I did this, I thought. I drove 1,902 miles over 13 days alone. Books that I wrote and which have won multiple awards packed in the trunk of the car I bought. I drove to meet people who want to read my books, who enjoy reading my books. I drove to see old friends and family, to discover new places, to sit with my thoughts and dreams, to explore my beautiful country, driven by ambition and independence.

In that moment, I felt powerful. I felt happy. I truly liked myself and my life. I felt content. I felt fortunate.

Throughout my life, I’ve dabbled in self-doubt so often it became a familiar friend. I’ve spent more of my time on this earth questioning myself, looking critically in the mirror, feeling incapable and small and insignificant.

But not on this day, and not during these past two weeks. I felt powerful. I felt strong. I felt like my ordinary life is extraordinary.

I wish it hadn’t taken until the age of 55 to feel this way, but I’m here and I’m glad to be here. Most people in the world have never heard of me, and likely never will. I’ll never lead a country or win an Oscar or play at Wimbledon.

In so many ways, I am one of too many people populating this planet, living in my little corner of the green world, unnoticed and unknown.

But in so many ways, I matter. As does each of us. In little and big ways, I connect with people, I care, I show up and I do good things and I contribute in ways that only I can, and this is what matters.

Book Tour Road Trip, Week 2

If the first week of my book tour road trip was about reconnecting with old friends and family, the second week was about speaking to audiences of readers. It was a noticeable shift, from staying in the homes of people I love and sharing meals and c conversations with them, to staying in hotels alone and reading while I ate.

But then, I was ON—at Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, Massachusetts, at Opus Newton in Newton, Massachusetts, and at the Steele Memorial Library in Elmira, New York. I sold 91 books among my four road trip events (including RomantiConn on the Friday prior) plus another 400 online in this week alone thanks to a BookBub Featured Deal for my latest novel, I Love You, Charlie Tanner.

Different books sold at different events. I felt so at home speaking to the Jewish community in two Boston-area locations, and then in upstate New York, I led a writing workshop focused on writing personal essays and guided writers in constructing their own stories.

On the way home, I cut through Canada to shorten the time on the road, stopping in Hamilton, Ontario to visit several filming sites for the Heated Rivalry TV series. That was a thrill. It’s a Canadian city I’d been to before, when my children were younger and we hiked waterfalls, toured the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum and celebrated Canada Day on the shores of Lake Ontario.

I felt like I was coming home—literally, and metaphorically, to myself, and to my memories.

We are all the people we’ve been at once in the same body. This two weeks on the road was an adventure and a journey back in time to who I’ve been and who I have become. That’s a powerful thing—to see yourself in all shades of becoming. And to be satisfied with the ultimate outcome.

What’s Next

Now I’m home for a while, and I’m glad to stop driving. It feels like, as an American, I could drive and drive and never stop. Our country is so vast and varied.

But there is something to be said for home. It feels good to be back, to be cozy with my husband, to make dinner and have my daughter and her boyfriend sit with us and just talk. Knowing me, I’ll eventually take to the road again, but this summer has been full of adventures and I am content now to sit and write their stories.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be speaking to a local Hadassah book club about my most recent book, and on August 11, I’ll be leading a Literary Salon for the Detroit Writing Room about Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory. But each night, I’ll sleep in my familiar bed and listen to the quiet of the place I choose to live. Life is good, and I am grateful.

Thank you for reading A Look in the Mirror by Lynne Golodner, a weekly newsletter about the writing and publishing life. If you like what you read here, please share this Substack with others who may find it valuable, or consider becoming a paid subscriber to support a working writer. I always love to hear from you! Love, Lynne

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But along the way, I’ve had the good fortune to stop and see friends and family. It’s almost as if this is a trip through the stages of my life, given the people I’ve had time with along the way. Since I still have six days on the open road, I’d like to share a photo dump of where I’ve been thus far and next Sunday, I’ll recount how the three speaking engagements I have yet ahead went. (Plus a lot more surrounding these stops.)

All love, Lynne

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The other day, my mother texted me asking how the air quality was “up there.” I had been in northern Michigan leading a writers retreat the week prior, but I returned home some days before winds sent smoke from Canadian wildfires through Michigan, turning the skies cloudy and suffocating.

“I’m home,” I said to my mom.

“I can’t keep track,” she laughed.

I’m not wearing a striped turtleneck, spectacles and hat, like Waldo, but I am definitely on the move this summer! First Africa, then Mackinac Island, and now I am heading out in my car with boxes of books (the trunk is FULL—I hope to sell them all) for 4 events in New England and upstate New York.

So where will I be over the next two weeks? In case you want to connect, share a hug and a coffee or conversation about writing and book publishing?

Stop 1: RomantiConn! July 24th

I start by driving east, visiting my stepdaughter Grace in Ohio, then spending a night with my college roommate Laura in Yonkers. From there, I’ll meet a writing friend on Long Island for lunch, then spend two nights with a cousin I lived with when I was a new college grad with an unpaid internship in New York City.

(Yes, I moved my life to the Big Apple at 22 without a guaranteed paycheck—crazy to consider now, but it turned into a full-time journalism job after 6 weeks!)

After I leave my cousins, I head to Connecticut. This is the first time I’ll be a signing author at RomantiConn, a two-day romance book festival in Trumbull. Founder Kitty Berry plans a whirlwind schedule, and I am excited to be signing & selling books Friday evening and also participating in the Snippet Read Friday.

That’s when a snippet from one of my books (Cave of Secrets, my award-winning Scotland novel) is read by narrators on the big stage. Purchase tickets to attend here.

I’ll be staying with my oldest friend, Melissa, who is also a writer, and visiting my writing friend April, too.

Stop 2: Boston, July 27-28

After a weekend in New London with my writing friend Susan, I’ll drive north to Boston, and spend two nights with my friend Tcheilly. (I can’t wait to share the story of how Tcheilly and I met, in another Substack!)

In Boston, I am speaking at Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, invited by Hadassah Greater Boroughs Book Club. Register for this event here.

Then the next day, July 28, at 1 pm, I’m speaking to residents of Opus Newton, also about Cave of Secrets.

Stop 3: the Finger Lakes, July 30th

I leave Boston and head for the Berkshires, where I will have 36 hours to myself to explore the little towns in those gorgeous mountains. A couple years ago, I drove home from a writing sabbatical in Nova Scotia—took the ferry to Maine, then drove straight back to Michigan, stopping overnight in the Berkshires. There was a horrible downpour, so I didn’t get to see anything. I’m glad to have a chance to go back.

And then, it’s on to the Finger Lakes, another breathtaking landscape, in upstate New York.

On July 30th, I’m speaking at a library in Elmira about my essay collection, Forest Walk on a Friday. I’ll also be leading a writing workshop and having dinner with writer-friend Beth.

Register for this event here.

So…if you want to connect over books and writing, find me anywhere on this journey over the next two weeks. I can’t wait to meet you!!

Wish me luck! I’m driving across the US on the open road, something I love to do. I love the promise of driving until I feel like stopping, turning off at an exit because of some compelling roadside attraction. Taking backroads. Wandering with no deadlines.

I’ll have time to think and listen to audiobooks—(I’m currently listening to Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open. I just finished reading Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid, a great tennis novel. Yes, I’m reading all the tennis stories I can as I work through revisions of my fifth novel, a tennis-hockey 1980s romance.)

In a future Substack, I’ll share how this road trip book tour came to be. It’s been months in the planning, and I’m super excited to see people, speak to audiences of readers, see old (and new) friends, and take to the open road. Who knows what stories will come from this?

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror, a weekly newsletter about the writing and publishing life. If you like what you read here, please share it with others who might find it of interest and consider becoming a paid subscriber, to support a working writer. I always love to hear from readers! Leave a comment or send me a message. Thanks so much for being here.

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It’s coming, I know. I need writing like air and water to survive. But I’ve given myself grace and understanding to ride the waves of other things I’ve planned—a writing retreat I led on Mackinac Island this past week, a road trip book tour set to begin a week from today, talks about books already written and published in Connecticut and Boston and Elmira, New York.

This is all part of the writing life. Writing is only a part of it. Sometimes, a small part of it, the more I devote time to book marketing and connecting with readers.

But writing, it’s my lifeblood. It’s what keeps me going. So I’ll get back to it. I must.

In the meantime, I am ruminating on story. Before I left for Africa, I finished the first messy draft of my fifth novel, a hockey-tennis-romance set in the 1980s. I printed out the draft and stacked the many pages on my writing desk.

I spent several mornings reading the draft through and inking notes on the tactile pages to guide the first round of revisions.

So when do I get to start in on the editing and revising?

Please, I hope this week. Fingers and toes crossed, all prayers sent to the heavens above that it be so.

But there is a little-focused-on part of revision that writers don’t give enough credence to, and that is the thinking part. While I flew the many hours and miles to Africa, while I bounced in a safari vehicle over rutted roads, while I lay awake in the dark night silence, I thought about these characters, this story.

And sometimes I didn’t think about anything at all. Which is also needed to write good books.

At the end of the first round of writing, my characters took the story in a direction I did not see coming. I know better than to argue with them, so I let them take over. I watched where they want and how their relationships to self and each other changed from what I had planned.

In the read-through, I reflected on whether their changes worked. Largely, they did. As I said, the characters always know best.

But that means I have some reworking to do in the earlier parts to get everything to align. And there was one piece of the story that I think no longer fits.

If you know my author brand at all, you know I love including strong Jewish identity as part of my stories. My tennis player character is Jewish but not observant and not really strongly identifying.

In the initial plan for the book, I had an antisemitic jibe at Wimbledon. So I wrote that. But when the ending diverged into a new direction, the Wimbledon part became…extra. Extraneous.

Unnecessary.

And I’ve been thinking about this part, wondering if I should scrap it. The answer is yes. Given time and space, I came to see that the story does not need this incident. And frankly, it doesn’t align with my author brand, which focuses on positive Jewish representation.

There’s enough antisemitism in the world. This book does not need it. (And also, my fourth book, TWO LIFETIMES, which is now available for preorder in advance of its October release, has much of it. Enough already.)

So when I get back to writing—Please, I hope this is SOON!—I will start by reworking that incident to remove the jibe and just focus on the tennis. The inner growth. The character’s development as a person and as a partner with her hockey player beau.

There is enough present in the story to satisfy. Sometimes, simpler stories are stronger.

JOIN MY ARC TEAM

Speaking of new books…my fourth novel, TWO LIFETIMES, will launch October 20th!! I’ve set a goal of 100 reviews before the book launches, so if you’d like to be a part of my ARC team and read the book in exchange for an honest review before launch, I’d love to hear from you.

Apply to join the ARC team here.

You can also register for the virtual launch for this book here. I’d love to celebrate with you!!

The in-person launch party will take place in Huntington Woods, Michigan. Stay tuned for details!

And the next time you hear from me, I’ll be starting my road trip book tour. If you are anywhere along I-80 between Kent, Ohio and Yonkers, NY, on the western end of Long Island, in Trumbull, Bridgeport, New Haven or New London, CT, Boston, or the corridor leading from Boston to the Berkshires and then to the Finger Lakes, or even along the route back home, through Hamilton, Ontario, let me know. I’d love to say hello.

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror by Lynne Golodner, a weekly newsletter about the writing and publishing life. If you like what you read here, please consider sharing this newsletter with someone else who might find it of value. Or become a paid subscriber to support a working writer. As always, I love hearing from you! Love, Lynne

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The plane landed on the tarmac in the black night. I descended the stairs into the African air, and tears filled my eyes. I’m here, finally.

I thought about Africa in my 20s, when I had journalistic sources in Zambia and then-Zaire (now Congo) and a friend who’d studied in Cameroon. I thought about Africa every time I watched Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in the movie based on the book.

Finally, on the eve of my 55th birthday, I flew to Tanzania with my eldest son, to climb the tallest free-standing mountain in the world and to see animals in the wild and to meet tribes and see villages and get to know, at least a little bit, this very different place.

It was beautiful and magical and hard and far and full of surprises and I thought it would be so many ways and it was totally different.

In Africa, I was so present, more present than I’ve ever been. I lapped up the moments. I didn’t plan ahead or think of the past. I was just there. In the now. And it felt glorious.

In Africa, I marveled at gorgeous wild animals that know what to do, that follow their instincts, that have symbiosis with other animals, that just LIVE. I watched elephants care for one another, protect their young, play. I watched leopards mating. I was in awe amid 14 giraffes reaching their long necks to eat from thorny trees. I was dangerously close to lions and loved the low rumble of their purr.

I climbed on Mt. Kilimanjaro on my birthday in constant rain, from 6,100 feet to 8,900 feet. It was hard, and I did it, and when I reached Mandara Hut, I cried because I had made it. At the top, our guide lit a candle in a banana muffin and sang Happy Birthday to Mama. I cried again.

My son and I had long talks, and we laughed. I loved the gift of time with him, a 24-year-old who lives in another city, and I marveled at the incredible man he has become.

Our safari guide, Peter, became our friend. We had deep talks with him, learning about his culture and life, him asking about ours. Peter grew up in the Datoga tribe, in a mud hut, without electricity or running water. He helped herd cattle and walked 6 km to school. Now, he lives in Arusha, a city of 900,000, with his wife and daughters. They have electricity. They have running water. They do not have a refrigerator, and must boil the milk delivered by a farmer every night to make it safe to drink.

We went to a bar in Karuta and watched African Cup soccer. We drank Kilimanjaro and Serengeti beer. We ate butternut squash orange soup and avocado salad on the savannah. We slept in the blackest night, with the sounds of monkeys and birds and the occasional low grumble of a passing lion.

We drove the floor of an ancient dormant volcano where elephants and hippos and lions roam. We visited a Maasai village and met a hunter-gatherer tribe and watched them roast a just-caught monkey and eat it with their hands.

I did all this. So what? I went to Africa. I came home. I know I live a privileged life, but it’s good to remember sometimes. It’s good to step out of this life and remember that not everyone is as fortunate as I am. That I can and should help, that politics and anxiety and petty arguments matter very little in the scheme of these fleeting years that we get to be alive.

It was good to be reminded that purpose and meaning are worthy pursuits. It was good to meet people and listen to their stories and tell them mine. It was good to slow down. It was good to breathe different air.

What matters is connection.

What matters is kindness.

What matters is filling your days with purpose.

What matters is noticing and observing and being where you are when you’re there.

I still checked my book sales while I was away, but I didn’t write other than to jot notes and thoughts in journals when they struck me. And you know what? It was good to take a break.

I came back more chill than I have ever been, with a sense of perspective and a belief that all will happen in time as it should.

I came back grateful for all the gifts in my life, like the opportunity to visit a beautiful faraway place and learn about it for a while. I came back feeling very lucky to be alive.

Thank you for reading A Look in the Mirror, a weekly newsletter about the writing and publishing life by award-winning author Lynne Golodner. If you like what you read here, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or sharing this essay with others who might find it of value. And if you want to learn more about me, visit LynneGolodner.com.

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I married once and it didn’t work, though it gave me three amazing kids. I married a second time and it was movie-love, but I really mean that. Movie love in all the miscommunication and ego and old hurt and unresolved trauma and yes, great passion and love and friendship.

And also, four kids between us, very young kids, so no real time just to get to know each other.

I posted a reel recently on Instagram about how I hate the inevitable third-act breakup of most romance novels, and I do, but I also commented on how necessary a third-act breakup is. If everything in a love story is hunky-dory-easy, then you have no story. (I was referring to Off Campus, but it applies to literally every romance.)

And the more I think about this, the more I realize that novel love stories and movie love stories and real life love stories are very similar. Dan and I didn’t have a third-act breakup. We never broke up once we found each other. But we came close many times.

In the heat of a late-night fight when neither of us was listening. In the aggravation of uncommunicated hopes, dreams and desires that we were each hoping the other would just know.

It took 5 years for us to get in a groove and really know how to talk to each other. And how to listen.

A romance novel can span five years and many do (or longer), but it doesn’t have to. There’s the getting together and then there’s the staying together. That’s why we have so many series of romance novels.

Book 1: Will they get together in the end?

Book 2: Now that they’re together, what hurdles must they overcome?

Book 3: They’re secure in their relationship…does it get boring? How do they keep love alive? What else must they encounter and face and deal with?

And on and on and on.

I just finished writing the first draft of my fifth novel, a tennis-hockey romance set in the 1980s. It needs work before it can meet your reading eyes, but sometime next year it’ll be out and available. And then I’ll be working on book 2.

I’ve planned it as a 3-book series but the coolest thing happened as I was writing. Toward the end, the characters went in a direction I hadn’t planned. I know better than to argue with them, so I followed along and ended up in this unexpected place, where very secondary characters took on more prominence than I had planned for them to.

So now I wonder, will they get a book of their own in this series? Who else will emerge with an interesting love story spinoff?

Isn’t that fun?

Now I’ve been married to Dan for 15 years, and we really have fun together. It’s easy now, but it took such hard work to get here. We had to overcome ourselves to be in a relationship with each other.

And, we have to choose each other every single day. Getting together I think is the easy part. It’s the enduring love that’s hard to do.

So bravo to any people, or characters, who make it. And keep it interesting. I sure hope book 3 of my new series IS interesting—I imagine them married with kids but things will come up because they always do, and the tennis and hockey will play parts in that tension.

And maybe the characters will show me that the story needs to go in an entirely different direction.

I am open to the journey—as we must be in every relationship. And every book.

Housekeeping

I’m leaving for Tanzania in a week so this is my last newsletter to you until July. I will share photos and stories of my travels in the next missive.

Tomorrow (June 8th), I will be live for an Author Talk with Catherine Matthews. Register here. Free to attend, and if you can’t make it live, you’ll get the recording if you’re registered. If you’re there for the live convo, you’ll be in the running for free books.

Thank you for reading!! All love, Lynne

A Look in the Mirror is Lynne Golodner’s Substack about the writing and publishing life. If you like what you read here. please share it with others who may find it of value. And if you want to support a working writer, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I always love hearing from you!

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Last night, my husband, two of my children, and I bundled into kayaks and paddled on the canals that spill into the Detroit River, which is a mile or so wide, with Detroit on one side and Windsor, Canada, on the other. The river was choppy and full of big waves, and we let the 4-mile-per-hour current carry us down to more canals where people live in quiet houses along the water.

Then we paddled hard against the current to get back to the put-in, and the night air was cold and fast against our faces. There were twinkle lights strung around our boats and a stern light at the back, and the water was warm because the air was cold.

I’ve paddled this river many, many times before. For years, my husband and I rowed in an eight-person shell around the island of Belle Isle, keeping close to the shore (but not too close to avoid hitting the seawall) so we could avoid the freighters that quietly pushed their way past.

Last night we saw some freighters. They were big and silent with quiet lights on their hulls and they moved like mastadons across our sightline. The whole thing was eerie and a little scary, and I loved it.

I loved the challenge.

I loved being on the water. (I always love being on the water.)

I loved getting to know Nancy, one of the kayak guides, who is 67 and this is her second career. I loved hearing the story that I’ve heard before about the speakeasies and bootleggers who paddled booze over from Canada during Prohibition.

The stories never get old. This is my home, and it has so many faces. Wherever I go, I want the stories.

I am nearly finished writing my fifth novel, which will come out in early 2027. It’s based in Detroit in the 1980s, and I am having so much fun revisiting old haunts and familiar eateries and the culture of the time, and of the sports I love, and of my hometown.

Hockeytown. Motown. The Motor City.

I mention Michigan in all of my novels, but this one is personal and it’s very close to home. While my fourth novel, launching October 20th, is set in Grand Rapids, on the west side of my state, my fifth will take readers back to my coming-of-age time, to what it was like to come from a hockey family, to what it might have been like had I been much better at tennis, a sport I still play today, sometimes four or five times a week.

Tomorrow starts my birthday month, and it’s a big one—I’ll turn 55 on June 18th. On my actual birthday, I will be climbing on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with my eldest son. I’ve wanted to visit Africa all my life, so this is a literal dream come true. I want to know the world, to see it, to smell it, to learn about different ways of living on this hard earth.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I write. Often, it’s to figure out what I think about something, or what I believe. But more than that, I write to create the stories and the worlds and the outcomes that I wish we had.

It’s why I love writing about love. Because the more love we have in our lives, the less angry and harsh we become. The more acceptance and desire and being seen that we experience, the more we can give that to others.

It helps to remember why I write, and it helps to remember what I hope to achieve with my books. That one is simple: I want to connect with others and start a conversation. I may never meet most of my readers, but if something I offer gets them thinking, then we are connected in the thought process.

But I do try to meet my readers. And the writing experience is richer because of it.

Later this summer, I will be driving east from Detroit for a road trip book tour. I’m stopping in Pennsylvania and New York and Connecticut and Massachusetts and coming home through Canada, so if you are a reader along that route, please let me know so we can meet and talk about stories and yearning and connection.

Interestingly, I did not take a single picture last night, but here is one my daughter took. That’s the moon, by the way. I’m not sure photos can tell the true story as well as being there, or finding the words. But I’ll keep trying. Because life is beautiful, and if I can help anyone else see that, it’s a goal worth achieving.

P.S. I’m hosting a Literary Salon about LOVE ON THE PAGE in partnership with the Detroit Writing Room this Tuesday at Michigan Central Station. There is still room for you!! Register here.

Thank you for reading A Look in the Mirror by Lynne Golodner, a weekly Substack about the writing and publishing life. If you like what you read here, please share with others, become a paid subscriber to support a working writer, or leave a comment. Until next time, Love, Lynne

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Which is why writers retreats are such powerful engines for connection, community, and confidence-building.

I’ve attended writers retreats, and I’ve led more than I can count. Leading writers retreats is a highlight of my life these days, and last weekend, I facilitated a gathering of creative souls in my hometown of Detroit, in partnership with the Detroit Writing Room.

It was our second venture together after a soul-stirring retreat last fall. This time, we added a day because people said a mere weekend was not long enough.

The theme was writing into identity, something I do in every book I publish, and we explored the facets of identity and how to write them on the page.

We also wandered through Detroit neighborhoods that were founded in identity and which carry the details of their founders even today. (Corktown, Mexican Village, Eastern Market, where my great-grandfather was a butcher.)

I lead four or five retreats a year—two on Mackinac Island, one in Detroit, and usually one somewhere far afield (this year, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; next year, Scotland). There may be more. (I’m working on one in the Florida Keys for next winter.)

Retreats are one of the best ways to meet writer-friends, build community, and find support for the very vulnerable venture of baring your soul on the page for all to see.

I first met Sunshine Lately at my Mackinac Island retreat, and then she joined me in San Miguel. She is a powerful, kind poet with a truly unique voice and lovely aura. Her first poetry collection was recently published, and I was honored to host her virtual book launch a few days ago.

You can watch it here. And you should definitely buy her book. (Amazon. Barnes & Noble. Direct from the publisher.)

A few important thoughts from the book launch:

• When a book launches, you’d think the author would be elated, on a cloud. But there’s a mix of emotions that come with putting your sacred, heart-deep words into the world. What if people don’t like what you wrote? What if that means they don’t like you? Writers are vulnerable people who trust the reader to hold their words with reverence.

• “When you release it out into the world, you have to divorce your expectations of how other people are going to interact with it,” Sunshine says.

• A good review is a gift to an author. I don’t believe in trashing books publicly. If I don’t like them, I don’t review them. If I do like them, it lifts up the writer to leave a positive review!

• It’s a long journey to write and then compile a book and then find a way to publish it. Please, please, please, celebrate writers’ publication launches!!

• Sunny spent the seven years of creating her collection fighting an inner battle to believe that she can legitimately call herself a poet. (Spoiler alert: She calls herself a poet now and means it!!)

• You do not need an MFA or any degree to be a writer. Just write. The hardest step is believing in yourself and your voice.

I love having talks with other authors and celebrating their successes. It’s one of the best things about being a writer—so many of us are there for each other. We work so hard on our stories that it feels gratifying when someone takes notice.

I hope you’ll join me for other author talks coming up. You can find them all here. I’ll be adding more dates for the second half of this year as well.

And mark your calendar for October 20th, when I will host a virtual launch for my fourth novel, TWO LIFETIMES. Stay tuned for the cover reveal in just a few weeks.

All love, Lynne

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror, the weekly newsletter from author and writing coach Lynne Golodner. If you like what you read here, please share it with others who may find it of value, and consider becoming a paid subscriber to support a working writer! All paid subscribers receive 10% off every writing program and 1:1 writing coaching packages.

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“If I could only work with Waldorf schools, I’d be so thrilled.” I said this more than a decade ago when I was a new founder of a marketing and public relations startup, and I had Detroit Waldorf School as a client.

The people and the concepts and the innovative approach to education excited me. They were doing things outside the expected box, plus I loved the passion and dedication to find a better way to educate children. And, I wanted to help them share their stories to grow their reach.

Many times in my life I’ve said things like, “If I could…, I would …” And then I set about finding a way to do it so I could be happier, more fulfilled, more content, more enthralled.

I believe in the powers of manifesting. I know it’s woo-woo and I don’t care. It works. At least it does for me. I say something, and it happens. I put the wish into the world, and the wish comes true. It can be scary at times, that power, the power of the self, the power of positive pursuit, the power of self-belief.

I wanted to write novels, so I started writing novels. They were bad at first. (There are two complete novels from years ago that you will never see!)

Then they got better. And I didn’t give up even though it was hard. I earned money through different channels so I could afford to hire a developmental editor to look at what I’d written and tell me what worked and what didn’t and how to make a book worth publishing.

When I want something, I go after it. The other day, I put a number to my dream of more book sales. A concrete, achievable number that is very far from where my monthly profits in book sales is today.

But I’ll get there. I know I will. Now that I have a number, it’s a solid concrete thing I can work toward. I give myself a year. I believe I’ll get there, so likely I will.

Have you ever experienced this?

I was listening to a podcast the other day about how the spiritual self is the core of who we are, that God is within and around all of us, that when we embrace the pursuit of creation and building the world, we are part of enacting the purpose of human life.

Even though I’m very Jewish, I’m not much for God-speak. I don’t pray often. But something in that message resonated. I often think humans today are chasing a dream they don’t really want.

Money. Fame. Notoriety.

Really, what we are seeking is to be seen and heard, to have enough.

But it doesn’t come from saying gimme gimme gimme. It comes from saying, I see you. From turning outwards and helping others. You know that feeling that comes when you do for someone else, like you’re on a high, and you feel more whole as a person for helping someone else? That’s what I’m talking about.

As an author, I write because I love writing. I publish because I want people to read my books.

But I don’t need to be famous. I want to earn a sustainable income from my books, but I don’t need millions. And honestly, I write books to engage in conversation, to entertain and uplift and connect, to offer new ways of looking at life.

It’s not just about me, but it starts with me. I try to do it better with each book to reach people on a deeper level—not so they can celebrate how great I am, but so we can have an experience together, and understand the world a little more.

At a writing retreat I led this weekend with the Detroit Writing Room, we talked a lot about identity and how to write it. Why who we are informs what we write. Why it’s important to consciously choose identity rather than just inherit it.

These are not easy questions, and while all people might grapple with soul-searching, it is writers who commit to it in print and offer their words as a gift to others to reckon with, too.

There are numerous studies about how reading, especially fiction, builds empathy and expands understanding. In our world today, I can’t imagine a more important reason to write. Or to read.

We are so messed up in what we value. We pay our teachers little but our CEOS a lot. Fast, processed, unhealthy food is cheap, but most people don’t know how to make delicious, nutritious meals from whole ingredients grown in the fertile earth.

We spend hours scrolling on screens and sharing memes, while many people never crack the spine of a book.

We are what we focus on. I focus on love and how people find each other and how we make meaning in the mundane.

Which makes me acutely aware of the beauty of the world. Of how to love others. Of how to see my friends and family.

Which, I hope, makes the world a tiny bit better.

JOIN ME FOR GREAT EVENTS!

This week, I am excited to celebrate the launch of Sunshine Lately’s poetry book, Lye. We’ll be in conversation on Zoom, and you can join us! We’ll be giving away a free copy of this new collection and also a free copy of one of my poetry collections. Details & registration here.

Next week, I’ll be in conversation on Zoom for an Author Talk with the amazing novelist Annie Cathryn, focusing on friendship fiction. Please join us! Details & registration here.

On June 2, I’m facilitating a Literary Salon with the Detroit Writing Room about love on the page. Join me!

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror, a weekly missive by Lynne Golodner about the writing and publishing life. If you like what you read here, please share it with others or consider becoming a paid subscriber. And I’d always love to hear what you think! Until next week…Love, Lynne

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She graduated from college this week, and we had the celebration of the century to honor her. She deserves it, not only because she’s an amazing student, an incredible person, and has reached an impressive milestone.

But her college journey wasn’t the idyllic one I remember. First, she graduated high school while we were just coming out of the pandemic. Then, she took a gap year because she wasn’t ready to leave. And then, she decided spontaneously to apply to the University of Hawaii and went half a world away to start college.

It was gorgeous weather and landscape but a nightmare of an experience. She came home after a semester and transferred to Wayne State University in Detroit, which is largely a commuter school. Coming in halfway through the school year didn’t make it easy to meet people.

But she persevered, started a running club, made friends, aced pretty much every class, studied abroad in Spain, built a life.

This is the same girl who, at age 10, entered her first-ever baking contest and won the whole thing. The same girl who, in high school during a pandemic, started a baking business that is still going. (Gorgeous, delicious cakes. Check out Eliana’s Cakery.)

An entrepreneur. An artist. A deep thinker. A kind soul. A better judge of character than I will ever be. A tender heart who seems tough on the outside, but is really quite sensitive deep down.

It’s not easy being a mother of a daughter. It’s not easy being a mother, period. But when you have an only daughter, sandwiched between two boys, a daughter who knows her own mind from the very start…no one prepares you for parenting, and certainly not if you choose, like I do, to see each of your children as individuals whole and unique and separate from you from the start.

When I give talks about my books, people always ask how much of myself is in my books. It was Eliana who aptly pointed out that my first novel, WOMAN OF VALOR, features a mother of three children, boy-girl-boy, and yes, I hadn’t seen that I was writing my own family order in that fictitious story.

In CAVE OF SECRETS, Eve has never known her mother, as she died in childbirth. And Mac’s mother, Margaret, has a hard time accepting that their aristocratic ancestry has Jewish roots. In I LOVE YOU, CHARLIE TANNER, one of the first things Charlie does after she flees the Cape Breton commune/cult where she’s spent two decades is reconnect with her mother.

Being the mother of a daughter is a true gift. Trying to do right by her has taught me so much about myself—and it’s made me a better person, a better woman, a more thoughtful individual because I am always making mistakes and learning from them.

It’s funny how we tell ourselves stories of our lives. Stories we believe to be true. And then a child comes along and shows us a different version of this story we’re living, something we hadn’t known, and we have to adjust and accept that it’s never what we expect or maybe even what we believe.

Some people believe that the child chooses the parents. That a pre-born soul chooses the family it will be born into. That this child is bringing something the parents need to learn, to become better, to evolve.

Which would suggest that we do not have any say in the souls we are given. Of course we don’t. So much of life is you-get-what-you-need.

When I divorced my first husband, I had a lot of feelings about why I married him in the first place. But then I’d think, if I hadn’t married him, I wouldn’t have my kids.

My father once said, “Yes, but you’d have other kids.”

And I thought, “No, I was meant to be the mother to these children. They are my gift and my challenge and my journey.”

Life comes to you as you need it, and you walk the paths set before you, usually unaware of where you’re headed.

I am lucky that Eliana lives locally. She’s the only one of my four who is local, and that means I get to take long walk-and-talks with her, and have meals with her, and hang out at her apartment, and so much more.

Or maybe, I’m just lucky that she wants to do all this with me.

We don’t always get along or understand each other, but I know we are both always trying to. We are, every day, choosing each other, over and over. I can’t imagine anything better.

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror, my weekly newsletter about living the writing life. If you like what you read here, please share with others who might find it valuable, and consider becoming a paid subscriber to support a working writer.

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This time of year in Michigan is prime planting time. Truthfully, I started more than a month ago, planting seeds in my raised beds for early lettuces. And now, they’re coming up. OMG am I gleeful! It’s like I have new children.

I’ve been planting a garden for a long time now, and each year I am better at it, and the garden is better. Last year this time, I was preparing to launch my third novel, I LOVE YOU, CHARLIE TANNER, which focuses a lot on gardening

That book, which won the PenCraft Seasonal Book Award for women’s fiction last fall, tells the story of a 40-year-old woman whose life partner dies suddenly and mysteriously and she processes her grief in the garden.

That was all I knew when I started mapping out the book. Grief, midlife protagonist, garden. Oh, and a hot rabbi who would be a new love interest.

The story gathered steam and developed in ways I could never have imagined! The gardening angle came both from my own experiences, and the joy and calm I receive when I am among my plants, but also from a place I visited in the north of Scotland years ago called Findhorn.

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I visited there and it was amazing all the breakthroughs they made in cultivating what had been viewed as mostly unplantable ground. But there was something cult-ish about the place, and so I created a fictitious version of it set in Cape Breton, another place I visited on a writing sabbatical, and the story was off and running.

We are never done becoming who we are—all the versions of me, all the versions of you—we cannot create great art without continuing to create ourselves. Art is always found on the fringes at the edge of our discomfort where true change occurs.

When I’m in my garden, I think I know what I’m doing, but I always worry that I don’t. I watch so many social media videos about gardening, and want to learn what they seem to do so effortlessly. (I know, social media isn’t real.)

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But I doubt my abilities in the garden, too. I turn to my master-gardener friends or those ever-present videos or ask questions at a garden center, never quite believing I might know something, or that my instincts could guide me to learn and evolve.

What we believe about ourselves has a way of coming true. Some days, I believe I am talented and knowledgeable and that I am living my best life.

And some days, I doubt all of those things—usually when I’m scrolling too much on said social media.

What I love about Charlie Tanner the woman is the way that she lives close to the land, and close to her heart, as a way of figuring out who she wants to be at 40. Yes, she regrets some of the choices she made when she was younger (who doesn’t?), but ultimately she realizes that she can start over and finally become her best self.

Just like me.

Just like you.

I’ll be speaking about Charlie Tanner and how I researched (and lived) the gardening that appears in this novel on Wednesday, May 6th, at the Huntington Woods library. The talk is free to attend, but registration is encouraged. Learn more here. I hope you’ll join me!

And, since it’s the first week of May, I’ll be giving away a copy of I LOVE YOU, CHARLIE TANNER, to one lucky reader! Just message me a story of your adventures in the dirt to enter the running.

In Heidi’s latest book, MATCH ME IF YOU CAN, there is one sex scene between the protagonist and her future husband. They aren’t married yet, and they just can’t help themselves.

It’s a fabulous scene which Heidi builds up to very well, creating anticipation and desire in the reader. The payoff is earned, and a pinnacle of the book. (pun intended!)

But she got a lot of flak for the explicit scene, both because the Orthodox Jewish characters are not yet married, and because there was no warning about the open-door nature of the scene. A lot of readers felt like it wasn’t in the spirit of an Orthodox Jew to include a scene like this.

In our talk, which you can watch here, Heidi explains that while she loves reading more detailed scenes in romance books, she’s not planning to include another one in her future books. She doesn’t want to alienate readers. I respect that.

Still, I love writing sex into my novels because I think it’s one of life’s greatest gifts. Many books include sex gratuitously, with no real purpose to move the story along. It’s there to excite, to titillate, to give readers what they’re hungry for.

And there’s nothing wrong with that! There’s also nothing wrong with keeping it clean, or hinting at intimacy and letting the reader’s imagination run wild off the page. There are many options when writing romantic fiction because there are so many different kinds of readers.

We All React Differently to Sex on the Page…and Sex IRL

When I was growing up, I was taught about how babies are made and told that sex was for a married relationship between a man and a woman.

Everything else I learned from books and movies—about how sex can be a path toward a deeper relationship between two people and about how sex can be for pleasure, not just procreation. And how sex is not just for marriage, or in heterosexual couplings.

In books, I learned about desire. I learned that women can have it as well as men. Growing up, I was given the stereotype of men sowing wild oats, hooking up with women before marriage, because that’s what men do, but women should remain chaste and pure and wait for Mr. Right to sweep them off their feet.

I was taught that men can have as much experience as they want; they’ll teach their future wives how to enjoy the bedroom. (at least we hoped so)

Looking back, I hate so much about this message.

Not only was it unfair to women and belittling, it was unfair to humanity.

Our bodies are made to feel pleasure. Most societal structures put limits on intimacy as a means of control, but I don’t think it serves humans whatsoever. Think about all the priest sex scandals and right-wing fundamental communities where children are assaulted by entitled men. This is what happens when you restrict and shame and make sex forbidden and bad and don’t teach how to engage in healthy pleasure.

When we force a frigid understanding of touch and love and passion, we create a messed-up society.

I keep going back to Heated Rivalry. In the books, both men in the relationship desire each other. Both want to give and receive pleasure. There is such an even-ness about their attraction and desire and even at 54 years old, it’s still new to me.

No one taught me to want to give pleasure to another. No one taught me anything about pleasure, period.

And I think that’s a damn shame.

Books are windows into new worlds. New ways of being. New frontiers. And even in the 21st century, sex may still be one of them.

So I’ll keep writing sex scenes where characters enjoy connection, and I hope readers do, too. At least until we all get to a point where we can celebrate the brilliance of the human body and the possibilities for pleasure and connection that live within all of us.

***

Join me for an Author Talk today at 11 a.m. ET featuring Sarah Ansbacher. We’ll be looking at where fact meets fiction, and how to research for authentic and compelling historical fiction novels. Register here.

Thanks for reading! If you like what you find here, please share with others or consider becoming a paid subscriber. And share your comments publicly or in a DM! Until next week…

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So I’m taking this week off from writing something of worth. I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope you’ll understand. I’ll write again next week.

All love, Lynne

I’ve been racing through Rachel Reid’s gay hockey romance novels at an incredible clip, and I am seriously perplexed about why. These are fine books, but they are totally predictable romance tropes and pace. And I am enjoying them beyond my expectations.

You see, I tend to be a literary snob. I like to believe that I’m “above” trope-y genres, that I appreciate really gorgeous writing and complex storytelling. Which I do.

And yet, I am so drawn to these books in one of the most popular genres of fiction. Perhaps because of their predictability. Like, I know there will be a happy ending. I know there will be steamy sex scenes, which I love to read and to write. I know that there will be clever banter to keep a reader’s attention.

But I am judging the predictability of tropes and the formulaic story arcs.

Like, why does there always have to be a third-act breakup?

Why do the two people who are so hopelessly drawn to each other keep doubting that the other one has feelings?

Why don’t they ever just talk about it and get on the same page? (Because there wouldn’t be a book!!)

Why do they talk themselves out of being with the person who is exactly right for them? Do we do this in real life?

Why are all the covers cartoonish? (I really don’t love this trend. It dumbs down the genre, IMHO.)

Why is one partner (the guy in a hetero romance) always hugely tall and muscled and giant, and the other partner (the woman in a hetero book) tiny, petite, helpless, needing saving? (At least in gay hockey romances, they can both be gorgeous and fit, although there is usually one who is much bigger and one who is much daintier.)

And why do I keep scooping them up and devouring them? (Because they are satisfying and easy-to-read!)

I have finished all of Rachel Reid’s gay hockey romance novels, and the more recent books are decidedly better than her earlier ones. That’s true for all authors, I think. The more you do this, the better you get at it. And I am so flipping happy for Reid’s success. She has worked to get here, and she deserves it!!

My next novel, coming in October, is nothing like the books I’ve been devouring of late. It’s serious, and it reflects where my creative juices were when I wrote it (last year!). It’s a good book, I’ll admit, and I’m proud of it, but I am already ready to write the next one and make it light, fun, romantic, and fast-paced.

Authors create with the influence of so many things—other authors, the times we’re in, the news, our passions, and more. My next novel, TWO LIFETIMES, is about a soul-level friendship between two women today who were connected in a former life. Through their friendship, they try to counter the ills of a warped society. It’s inspired by my best friend Katie and our friendship. I finished the edits yesterday and was in tears by the end, which is always a good sign.

But after that, I’m planning a series of romance novels featuring tennis and hockey and the 1980s. I cannot wait to revisit this era I’m nostalgic for, and populate my pages with the sports I love. Friday night, my husband and I joined my daughter and her boyfriend for a Detroit Tigers baseball game, and it reminded me how much I love my city’s sports teams. It’d been a while.

Maybe reading so much Rachel Reid is influencing my writing?

Other authors who influence me include Sara Donati (who was clearly influenced by Diana Gabaldon, look for the Outlander reference in her first novel in the Wilderness series). I’d say both Donati and Gabaldon influenced my second novel, CAVE OF SECRETS, which is set in Scotland.

I just finished listening to Rebecca Serle’s ONCE AND AGAIN, and I love every magical realism, unique time travel book that she writes. Each one along a theme, but each one unique unto itself.

Maybe it can be this easy, to write stories with the same formulas and tropes and subjects in every book? Be known for a particular focus?

Although my first three novels all have in common women of strength and spirit, and strong Jewish identity. That won’t change, from book to book. But maybe the genre will!

Authors, like everyone, keep growing and evolving and developing their talent. I hope someday, someone writes about binging my books & seeing them improve the more I write.

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror by Lynne Golodner. I write this weekly newsletter to take readers behind the scenes of my books and the writing life. If you like what you read here, please consider sharing this essay or becoming a paid subscriber to support a working writer!

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When do you ever have in-depth meaningful conversations about what matters, and what you believe?

We do, at our Seder, every year. This year, we had 22 people and wow, was it fun.

But it wasn’t always so.

When I was a child, I loved Passover at my grandparents’ house mainly because my cousins and I scrambled together to steal the Afikomen (the middle matzah, it’s a whole thing not worth explaining) from my grandfather and then run off to hide it. We always thought we were so sly and sneaky, but honestly, the adults must have been laughing as we crawled beneath the dining room table and then ran not-silently out of the room to hide it somewhere rather obvious.

We read the Haggadah, which made no sense to me as a child, written as it was in more formal language. But then there was Grandma’s matzoh ball soup and brisket and chicken and kugels and strawberry fluff for dessert and a bunch of cakes and brownies that were somehow kosher-for-Passover.

And then I became Orthodox in my late 20s, and Passover ceased to be fun. My first Orthodox Seder took place in Jerusalem with the family of my soon-to-be first husband, and I had no idea what they were doing, since most of it was in rapid-fire Hebrew.

It lasted LOOOOOONG, like nearing midnight, and one of the many grandchildren fell asleep on the floor of the hotel conference room because his parents had ignored his exhaustion, so focused were they on fulfilling their religious obligation.

When I was married the first time, my ex went room to room in the weeks before Passover, reading ingredients on bottles of shampoo and lotion and locking away anything that had edible ingredients. Never mind that Jewish law does not go this far! You simply don’t eat anything that is leavened during the eight days of Passover.

But the Orthodox people that I knew took it much further. Anything coming close to being leavened and edible was off-limits. Locked away in cupboards you were not allowed to open.

It’s just eight days, but it felt like an eternity. Not just noodles and bread and cakes that rise. We couldn’t eat anything with corn or corn syrup, no rice or beans, no vinegar, the list goes on and on. There are many legal reasons for this, but it’s a fence around a fence around the law, and when I stopped being Orthodox, I started trusting myself to build an observance that made sense for me.

The first Seder I had with my kids post-divorce, I was so nervous. Butterflies and knots in my stomach. My ex’s Seders were so fun for the kids with lots of singing and revelry (which I would’ve loved had I not felt so on the outside of it all), and I felt competitive with my children’s father. I wanted them to love MY seders as much as his.

In the early years of the divorce, when my children were small, I made it fun. Bought finger puppets of the 10 Plagues and little plastic frogs that you can “hop” across the table with the flick of a finger.

I did only as much of the Seder as held their attention. Each year, we went a little longer. And then, I don’t remember when, I fell into my own groove for this holiday and felt empowered and knowledgeable and strong and the Seder became fun.

My children are in their 20s now, and they love our Seder. We invite Jews and Gentiles, friends and family. We still have the finger puppets and flipping frogs, and now there’s 10 Plague Tic Tac Toe and the Rock and Roll Haggadah and a Haroset bar that I invented a few years ago so that no one is starving by the time we finally get to the meal.

I’ve always told my children that spirituality and religion and belief and faith are all personal pursuits. No one can legislate what you must believe or how you must observe. Yes, it was at first a reaction to all of my experiences, but really it was me coming home to myself and saying, I know what’s best for me, and I am confident enough to live it.

I love being Jewish. I look forward to Passover. And I observe it in a way that is meaningful for me.

I don’t care if anyone judges my observance. It’s none of their business. Spirituality is a personal pursuit, and I am at home in myself.

In my books, I write complex characters who grapple with their spirituality and find the confidence to live it in the best way for them. Regardless of communal pressure or judgment. I write their stories to encourage readers to feel freedom (a theme of this holiday) to embrace faith, spirituality, and religion in their own unique way.

Since this is the first Substack of April, I’ll be gifting a free book to a loyal reader this week! This month’s choice is One Little Goat by Dara Horn. It’s a gorgeous and thoughtful graphic novel about a time-traveling goat who falls through generations of ancestors. It’s incredibly deep and meaningful.

How can you win it? By sharing with me a brief story of how you have made a holiday meaningful. Any religion, any holiday. Just message me and let me know!! I’ll announce the winner in next week’s edition.

Free Books For You!

Two opportunities to win free books!! I’m participating in a few book giveaways with other authors, and you can get in on the action.

Pick up your free fiction novels here.

And get your free women’s fiction here.

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror, Lynne Golodner’s weekly Substack. Mostly I write about writing and reading and publishing. And sometimes how we make life meaningful. If you like what you read, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or sharing this newsletter with someone who might find it valuable. Love to all!

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I met Erin in Hawaii, when I spoke to a local Hadassah book group. It was winter 2024, and I traveled to Oahu to visit my son who was studying there. Reaching out to the local community, I landed two invitations to speak to Jewish community outlets and another to give a lecture about my books at University of Hawaii-Manoa.

Erin was one of the women at the Hadassah event. We chatted and she invited me to her house on the Pearl Harbor army base. We sat and talked, and said we’d keep in touch.

And we have. Erin has generously offered to read every book I’ve written since and even introduce me and my books to her book club once she moved to a new location. We’ve sent emails back and forth, shared our stories, and I truly consider her a friend.

But I made a mistake at one point. When my latest novel was about to launch, I LOVE YOU, CHARLIE TANNER, Erin offered to have her book club read it to offer some advance reviews. I was still so new at this book publishing and marketing thing, and an inner voice said, “Why don’t they buy the book? Why give it for free?”

I’m ashamed of that knee-jerk response. I later apologized and thanked her and said yes, I would loooove if they wanted to read the book and write reviews. I felt like such an idiot. What a generous and selfless offer, and I was the knucklehead who was only seeing $$$.

I have been an entrepreneur for most of my adult life, and I know very well that you often have to spend money to make money. That includes giving products and services free-of-charge to build relationships with potential clients/readers.

I know this.

I. Know. This.

I also know that money is energy, and energy needs to flow. I know the karmic laws of business, that you must put in the appropriate amount of effort and it will come back to you somehow—maybe not in the way you anticipate or plan. It’ll come. But you have to go FIRST.

It’s like the universe is saying, What is your success worth to you? What are you willing to spend/let go of/give up to get something great?

Said another way: you must CARE about your readers if you want them to care about you.

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I grew up in a milieu of always watching others, judging, gossiping, caring more about appearances than depth. No benefit of the doubt or generosity of spirit there! When I left for college, all I wanted was to never wear makeup again, buy flowy skirts rather than black jeans, and let my curls go natural rather than blowing them out straight and sleek.

I wanted to be ME.

I wanted to belong and be accepted AS I AM.

I didn’t feel like I did when I was growing up—even though I had tons of friends, lots of activities, and I loved high school! I just felt like my feelings were too big for others, and I wanted deeper conversations instead of the superficial.

I’ve found my people in the most unlikely places. Erin is one of them. On that first day that we met, we had deep conversations. And the second day. And in emails since then. I cherish her. I have no idea why I looked askance at first at her offer of generosity. Maybe it was old-me—nervous, scarcity-mindset old me.

Because the REAL me believes in abundance. That there is enough to go around. That if I can give away 10,000 copies of my second novel, CAVE OF SECRETS, my audience will grow and I’ll develop relationships with new readers that will be lasting and meaningful.

10K is a big number, and I am not close. But this effort has reminded me of the power of generosity.

It’s reminded me that I have always been interested in other people, in knowing their stories, in having deep talks on an airplane or in line at a grocery or on a mountain hike.

I think book clubs give us a sense of this depth that we might be missing in everyday life. I mean, they gather people to discuss the nuances of a story that all have read! They gather for the purpose of debating IDEAS, characters, themes. Issues big and small.

Books are windows into new worlds. They’re also windows into our souls.

I write to figure out what I think, what I believe, what matters to me.

I publish to have conversations about those very things with others.

I am so grateful to Erin for not writing me off. For wanting to hear from me and taking time out of her busy schedule to support me. I can’t even estimate the immense value of that.

I only hope I can give to her in equal measure before my time is done.

If you want a free copy of Cave of Secrets, find it here.

If you want me to speak to your book club, tell me when!!

Thanks for reading Lynne Golodner’s weekly Substack! If you like what you read here, please share it with others who might find it of value. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support a working writer. If there is something about books and writing and publishing that you’d like to read here, let me know!

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A few weeks ago, I hosted an Author Talk with my friend and fellow novelist Paulette Stout, where we explored romance novels that don’t shy away from big issues like homophobia, antisemitism, body image, fat phobia, racism and more. It was an immersive talk, and great fun, and so I’d like to share some of the highlights with you here!

You can watch the entire talk on YouTube here.

And, there are more Author Talks coming up!

• I’ll be speaking with Orthodox Jewish romance novelist Heidi Shertok on April 12 about Jewish characters and SEX in romance. Learn more and register here.

• And I’ll be speaking with author of historical novels Sarah Ansbacher on April 26 about fact in fiction. Learn more and register here.

So…why include big issues in romance? Why not just keep it light and fun and easy?

Some non-negotiables for the romance genre is a story that centers on the relationship formation between two people. Both characters need to be alive at the end of the story, usually there’s no infidelity or adultery or surprise pregnancies, and there is usually a Happily Ever After or Happily For Now, some kind of optimistic ending.

But beyond that, who says you can’t go deep?

From Paulette: I went on a personal journey as an adult woman, trying to find how my body worked, how I could feel pleasure in the bedroom. Once I figured that out, it became an obsession with me. And I felt like if I was struggling with this stuff, other people might too.

This is an important part of the human experience, intimacy between two characters. It’s a fantastic way to build conflict, to advance plot, to even express personalities through intimate relationships.

Intimacy and romance is a powerful tool of humanity. People undervalue romance sometimes because they feel like it’s just about falling in love. But love is a central piece of the human experience. When romance goes beyond that to explore characters’ lives, challenges, hopes, and dreams, that makes a great book.

I agree with all that. What’s more, books can be a way to work out real issues. In my books, I aim to show passionate relationships where both partners are on equal footing, where both feel desire and pleasure, and there is no shame about it.

Too often in real life, we are made to feel embarrassed for wanting, desiring. Especially women. On the page, we can work out issues that aren’t yet resolved in real life.

P.S. I am part of a lucky-in-love spring romance novel giveaway. Get your FREE romance novels here.

How do novelists find their topics?

From Paulette: Something occurs to me, I watch something in the news, or I experience something in my life, and there’s an issue that I feel like we should be talking about more. I look at my books as a way to grow and learn about the world.

For me, I write to work out questions I have, or to imagine a different reality. In CAVE OF SECRETS, Sam is a gay single father who was shamed in the religious world of his childhood for being gay. He leaves everything and everyone he’s known to raise his daughter freely, out as a gay man, but past shame follows him and prevents him from accepting love for a long time.

Paulette, again: After the #MeToo movement, men were stepping forward and no one was taking them seriously, but one in six men experience unwanted sexual advances, and no one ever talks about it. In LOVE ONLY BETTER, a sensitive established character goes through some of those issues. It was powerful.

In my third book I take on the issue of race, class, and belonging because I was at the time reading a lot of books and there was a dearth of strong Black female characters who were not impoverished, who were not on the brink of death, who were successful and established and professional and come from successful families. I felt like that character needed to be seen on the page, and I built out her journey around experiencing corporate America as a Black woman and then having an interracial romance.

Authors That Tackle Big Topics Well

We also recommended some other authors who are doing a great job addressing big issues in fantastic stories. They include…

Lisa Peers, Motor City Love Song

Heidi Shertok, Match Me If You Can

Rachel Reid, The Long Game

Kennedy Ryan, Skyland Series

Danielle Allen, Curvy Girl Summer

Rebecca Yarros, romances

What issues would you like to see in a romantic novel? What topics are not addressed enough on the page?

You never know…maybe I’ll include one of your suggestions in my next book!!

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror with Lynne Golodner, a weekly Substack about belonging, identity and finding community in books and writing. If you like what you read here, please share it with others who might find it of value! And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support a working writer.

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Now, let’s turn to better topics. Food. How we come together through food. How we know ourselves through food. How food factors into identity and love and community. All of which is why I include food descriptively, mouthwateringly in my novels.

One of the only negative reviews I’ve gotten for my first novel, WOMAN OF VALOR, said there was too much food in the book. It’s a bad review I can live with because yes, there is a lot of food in the story, and I’m ok with that.

Sally, my protagonist, spends a lot of time planning her Shabbat meals, shopping for ingredients, cooking and preparing, and of course, with three young children, she is also preparing family meals daily and involving her children in the experience of cooking and baking.

Sally is an Orthodox Jewish mother, and so was I for 10 years. I prepped and planned and cooked and baked like she did, and I did a lot of that with my kids, too. They stood on kitchen chairs and pounded the dough when I made challah, the breads Jews eat on the Sabbath and holidays.

I made chocolate chip cookies with them, and let them lick the bowl. I showed them how to dip their hands in water before rolling matzoh balls into perfect circles, like my grandmother taught me.

I love writing about food! I love how food conveys identity and place and history and community. I love exploring new foods as a way of learning about a place and a people.

In CAVE OF SECRETS, my Scotland romance novel, Eve and Mac learn about each other over drams of whisky and bangers and mash. They fall in love over a finely laid table, and learn each other’s stories during slow-moving dinners. I did that with Dan, and I still do many days.

And in I LOVE YOU, CHARLIE TANNER, Charlie heals from trauma by cultivating her garden, putting her hands in soil and harvesting fresh produce that she then bakes and cooks into delectable dishes to feed the people she loves. I do that even now. It’s almost time to plant my seeds for the spring garden, and all summer I will begin my days there, hands in the dirt.

Food connects us to who we are, and shows us who we want to be. It gives us stories. Memories. Community.

I love how, when I make my grandmother’s chicken soup recipe, the faint taste of fresh dill reminds me of her. (Here’s an essay I wrote about it.)

And I love how, when I eat a bite of key lime pie, I remember my father and almost start to cry.

Yes, all of my books have food in them because food is a great way of sharing sensory detail, of establishing place and identity, and of connecting people.

This year, I’m publishing an anthology of food writing, so for any readers who’d like to submit a story, poem or essay about something food-related, now is your chance! Submissions are due by April 1st. Read all the details and submit here.

What are you favorite food memories?

What foods are iconic in your identity?

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror with Lynne Golodner. This is a weekly newsletter about books and writing, belonging and identity, and finding your place in the world. If you like what you read here, please share this newsletter with others who might find it valuable. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber, to support a working writer!

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Hey there, I’m Lynne Golodner—named Lynne Meredith Cohn at birth, with a surname of Schreiber for 8 years in the middle, and then I took on Golodner when I married my second husband. I’ve been married twice, and the second time is actually working out.

For a brief time, I considered dropping surnames, since they’re all attached to men, and just going by Lynne Meredith. But I thought, who am I, Cher? And never did it. I sort of regret that! But our names are never ours anyway, so here I am. (I wrote an essay about names, and you can read it here.)

From my first marriage, I have three amazing kids who are all young adults now. From my second marriage, I gained a step-daughter.

My husband is an archivist focused on teacher unions, and we have a lot of fun together, love each other more today than when we met in 2009 or when we married in 2011 in a backyard lakeside wedding with our 4 kids under the chuppah with us. (The chuppah, or wedding canopy, was my grandfather’s tallit/prayer shawl on posts. My brother and one of my brothers-in-law officiated at the wedding, which I wrote.)

I play tennis. I swim. I hike. I travel the world. I make friends wherever I go. I am a huge hockey fan and partial to the Detroit Red Wings.

And, I am the author of 12 books—2 poetry collections, 6 nonfiction titles, 1 essay collection and 3 novels. The novels have all won awards, and when I started down this fiction road in 2021, I pledged to write a book a year for the rest of my life.

I’m on track to meet that goal, having published 4 books in 2 years—WOMAN OF VALOR (2023), CAVE OF SECRETS (2024), FOREST WALK ON A FRIDAY (2025) and I LOVE YOU, CHARLIE TANNER (2025).

My books all focus on how people find meaning in the mundane. It’s a question I’ve been obsessed with for decades.

• Why do we do what we do?

• Why are we even here?

• What is the purpose of my particular life?

• Am I making the world better in some meaningful way?

• What’s it all about?

I think love is the answer. We’re all looking for love, and focused on building lives around it.

For the longest time, I wasn’t confident or secure, didn’t believe I was lovable. I thought I was “too much” for everyone—bossy, with a big mouth, that’s how people in my family described me.

I’ve healed that little girl somewhat, and I now see all the good in me, but it took time and it was hard and sometimes I slip backwards.

I write strong, independent women characters who are looking for love and self-acceptance because for too long, women have quietened and cornered ourselves to fit into a largely male society. No more.

I write heady love stories with steamy sex scenes because I love love and I love sex and I don’t think we should be ashamed of this at all. Unfurl.

I thread Jewish identity through my stories because I want to embrace my ancestral identity and show positivity about it on the page. Be who you are.

The world is ugly enough. I don’t need to show that in books. I want stories that lift us up, that show us the possibilities for peace and connection and community and goodness.

I see beauty everywhere! I’ve trained myself to look for it. I grew up in a milieu where people did not often give the benefit of the doubt, who had a scarcity mentality, and I want to be the opposite—assuming goodness, believing there is enough to go around.

That’s why I teach writing. That’s why I write books with happy endings. That’s why I confront big issues on the page in ways that work out for everyone’s benefit.

And I write this Substack to connect with you, dear readers. To build community. To bring out into the open things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.

I want to know others deeply. I won’t judge, and I won’t ridicule, if you trust me with your deepest self.

We would all benefit from being more real. So I write books and I write this Substack to get all of us talking and thinking and experimenting with sharing on a deeper level.

So that’s me! Thank you for being here. Thank you for being interested. And if you’d like to introduce yourself to me, I would love to get to know you.

Thanks for reading A Look in the Mirror with Lynne Golodner, a weekly Substack about identity and belonging and community and really great books. Please consider reading Lynne’s books and leaving reviews wherever books are sold. If you like what you read here, please share with others who might find it of value. And if you’d like to become a paid subscriber, you’ll be supporting a working writer! Learn more at https://lynnegolodner.com

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Fool me once.

Sometimes, we don’t even realize we’re wearing a metaphorical mask. To protect ourselves from disappointment or hurt? To try to live up to the persona we want to inhabit? I think authors do this a lot. Maybe that’s why we write fiction—to work out the situations and relationships we can’t quite navigate in real life?

I did that with WOMAN OF VALOR, my first novel. I created Sally, my religious protagonist, as someone who became Orthodox after not growing up that way (like I did)—but unlike me, Sally stays in the community and inhabits that persona.

Until things challenge what she thought it was all about. Until the masks come off.

Tomorrow night begins the Jewish holiday of Purim, one of my favorite holidays. It’s known as the Jewish Halloween, but it’s nothing like that spooky holiday. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite—we give edible gifts instead of demanding to receive them, we dress up in costumes of characters we admire (not scary ones), and we BOO the bad guys in synagogue while cheering the good ones.

Tonight I’ll be in conversation with my friend Paulette Stout about addressing big issues in romance novels, and in preparing for this talk, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really write romance. While my second novel, CAVE OF SECRETS, might qualify, my first and third novels are more women’s or book club or upmarket fiction.

Register for the talk here. (Even if you can’t attend—you’ll get the recording!)

In WOMAN OF VALOR, I imagine Sally celebrating Purim with gusto. I picture her smiling, helping her children create costumes, baking hamantaschen—the triangle-shaped cookies with sweet filling—to give to friends.

I imagine her spending weeks dreaming up mishloach manot, the creative edible gifts Jews give to friends and family on this day. When I was religious, I loved coming up with a clever theme. You’re supposed to include at least 3 foods, with 2 different blessings to be recited before eating. I imagine Sally taking this very seriously and Barry smiling good-naturedly but not really helping much because, as someone who was always religious, he didn’t think that deeply about the holiday.

People who choose to become religious often make conscious decisions about how and what to observe. Because it is a choice, it’s often more deliberate than things we’re used to doing and no longer see. This book tackles big issues—infidelity, communal pressure and judgment, friends who abandon you in your time of need, surprise pregnancy and more.

Paulette says it’s frowned-upon in the romance genre to include these issues. I don’t think WOMAN OF VALOR is a romance—though the sex is steamy and the relationship issues are a dominant theme in the story. I write about big issues because I think deeply and I’m not content with fluff. I want to confront big questions and search for reasonable answers.

And I think readers like that.

Many romance novels tackle big issues. My friend Heidi Shertok’s books confront racism and infertility in the Orthodox world while still being funny and romantic and riveting. My friend Lisa Peers writes lesbian romance novels that tackle menopause, body image, trans issues and more. They’re also clever and beautiful and unexpected. And the sequel to Heated Rivalry, The Long Game, tackles big issues, too—homophobia, depression, toxic masculinity and more.

This month, I am giving away a free e-book of my three-novel collection to a reader who can tell me about a big issue they’d like to see in fiction. I promise to try to weave it into my next book!

And, if you read the three-book collection, please let me know whether you think my books fit under the romance umbrella or are better defined as women’s fiction or upmarket fiction or book club fiction.

If you’ve read any of my novels, please consider writing a review on Goodreads or Amazon. It helps authors so much when readers do this!!

Thank you so much for reading A Look in the Mirror. If you like what you read here, please share it with others who might find it of value and consider becoming a paid subscriber to support a working writer!

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