Dear Friends,

This update was going to be about the end of summer but that came and went! Let's move on. If it means we have to engage in a gentle mind-shift, so it is. Change lanes. Be ready when good things happen.

Be hopeful.

We are living in fragile times. All I know is that I will not give up on finding JOY. Make yourself a cup of tea. Pull up a chair. I want to share some things. Thank you for your time. I know how precious it is.

Love,

Julie

Julie Maloney

Move over

Make space

--JM

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MAKE CONNECTIONS

When I had the idea to go to the island of Madeira, Portugal for the 31st writing retreat I've led through WOMEN READING ALOUD, I ended up corresponding with Marta from the SavoySignature Luxury Hotel Collection on the island. This turned out to be a true stroke of good fortune, because for one year, Marta guided me through months of negotiations to make our women's writing retreat truly spectacular. I am forever grateful to her and to her team, including Solange at the Saccharum Hotel, where we were treated with warmth and the best in hospitality.

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Always reach out. Do not wait for the other person to do this. It may never happen if you do.

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Meeting up with my friend, Claire, to see SUNSET BOULEVARD on Broadway filled me up. This was after seeing PILOBOLUS a few weeks earlier at the JOYCE THEATER, NYC. Of course, after that, I had to see CALL ME IZZY about a woman who holds on to her sanity via writing. On toilet paper.

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I could go on and on about the writers who attended the Portugal Writer's Retreat that I led in May. This group supported each other as if they had known one another all their lives. We stayed on the island of Madeira in a hotel tucked between the mountains and the ocean.

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Visit: www.womenreadingaloud.org

Listen up!

Listen here

NICOLE SCHERZINGER! PURE WOW!

Meet the star of Broadway's revival: SUNSET BOULEVARD.

WHAT MOVES ME

While sitting in an outdoor restaurant in Madeira, I looked across the street and saw the most spectacular piece of sculpture. Throughout the dinner, I kept looking. Seeing more and more details.

Anais Nin said, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

Steven Covy spoke on "How we think is what we see."

What is it that you see on an ordinary day or in the middle of an extraordinary moment?

Our experiences affect what we see via the lens we choose to view the world.

Give yourself as many experiences as you can.

Noted author and fabulous speaker/entertainer Adriana Trigiani said on stage on her book tour: "Do something that scares you every day."

Get up and move.

Be as alive as you can be.

Whether alone or with friends, see

something. Find the wonder.

Visit my website.

DOING LUNCH

Time

Waits for no one

Even me.

It takes time to do lunch.

Fifteen minutes. An hour. Ninety minutes. More? How long do you take for lunch?

If your lunch break is satisfying, then bravo! If you usually eat alone, then I hope you have a good book by your side. Not your phone. If you are lunching with a friend, then you are more ambitious than I. It takes time to do lunch.

Lunching out requires planning. Hair shampooed and lipstick. Lunching out means the willingness to give up the middle of the day.The acknowledgement of time spent and not regained. Lunching out usually means a less lean lunch. An intake of ambient noise. And yet there are significant rewards to lunching out when the person sitting across from you is the right person at the right time. What a gift. A rare gem. Treat it with care.

"To live is so startling, it leaves

little time for anything else."

--Emily Dickinson

--Julie Maloney

Update

Remember this title:

THE HORSE WITH A BLUE EYE

A Novel

by

Julie Maloney

It is with the proofreader now. I'm getting closer.

.

Know when to rest.

Be willing to give

in so you can get up again

and get to work.

Rest in peace, Andrea Gibson.

Poet Laureate of Colorado.

May the heavens make room.

WHAT I WANT IS DIFFERENT NOW

watermelon, noun - 1. a large melon with a hard, green rind and sweet, juicy, usually with red pulp.

--Random House Webster's Dictionary

Inspired by my youngest daughter, I made watermelon gazpacho soup over the summer. I made it more than once. Delicious. Like having a spoonful of summer.

--JM

So many fantastic books are published every day for children. Here is a beautiful story written by Melanie Sue Bowles who founded the Proud Spirit Horse Sanctuary with her husband Jim. Together, they have saved hundreds of animals to their pastures and paddocks.

Ages: 9-13