In 2023, I published my first official book. It was an anthology with a group of women who met online as part of Seth Godin’s writing workshop called Writing in Community. Today, Writing in Community is long gone, but our group lives on and we just published our second book together: Badass Sisterhood: Roots & Wings Anthology.
Roots & Wings
We had a blast writing our first book together. Despite living thousands of miles from each other, we’ve held book clubs and random online get togethers. Some of us have been to in-person writing retreats in the South of France. I visited our editor, Susan Walter, and her family when I was in Philadelphia with my family. The group just kept getting stronger. Somewhere along the way we decided that we needed to do a second anthology.
We kicked around two themes: travel and home. At first blush, these seem to be complete opposite topics, but the more we discussed and wrote potential stories for the book, the more we realized that travel and home are two sides of the same coin. You really can’t have one without the other. Our stories about travel had themes that touched on home and vice versa. So, we ended up writing about both — roots & wings.
My Stories
I wrote two stories for the anthology. The first is called The Paradox of Progress, which tells the story of how I moved back home to Madison, WI from the exciting Washington, DC area and how that move changed my life in infinitely wonderful ways. The second story is called Dust Sandwiches. It is a story about my semester abroad in Spain, and in particular an outing with my host family to their rural olive tree orchard and extended family. I’m really proud of both of these and hope you enjoy reading them!
The Badass Sisterhood
These are the women who contributed to the Roots & Wings Anthology this round.
Badass Editors
Laurie and Susan did all of the heavy lifting. They were our editors and organizers. Without them, this book would never have happened.
Laurie Riedman is a personal and relationship coach and founder of B U Coaching. She has a marketing background and published another book this year, Diamonds in the Dirt: Stories From a Junkyard Girl, which I read and loved.
Susan Walter is a Chartered Special Needs Consultant for families with disability. She has first-hand experience caring for her son with Epilepsy and has learned so much about our healthcare system that she wants to help make life easier for other families in the system.
Badass Authors
Our authors come from all walks of life.
Jackie Alcalde Marr is a certified leadership and life coach. She also wrote the book Social Media at Work: How Social Networking Propels Organizational Performance.
Katherine Cartwright has a degree in Journalism and leads several theological-based workshops. She has published a poetry collection called Claws of Uthurunku and you can find her work at https://kateknodel.blogspot.com/.
Wendy Coad is an artist who did our cover art for both anthologies and wrote about being an artist in this second volume.
Maggie Croushore is a teacher and mother turned writer. She and I have a lot in common and we both wrote about trips to Spain in this latest version of the anthology. You can subscribe to her newsletter, All or Something on Substack.
Amber Field is, well, me. I’ve been in tech my whole life and I teach the Computer Science Capstone at UW-Madison. You can find out more about me here and you can learn about how software teams build great products (without being overwhelmed with technical details) from my book, Agile Discovery & Delivery.
Sandra Holy has a degree in Communications, specializing in social issues and family studies. She is a practitioner of an integrative energy healing process and is currently crafting her first book: a memoir about the hidden story of her life.
Ariadne Horstman is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and founder of Appreciate Finance (later merged with Tamarind Financial Planning). She’s also a Certified Life Planner (CLP) who has lived in France, India, and the UK.
Katharina Hren has Master’s degrees in Foreign Language and Literature and Community Psychology. She is working on her memoir.
Ellen Newman had a career in nonprofit public relations, then founded the travel website Hidden-inSite.com, which explores the world with curiosity, imagination and heart.
T-Ann Pierce is a life, confidence, and parenting coach.
Terri Tomoff is a quilter and author. She owns a business that turns your treasured T-Shirts into quilts called NeedleonFull and blogs at territomoff.com. Her son is a 5-time cancer survivor whose struggles prompted her to write her blog and the book The Focused Fight: A Childhood Cancer Journey: From Mayhem to Miracles. Someday I hope my website looks as good as hers!
Where To Find the Book
We’re not selling the book at a profit. Our anthologies are more about doing two things we love: writing and being a community of badass women. That being said, all of these women are wonderful writers and I am blown away by the wonderful storytelling in this book. It’s well worth checking out. You can find it on Amazon here.
