Blog Tour Stop: The Women Gather

Welcome, Katalin Kennedy as she discusses why she wrote The Women Gather.

Why:

As my biography indicates, I worked as a program and project manager on seniors’ and women’s issues.

I had the privilege of meeting with major national organizations across Canada. I found that wherever, and  whenever women gather, whether in groups of four or twenty-four, we talk of profound matters that deal with  ‘involvement’: within our family, within our community and within our world. We share dreams of a future of peace and understanding that delve deep into universal spiritual truths. Our voices are significant and we need to be heard.

We live in a period of history which has the potential to be the most enlightened. Yet, it has become almost expected that we adopt a blaming, pessimistic, dark attitude, both for today and for what lies ahead.

Life offers us choices. I have chosen to be positive. I am an ordinary person who is at the same time an eternal optimist. My belief is that we can evolve to become our best selves and make a shining difference in the world. My dream is a future of hope for humanity. What if all that can become a reality?

My novel is not intended as ‘futuristic’ but rather as Utopian. Life is not linear but circular. Knowing where we have been is an important aspect of where we are today and where we hope to be in the future. I wanted my novel to explore the past and perhaps suggest some positive possibilities for the future.

Process:

With that in mind, I realized I was taking on a fairly complicated process. I had a plot in mind and that became the focus. I sorted out what each chapter would be about with a skeletal out line. Research continued throughout from the basics of choosing names, to the more challenging issues I wanted to address.

As you read the novel you will find that there are many layers at work, involving all kinds of symbols, mythologies, beliefs, convictions, missions and at the same time a real life story line about family history. I liked the stability of the 2066 Gathering Symposium because I could demonstrate the state of current affairs through the various key note speakers. Telling the background stories through diaries, news clippings, videos etc. worked out as a useful approach. They became almost vignettes and could be inserted at various stages ‒ even when I forgot to mention a particular event. It was of course necessary to keep on track of the main story line and outcome.

I have to say that I very much enjoyed the process itself. But what I enjoyed beyond description was the actual evolution of the characters, the life they began to take on, as well as the evolution  of the story line itself. Each took on a far deeper significance than I could have ever imagined. And that, I understand, is what most writers find ‒ and love about the creativity process.

About Katalin Kennedy:

·         On Christmas Eve, 1956, Katalin (Kennedy) and her parents escaped from Hungary, their homeland. The following April, they arrived as refugees in Saint John, New Brunswick. She spent most of her adult life in Ottawa, Ontario. Katalin graduated from Carleton University and joined Health Canada. She managed major national projects as Program Consultant on Seniors’ and Women’s Issues. Katalin is involved in various community activities including writing her monthly Kindness column for Cornwall’s Seaway News. Her first novel “The Women Gather” has been published by Baico Publishing Inc. http://katalinkennedy.com https://www.facebook.com/EmesesDreamProduction

About The Women Gather:  

Nora’s mission had been demanding. She wanted to find a way for women to rediscover their true selves, denied to them throughout the centuries ‒ and to make the world a better place. When the young girl Aideen asks Tunde if she may come to Lemuria, Ontario and learn about the beginnings of the Norean Order founded in 1998, she agrees. Tunde’s preoccupation, however, is with the smooth flow of the ‘Gathering’ symposium of 2066. Women from all the Sanctuaries throughout the world are in attendance and await the momentous event: the opening of the Portal to the Outerworld. She has little time to spend with Aideen who unravels layers and layers of stories found in letters, articles, diaries, newspaper clippings and videos about the struggles and triumphs faced by Nora’s family and by the Order itself. What Aideen also detects is something she considers to be mystical ‒ that no one wants to acknowledge.

Social Links:

·         Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmesesDreamProduction

·         Twitter: https://twitter.com/emesesdreamprod

Where to Purchase:

·         Baico Publishing Inc. Contact at: baico@bellnet.ca

·         Chapters Indigo: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/The-Women-Gather-Katalin-Kennedy/9781926945873-item.html?ikwid=the+women+gather&ikwsec=Home

Giveaway:

·         First prize, second and third prize: Autographed Copy of The Women Gather
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