Becky's article just published

Becky has an article in the premier issue of Natural Transitions Magazine on how a few citizens from the Minnesota Threshold Network with no funding and little legislative experience managed to change Minnesota state funeral law.

This first issue of Natural Transitions Magazine features beautiful graphics, interesting stories, and excellent resources on the home funeral movement and green burial movement in the US and other countries. To subscribe visit http://www.naturaltransitionsmagazine.com/. To link to a preview, or buy a single issue, visit www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/171570

Photo at Minnesota State Capitol, April 6, 2010. L to R: Heather Halen, Marianne Dietzel, Nancy Manahan, Rep. Carolyn Laine, Becky Bohan, Kim Pilgrim.

Sharpening Our Focus

When we set up this blog over two years ago, we envisioned it as a place to share what's happening with our book, Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully: A Journey with Cancer and Beyond, as well as issues and ideas dealing with end of life and green burials.

Over time, the blog has morphed into more of a personal journal with occasional references to our book and end-of-life issues. While straying off the purpose has its merits, we feel it is time to refocus.

Therefore we have decided to use a second blog--nanbec.blogspot.com--to share our travel stories, musings, and personal adventures.

We'll keep this blog for more book-related topics, including reports of what's happening with the Minnesota Threshold Network, a group of people interested in family-directed, natural, end-of-life transitions. We'll delete the more personal entries from this blog, but they will be available on the nanbec blog.

For those of you who receive this blog automatically via email, we will add you to our nanbec blog email list. We'll keep you signed up for this blog, too, but let us know if you prefer to receive just one or the other. We are sensitive to bulking up your email box and will be happy to delete you from the email list if you so desire.

So, without further ado, we invite you to read the first new entry in the blog, nanbec@blogspot.com!

WOW!

Nancy & I are settling into being back home in Minneapolis. It feels luxurious to have the summer stretching out before us with no big commitments. Except for local events around Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully (like last week’s workshop for 100 Metro Area Hospice volunteers), we’re hanging up our book-touring shoes. We may go camping at Minnesota state parks, but mostly we’ll be home at the keyboard, in a hammock or on long, leisurely walks and bike rides along Minnehaha Creek and the Mississippi River. Life is sweet.

In looking over the entries of the past months, we realize that we’ve strayed from one purpose of this blog—news about what’s happening with the book. Sales of Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully: A Journey with Cancer and Beyond are slow but steady. We’ve been receiving a monthly check from our publisher for between $50 and $300.

More importantly, the book has won a number of awards this spring, including USA Book News Best Books of 2007, an Eric Hoffer Award, and a Midwest Independent Publishing Best Books Award.

But the award that might have pleased Diane Manahan the most is the WOW—Women on Writing—Award for Best Women’s Literature of 2008. Given that Diane was a champion of women and a writer herself, we think she would be thrilled by this recognition.

In addition to a $100 stipend, The WOW Award also included a gift pack. Nancy and I each received a pink tote bag with a baseball cap, a timer for writing exercises, and a shirt that say “Not now, I’m writing!” We love WOW’s whimsical website, devoted to the encouragement of women writers. Many thanks to Angela, Monica, and the others at WOW for the good work they do. It is important to hear women speaking in our own voices—in print, on television, in movies and politics, and on the Internet. Write on, sisters!!!