What:

In the early days of May, I’m celebrating 30 years of marriage (to my high school crush!), National Moscato Wine Day, and the publication of my first full-length book, Starting with Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love after Loss.

Mostly, it’s a posthumous love letter to my father, a complicated guy I didn’t understand, thought I was so different from, and never felt close to in life. Then I made some startling discoveries as I “got to know him” after he died—truths that showed me how alike we actually were.

Yes, it’s about grief, but it’s not sad. Well, it’s a little sad. Okay, people have told me they needed tissues while reading. I like to think it’s sad in an uplifting way. I want people to reconsider how normal it is to continue to talk to our dead loved ones, to carry on our relationships with them, to be curious. Plus, some of it is funny. In that meet-my-kooky/strange/scary-relatives-they’re-a-real-riot kind of way.

Why:

Whyever not? After many years of short essays and articles, there’s a book on the shelf with only my name on the spine. That’s a milestone, so why not enjoy it? I’m proud of the book, and feel all kinds of (finally) grown-up as an author, with a publisher that believes in this book and an agent who seems to like me.

And yet, I also know it changes very little. There’s still the blank page every day. And the “next” book I’m struggling to write. And the constant need to cobble together teaching and editing jobs so my sons can continue to attend college. On the other hand, my mother used to say, “Go: have a flight of fancy,” so I’m trying to have fun, too. I’m splurging on hair dye and saying yes to every bookstore or conference or festival that invites me.

How:

This book took ages, mostly because for the first five years, I didn’t know I was writing a book (I thought I was just writing and publishing thematically-related essays), and then for the next three years I was writing the wrong book (a linked essay collection publishers weren’t keen on). Yes, I am capatosta (Italian Neapolitan dialect = person with a thick head). I finally woke up and started over, rewriting it as a more traditional linear narrative memoir in January 2016, and had a book deal by March 2017. Maybe I’ll be smarter, faster, next time around!

Meanwhile, I like that blank page enough to spar with it daily in my home office, where I love my red walls, nibble on dark chocolate, and am surrounded by black bookcases and stacks of crappy drafts because I’m old enough to want to read on paper. The I tear it up, or feed it through the shredder, and feel satisfied in some backward way only other writers probably understand.

Starting with Goodbye is the story of an adult daughter who rediscovers her enigmatic father after his death, and figures out the reason they weren’t close in life was not because they were different, but because they were so much alike. Through occasional “conversations” with Dad, Lisa gets better at navigating grief, motherhood, new sibling dynamics, death rituals, graduate school, marriage, and midlife

Bio:

Lisa Romeo is the author of Starting with Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love after Loss, (forthcoming from University of Nevada Press). Her work is listed in Best American Essays 2016 and published in newspapers, magazines, literary journals, essay anthologies, and websites. These include the New York Times, O The Oprah Magazine, Brevity, Under the Sun, Full Grown People, Under the Gum Tree, Inside Jersey, Purple Clover, and other places.

Lisa teaches with the Bay Path University MFA program, works as a freelance editor and writing coach, and is an editor for Compose Journal and Cleaver Magazine. Her former careers include equestrian journalist, public relations specialist, and real estate trouble shooter. She holds an MFA degree from Stonecoast (University of Southern Maine), and a BS in journalism from Newhouse (Syracuse University).

Lisa frequently speaks and runs workshops at writers conferences and literary events; for the second half of 2018, she’ll be visiting many book stores and libraries and would love if you came by and said hello. Or, visit her site and drop a line. Lisa lives in New Jersey with her husband and sons, a few blocks from where she grew up. When not working, Lisa is in the kitchen cooking (ad-libbed meals, never desserts because baking requires following rules), walking, reading, and doing old lady things like needlepoint while watching British crime dramas.

Links:

Amazon Author Page
Lisa Romeo’s Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Goodreads
Pinterest
LinkedIn

To buy Lisa’s book:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, University of Nevada Press, Powell’s, Indiebound, Books-a-Million
For a signed copy, order from Lisa’s neighborhood bookstore

---

---

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is the author of the award-winning novel In the Context of Love, a story about one woman’s need to tell her truth without shame.

2017 New Apple Book Awards Official Selection
2016 Sarton Women’s Fiction Finalist
2016 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist
2016 Readers’ Favorite Finalist
2016 USA Book News Best Book Finalist

“…at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey.” ~ Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage, and critically acclaimed Once Upon a River,and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters