Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

EP 253 - Survival, Resilience, Grace, and Persistence with Lizbeth Meredith

Jun 10, 2022

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Mark interviews Lizbeth Meredith an award-winning author, speaker, and online teacher living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her memoir Pieces of Me has been adapted as Stolen By Their Father for Lifetime Television and was released earlier this year.

Prior to the interview, Mark thanks his patrons, talks about a cool Kickstarter that one of his patrons, Holger Nils Pohl is running, and shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their chat, Mark and Lizbeth talk about:

Lizbeth's earliest melodramatic poetry writing when she was young
Why and how the writing helped when she started to think of her life as a story
Realizing how Lizbeth's PIECES OF ME is just one of an endless number of stories of survival and resilience
Her story of looking over two years of her children being abducted and taken away by their non-custodial father
The importance of community for writers as well as for people in general
Being told, when sharing her first draft "You know, this doesn't HAVE to be published"
Positive feedback from agents who loved her manuscript but would be unable to take it on
Deciding to publish with a hybrid publisher (a publisher that charges authors for all the publishing costs)
Learning about writers grants to be able to take advantage of and applying for them
How applying for a grant helps a writer learn how to pitch
Having her book optioned by Canadian company Cineflex
The lengthy timelines that it took in order to get the option in place
The movie name being re-adapted from the book title to "Stolen by Their Father"
The release date of the 2022 movie lining up with the anniversary of the date Lizbeth left her husband
Some of the other writing projects Lizbeth is working on
Lizbeth's podcast, Persistence U with Lizbeth
Advice Lizbeth would offer to her younger self or beginning writers
And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on Lizbeth's business decision on how she would publish, recognizing the skills she already had with skills from the hybrid publisher she chose. He also reflects on her pointing out the value of community.

Links of Interest:

Lizbeth Meredith is an author living in Chattanooga, Tennessee after more than 5 decades in Alaska. Her memoir, Pieces of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters, has been adapted as Stolen By Their Father for Lifetime Television.

Lizbeth is a speaker and online teacher who enjoys coaching and consulting part-time, a fun addition after three-decades career serving crime victims and offenders. In her off- time, Lizbeth enjoys movies at the theater, talking with podcast guests at Persistence U with Lizbeth, and Facetime chats with her adult daughters and grand-pets.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0