By Jaime Polmateer
Local author Eleanor Deckert is getting ready for her latest book launch next week, when she plans to release not one, nor even two, but three books to the public.
The prolific writer has been working on her memoirs and has structured the project using the 12 months of the year, having each installment represented by a specific month.
The books she’s releasing next week are titled 10 Days in February: Limitations and 10 Days in March: Possibilities (both are contained in a single volume) as well as 10 Days in April: A Detour through Breast Cancer.
“I was in Grade 3 when my teacher in Colorado read aloud to the class Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder,” said Deckert.
“So I was pretty young when I thought, maybe I’ll write a book about my own life the same way Laura did—it’s just normal everyday happenings in her books and normal everyday happenings in my books—there’s no big plot, there’s no big chase scene, there’s no danger, there’s no tragedy, it’s just how things are.”
The book launch for the three new releases is taking place at three locations in Clearwater on Nov. 21, including the Strawberry Moose from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., the Clearwater Library from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and the Dutch Lake Community Centre from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The first of the new releases, 10 Days in February, follows Deckert’s yearly battle with Seasonal Affective Disorder, a form of depressions related to changes in the seasons and the gloom and isolation February often brings.
Then the second release contained in that volume, 10 Days in March, follows her journey of volunteer work.
“Last winter I was able to write three books because 10 Days in February is about depression and I thought, how can I write a book about depression, because that’s my experience in February, and then have the reader wait a whole year to get another book?” she said.
“So 10 Days in March is about my experiences as a volunteer, which of course is a lot more fun to read, and as I’m writing it, I’m realizing part of depression is the isolation I experience in the winter because it’s a whole hour’s drive to get to Clearwater, so anything I want to do I’m going to maybe have to cancel it in January and February, but then I get to be a volunteer again in the spring time.”
Her volunteering began with babysitting a neighbour’s child free of charge to lending her time at schools in Clearwater to public speaking and beyond.
“I put both books in one for the reader’s sake,” she added.
The third book coming out next week, 10 Days in April, describes her experience with breast cancer and the dynamic between her back-to-nature lifestyle and coping with hi-tech medical interventions.
It also touches on the resulting research, counseling, consideration of alternatives and everything else one may encounter while having the disease.
After the book launch, Deckert will be nearly half way to finishing the project, having already put out the two installments 10 Days in December: A City Girl’s Homesteading Journal and 10 Days in January: I Did. You Can, Too.