| My career as a writer began the night after my mother died in 1986 when I
sat down at my typewriter and wrote about the experience of having been with her at her death. That story evolved into the first essay I ever wrote and the first article I ever sold called, "SHARING THE LANTERN." Years later, with many essays published in numerous books, magazines and newspapers across the country, I decided to write my first novel. Good thing. The Second Coming of Curly Red, in manuscript form, won First Prize for fiction at the 1998 Mendocino Coast Writer's Conference. After its publication in 1999, I toured the nation promoting it, and even got to read parts of it at a Democratic fund-raiser where I was introduced by Gov. John Kitzhaber. While in New York City, I got word that The Second Coming of Curly Red was a finalist in the 2000 Oregon Book Awards. Oregon Literary Arts then sent those of us who were finalists on a mini-book tour around the state, allowing me the opportunity to present my sometimes controversial book in very conservative parts of Oregon where it would never have occurred to me to go. This was a Godsend. I made friends and my novel was chosen as Book-of-the-Month in two small eastern Oregon towns. It has been most gratifying to be able to change minds and help open hearts to a message of love, understanding and acceptance. My most recently completed work, a collection of essays in memoir form, is called DEAD IN A DITCH. These are touching, universal, mostly funny stories about growing up in Texas and all the ways Mother thought we, her children, would die - since DEAD IN A DITCH was where she was terrified we'd all wind up. Haven't found a publisher for this one yet, so if you are a publisher - up late, surfin' the Web, drinking Diet Pepsi until your pupils dilate, looking for that next big literary hit, this could be the one! I won't even rat you out and tell everybody how you found me. Your secret is safe with me, you insomniac. Another novel is also in the works called More Than Horizontal, and if I ever get off my duff and finish the thing, its going to be a good one. It is a story about one woman's search for joy and self-acceptance, a tale rich in lesbian history, and will also include some of the wonderful characters in my first novel, The Second Coming of Curly Red, for those of you who kept wondering "What happens to Jimmy?" and "We want to know more about Della and Bonnie." More Than Horizontal also has a spiritual element to it when the heroine, Liz Camarro, meets a lesbian minister, Minnie Rhodes and her Many Roads Ministry, Cowgirls For The Lord. This is a group of women who ride around on horseback spreading the good news of salvation - not from having been "saved", but from never actually having been lost. Phew! Glad I finally got it all down. Now, when anybody asks me what I'm working on I can say, "Check out my Web site, jodyseay.com, and take your pick."
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