotland. You've met her before too--talking about foster care and her bookstore and cat adoptions. A couple of years ago, she asked if I would read a draft of the mystery she was writing and I agreed. I gave her some notes and didn't hear much more about it. But today she's visiting to tell us about that project and the wealth of others that have fallen onto her lap. (Move over cats!) Welcome Wendy!

WENDY WELCH: Call it whistling in the dark, first world problems, humble bragging. I dunno, but here’s what happened---

In 2019 I contracted a book of edited essays for McFarland Press, turning over the manuscript in February 2020. Remember February, when the world was normal but there was some kinda problem for international airport travelers and cruise ship passengers?

COVID 19 delayed the summer release of From the Front Lines of the Appalachian Addiction Crisis: Healthcare Providers Discuss Opioids, Meth and Recovery until fall while McFarland editors set up home offices. Which means the edits are coming back now, and I'm contacting healthcare professionals during a pandemic, asking them to provide edits. That feels… ehm, wrong?

Corresponding with the amazing Susan Kilby at McFarland about the changing face of healthcare and social resistance as we worked on Front Lines, I typed casually, "Wouldn't it be fun to do a book on silly COVID conspiracies?"

A day later she came back to me and said, "Yes, my editorial acquisitions team thinks it would."

From casual comment to contract in one simple e-mail; I zoomed with a friend grad school John Bodner, who specializes in conspiracy theory study.

"Let's do this fun book about conspiracies," I said.

He gave me an odd look. "Which part is fun: people burning 5G masts, white supremacy, or threats to shoot contact tracers?"

Ooops. Three days later, knee-deep in murk behind the dark side of the looking glass, I realized how seriously I had overestimated my emotional capacity. Untying Gordian knots of bad juju flying internationally is hard. Add in the real time swiftness of misinformation actively contributing to rioting, deaths, and economic fear, and this book takes on significant meaning I don’t feel up to.

The conspiracy book was fluke-turned-mission. Who in their right mind suggests a book idea with a July deadline to an editor when she has another book due in August?

It was an accident….

Thinking that From the Front Lines was near completion and looking for another anthology activity just as COVID took over our futures, I had contacted Ohio University/Swallow Press about compiling coronavirus first-person experience narratives from doctors and nurses. The acceptance appeared one hour and five minutes after I sent the query--on the day between making the casual remark to Susan at McFarland that I didn’t realize was a proposal, and Susan’s "McFarland wants to do this" e-mail.

Just before the two-book accident, I worked with my friend Lisa Dailey to e-publish a fun fiction read called Bad Boy in the Bookstore. It launched as a duo of "here's something fun to read while you're stuck at home" and a pay-it-forward; the $5 fee goes to a food fund for essential and laid-off workers.

Launching Bad Boy didn't take a lot of work on my part, as Lisa did the heavy lifting of logistics, but what should have been a culminating triumph to my first-ever fiction manuscript, started three years ago, shrank to something nearing guilt. “What good is a light read during dark times?” I said to my husband Jack the other day.

He gave me a stern look. “I see you fight every day with those concepts you are trying to explain so people can stop fighting with each other. And at night you escape into crocheting and medieval novels.” (I’m a sucker for Philippa Gregory.) “Why are you downplaying escaping? It’s a necessary part of survival.”

That’s why I married him, folks.

It is an intense time for all of us; pressure is pressure no matter from where it is applied; we are each fighting fierce battles. Be good to yourselves, and be safe in mind, body and spirit.

What brain relaxation are you using during COVID times to give yourself a break: books, crafts, exercise? Tell us about it.

Wendy Welch is the author of four books, an avid crocheter, and an avowed Appalachian for life. She and her husband (Scottish folksinger Jack Beck) adopt FELV cats and ensure their final years are golden. She is the world's worst gardener, having once killed mint.

Don't forget to check out BAD BOY IN THE BOOKSTORE...and then pass it on...