To Hear The Forest Sing
Margaret Dulaney is the principal
contributor to the spoken word website Listenwell.org,
offering once monthly open-faith essays, designed to puzzle out divine themes
through story and metaphor. Founded in 2010, Listen Well has gathered an
international following of curious listeners, eager to spend ten peaceful
minutes a month in the exploration of non-dogmatic, contemplative stories.
1. What really inspired you to write your book, to force
you from taking an idea or experience and conveying it into a book?
I had been writing faith-based,
non-dogmatic stories for many years before I began to record the essays for
Listen Well. After several years of recordings, it was the followers of Listen
Well that convinced me to gather some of the offerings into a book. I
understand this. When a story is meant for teaching as well as enjoyment, one
wants the chance to dip back and reread certain passages. I was happy to gather
some of my favorite stories from the last seven years for my listeners.
2. What is it about and whom do you believe is your
targeted reader?
The stories in the book are designed to explore certain
sacred and secular themes without expounding a specific creed, and without
drawing hard conclusions. The audience for the book are those who are seeking a
slightly higher view than that which they are too often unable to allow
themselves, due to cultural restrictions, upbringing, religion, absence of
religion. We all have hidden, and not so well hidden, restraints on our views
of how the spiritual world might inform the physical world. So much of this
broadening, or raising of our view is a process of unlearning: attempting to
unlearn our notions of a punishing God, for instance (a recurring theme in my
stories).
3. What do you hope will be the everlasting thoughts for
readers who finish your book? What should remain with them long after putting
it down?
I would hope that the book is a springboard into new ways of
looking at how the divine might be working in the readers’ lives. I would wish
that their sense of mystery and miracle would be alight after reading these
offerings, and that they might be more inclined toward communication with
whomever it is that they feel guides their lives, and trust in a spirit of
loving kindness behind life.
4. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers?
Please keep writing, our lives were meant to be creative.
And, when doubt raises its ugly head, and it will, try and stare the thing down
with a fearless respect for yourselves.
5. What trends in the book world do you see and where do
you think the book publishing industry is heading?
I try very hard not to follow
trends. I like to follow Emerson’s suggestions, “Insist on yourself!”
6. What great challenges did you have in writing your book?
The greatest challenge to writing of any kind for me is
wrestling with the voice that is constantly looking ahead and warning me that
what I am writing will never be read. It is a very boring voice, and I don’t
wish to give it any more power than it already has over me. The only true
antidote to this kind of thinking is to simply keep writing.
7. If people can only buy one book this month, why should
it be yours?
The book is essentially hopeful. I
don’t think there was ever a time in the history of the world where people did
not need to be lifted into hope. One could argue that these times are
particularly void of hope, and a book of this positive nature is almost like
medicine to those seeking more joy in their thinking. I have searched for such
medicine in the writings of wisdom teachers for all of my life. I hope to offer
to the reader my own bit of medicine from that great pool of sacred reading.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog
are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter
@theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important
when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by
BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2017©. Born and raised in Brooklyn, now resides in
Westchester. Named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs
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