Alchemy

I count so many creative types as blossoms in my garden that it is a little staggering.  I mean, these are people who actually have ideas, churn them over again and again, and then use the skills they have developed through head and heart and hard work to Produce Art.  And then in some magical cases, they give it a big final push, and their work actually gets out there in the world - published, or recorded, or produced.  Really!  I find it the true manifestation of alchemy in the world - there is air and synapse and intelligence and hope, and then it swirls together and this art comes forth, golden in its glory.  It is amazing, as well as very inspiring for those of us who are plugging away at things like getting a few paragraphs set down in a blog.

So I continue to shine a light on my friends for your gift giving consideration during this starry, starry season - and no, I am not speaking of the Oscars, although when you talk Academy Awards, you are really talking about the holy time of the year for me (by the way, Matthew McConaughey won the Best Supporting Actor Award today from the New York Film Critics Circle for "Magic Mike".  Discuss).

Congratulations, Matthew, but I am more of a Channing Tatum girl myself.

 
Here are some more shopping suggestions for you so you can share the gifts of these peeps I know with peeps you know. Today I am just going to focus on authors, so this post doesn't go on forever, and I will do music and art and film and other goodies soon.  All three of these folks have links to their awesome websites which are chock full of info, including how to order online... but how about taking a visit to a bookstore, maybe even an independent one at that, to peruse one or all of the following: 

- In the young adult world, Cecilia Galante rules - five published novels, with a sixth on the way next year.  I love "The Patron Saint of Butterflies", the work which introduced me to her writing, based on her own experience growing up in a religious commune.  It was one of those books I had to slow down reading towards the end because I didn't want these people - especially her main characters, Agnes and Honey - to go out of my life.  I needn't have worried, though:  in the years since I first read it, these young women haven't left me.

 
- I used to see a former colleague of mine named Kelly Andrews on Sunday mornings by herself at the Panera Bread I frequent  in Wynnewood.  She would be doggedly plugging away on her computer, and I would notice her two beautiful daughters Oona and Juliette were not with her (I thought it was quite possibly against some township statute for a parent to be by themselves in public during daylight hours on a weekend), so I knew something was up .  Now I know what it was:  "Deadwood", her debut novel for the middle school aged reader in your life (published under her pen name Kell Andrews). To be honest, I haven't read "Deadwood" yet because it just got published, but I have been keeping tabs on it, and from the description - a fantasy about a cursed tree, a community in turmoil, and the new kid in town hero who sets out to set things straight - I am on it!    And anyway, anyone who can go from editing the Wharton Alumni Magazine to writing fiction about magical forests has earned support in my book.

- Speaking of the Mecca of Capitalism, looking for a book to give the businessperson in your life that doesn't involve moving cheese?  Michael Carroll is someone I met through the Shambhala Center of Philadelphia years ago, and whom I hold in the highest regard for the sanity he offers in dealing with bringing your best, true, essential self to the workplace.  This has been - what shall we call it? - an issue in my own life, but I feel at much more at ease when Michael breaks it down for me in his books "Awake at Work" and the new "Fearless at Work".   A calmer, more dignified you in the workplace, in touch with your basic goodness is a holiday gift which will never go out of style, and is always the right size, always the right color.