I feel so Observed
Tips, tricks, inspiration, and encouragement for storytellers of all stripes
Greetings from Sarasota—
This week The Observer—a local community newspaper—did a deep-dive into the Joyful Journeys program over at the Senior Friendship Center.
You’ve heard me talk about this program and the memoir anthology I published to celebrate these wonderful first-time memoirists.
Reporter Ian Swaby spoke with me, a couple of the students, the donors who support the program (shout out to Pat and Bob Gussin!), and the staff at the Center.
Ian’s terrific article dropped yesterday, and I wanted to share it with you, in the hopes that you’ll be inspired to write and tell your own stories.
Because there’s no such thing as an ordinary life.
You can also access the article directly on The Observer’s website. Just mash that purple button below.
Or just keep on scrolling. I pulled it word for word.
Thank-you, Ian, for the guest appearance!
Group of seniors becomes first-time authors with memoir writing program
by Ian Swaby
Valerie diLorenzo says people have always told her that her writing isn’t the greatest.
An actress and singer by trade, diLorenzo said she tends write the way she speaks, not necessarily paying attention to the grammatical aspects.
However, that was not an obstacle to her being able to share a story honoring her brother John DiLorenzo (spelled differently), who died of cancer 20 years ago, in the hopes of being a guide for other families facing similar situations.
diLorenzo was thrilled to be one of seven contributing first-time authors to “Joyful Journeys, Vol. 1,” published by Ibis Books for Senior Friendship Centers.
“It’s amazing, like I’m a published author, like it’s the coolest thing in the world, and what a gift,” she said, noting the generosity of Bob and Pat Gussin, who funded the organization’s new Gussin Center for Creative Writing.
The Gussins of Siesta Key found their way into the world of publishing later in life.
After the couple retired from careers at Johnson & Johnson, where he was chief scientific officer and she was a physician, they moved to Sarasota and began volunteering at Senior Friendship Centers, which then ran its own medical clinic.
Pat also sought to publish her first book, “Shadow of Death,” and as Bob Gussin learned more about the publishing process, he decided to start his own company. In 2005, the Gussins founded Oceanview Publishing, which specialized in mysteries, thrillers and suspense.
“We started getting better and better stuff to publish, and eventually, I would say, we became one of the premier independent publishers,” said Bob Gussin.
About two years ago, they turned over the company to their managers, but their latest endeavor has been to support the Gussin Center for Creative Writing, for which they have provided the endowment, with $300,000 currently committed.
As a result, seven first-time authors, who are all older individuals, undertook their own forays into the world of writing and publishing through the Gussin Memoir Writing Program, with a second series of classes now underway.
In the 20-week program, participants meet bi-weekly with author and instructor Jason Cannon, and each participant provides a piece or short stories that Cannon publishes through his company, Ibis Books.
“It’s a collection of all these stories from these fascinating, amazing people who have lived just hugely various lives, and I just feel like the luckiest guy in the world, just to meet all these people and hear their stories and help them get the stories out into the hands of readers,” Cannon said.
The 180-page volume features stories by Janice Boring, diLorenzo, Silvia Flores, Maria Corazon Gaffar, Carol Hochberg, Art Mahoney and Debby Vento Russek.
Primarily a theater teacher for 25 years, Cannon pivoted in 2022 to the writing field, which included establishing the small company Ibis Books and working with Senior Friendship Centers on its “Joyful Journeys” author series.
He says most of his teaching work involves people who aren’t creatives, and assuring them they have stories that need to be told.
He says at Senior Friendship Centers, the bar to entry is low; participants can record spoken stories using transcription software and receive help editing the material.
“They kind of rediscover that they’re important, that they matter, that they’re seen, that society is not done with them, and I just can’t think of anything more important to do for people who are maybe past their career and working years, but still have so much to offer, and their stories are one of the richest repositories of wisdom and truth and love and honesty that I think we could ever tap into,” he said.
He says there’s no expectation of hitting bestseller lists, but the benefit will be the chance for families to read the book, and the encouragement and agency the authors receive.
The group’s oldest author is 92 years of age, and Cannon says the desire motivates many participants for their children and grandchildren to know about their experiences.
diLorenzo says that her piece honoring her brother John, titled “7,300 Days,” is more than the sad story that one might expect, but even works in humor.
For instance, she wrote about how family and friends would gather in the oncology ward throughout the night, in what became a community-building space.
“I talk about this in the story, that other people, and our family and friends, were hearing from my brother, ‘Oh, they all came down last night. We had such a great time. We played Monopoly, we watched this,’ and they were like, ‘How can you be having a good time?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, we had a good time.’ And so then, more and more people wanted to come down at night to go and hang out in the oncology ward,” she said.
She says those small silver linings helped the family to navigate what was an awful experience, and she hopes the story will help others dealing with a cancer diagnosis or with grief.
“You just don’t know what to do or how to act and there’s no rule book for it, so I really wanted to talk about grief and navigating grief, and that it’s very different for the sibling, the parent, the child, the spouse, but it’s all about loss, and how you navigate the loss, and trying to find something that you can hang on to that would be memorable or uplifting,” she said.
Yet she said the class also led to “so much more than I ever could have expected or wanted,” as Cannon’s writing prompts would send her in directions she didn’t expect.
“You just go down these inroads, and I think it just it enriched me and enriched other people, and this whole idea of sharing memoir, it’s very encompassing and relatable,” she said.
Another contributor, Art Mahoney, says writing has always been important to him because of his career in advertising, although he was able to enjoy a new experience writing about himself, in what he calls “really a great program.”
He wrote three stories, one of which was about his mother and his experiences with her as she developed Alzheimer’s disease, and another which was about family gatherings.
He says during family celebrations, his grandfather on his mother’s side, who came from Italy, had an odd habit.
“He would take a bottle of Chianti, and he would put a stalk of celery, Italian celery, in the top of the wine, and he would kind of suck the wine through the stalk of celery, and basically, would do that almost the entire day, let’s say on a Christmas celebration… As kids, we just thought it was very, very strange and very funny and it made us laugh,” he said.
The third story dealt with a historical event he says left a profound impact on him, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, which took place while he was attending a graduate program in public communication at Boston University.
When he was in the graduate library, he saw a black and white television with Walter Cronkite announcing that the President had just been shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.
“Everybody looked at each other in shock, and it was just a giant shock,” he said, noting it was particularly impactful for younger people, among whom the President was popular. The story covers how he drove home to be with his family, spending four days watching the state funeral and the aftermath of the assassination.
“I wrote about my emotional reaction to that on that day, when it happened, which has never left me,’ he said. “I mean, it just was probably the most shocking thing that ever happened in my life.”
The seven authors have told a wide variety of stories, and Declan Sheehy, chief advancement officer at Senior Friendship Centers, says the work has the ability to motivate others as well.
“I think it encourages others to kind of to take a leap into the unknown,” he said. “That was one of the things that Jason really helped us with. ‘I’ve never written anything before. I don’t know how I can do it.’ Don’t worry about that. ‘What do I write about?’ Write about your own experiences. ‘Well, I’m not sure what I should write about.’ But we’ll help you figure that out.”
The Page&Stage Podcast—new episode dropped this week!
In this episode, I’m joined by playwright Jackie Goldfinger, actor L. James, and director Sue Wolf. We explore the multifaceted world of theater, focusing on the importance of storytelling, the challenges of playwriting, and the unique experiences of military veterans in the arts. We discuss the development of the one-person show BACKWARDS, FORWARDS, BACK, highlighting the role of virtual reality in modern storytelling and the impact of PTSD on both characters and audiences. Our conversation emphasizes the need for trust between directors and actors, the significance of compelling characters, and vital support organizations for veterans.
You can listen on the Substack App, Apple, or Spotify.
Or, if you want to put faces with voices, you can watch the video version of this podcast over on YouTube.
And if you’re enjoying or finding value in the Page&Stage Podcast, please leave a review. They truly help! Just click the purple button below to open Apple Podcasts and scroll down to Ratings and Reviews.
Be sure to comment or hit me up with any questions/comments/complaints, thanks as always for reading, and have a great weekend—
Jason “Observable” Cannon