Ghostwriting and ebooks
Sample from “True Minds”, Story House Publishing, ghostwriter
Prologue
Sea Pines, Hilton Head Island, May, 2020
One of the rooms in the modernist art-filled home on the beach in South Carolina feels a bit different than the others. Rather than the pale grey, blue, and ivory tones of the common spaces that flow seamlessly onto the pristine oceanfront, the study has shiplapped light cypress walls and deep, comfortable tobacco brown leather furniture. Instead of the Rothkos and Twomblys and other jaw-dropping minimalist art that is displayed, perfectly situated, in almost every other corner of the house, the paintings in the study are nautical in nature – an oil of a sailboat at sea with the regulation billowing white clouds, and a primitive painting of a steamer. Eleanor De Sole, trim and unassumingly chic in a white shirt, well-fitting jeans and chin length straight grey hair, asks Domenico to leave the room because it’s a good spot for a face-to-face conversation with a visitor. He’s been using the room to engage furiously with a seemingly unending stream of phone calls and video chats, grappling with the global collapse of luxury goods sales in the midst of the 2020 pandemic. Now, however, he’ll have to save the high-end retail sector from a different spot in the house. On the built-in bookshelves that line one wall in the study are several framed family photos, an eclectic array of coffee table and hardback books, a carved wood mock-up of the classic Gucci purse with the bamboo handle, and row after row of cerulean blue photograph albums. Each album has a label that looks to be made with the same labelmaker using the same typeface, indicating the years it covers. Each label is placed in exactly the same part of the spine, near the bottom. Eleanor says she is not much of a saver of photographs, but other members of the family have apparently designated her as the family archivist. She estimates there are some 10,000 photographs in the blue albums, as well as mountains of memorabilia. There are drawings from Domenico’s childhood in Calabria, copies of his green card, invitations to dinners where the guests include, for instance, Prince Charles, and page after page of the sort of family snapshots that capture - well - a family. At 69 and 76, respectively, Eleanor and Domenico De Sole are going full bore. The house, which is an architectural wonder, is also a home. On this day, in addition to Eleanor and Domenico, the household includes various refugees from the isolation of the pandemic, including her seven months pregnant daugter Rickie, Rickie’s husband Derek, their 14-month-old son William whose pudgy cheeks give him the look of an incipient Christoper Robin, a family friend who has sustained a personal tragedy and whom they have insisted must come stay for a while, a babysitter and housekeeper who feel very much a part of the group, and the friend’s seventeen-year-old Alaskan Klee Kai, who doesn’t. Eleanore and Domenico have many stories to tell, and these are some of them.
Sample from Journey Through Time - Memoir, Story House Publishing, ghostwriter
Chittagong, Bangladesh 1971
The ship was built to hold 1200 people, but some 4000 of us piled on, desperate to escape the rebels that were raping and killing their way across Bangladesh. As we pulled out of the harbor, a mass of humanity clinging to each other and whatever we had grabbed as we left our homes, we passed many bodies floating in the water. Some had been massacred and some had fallen overboard, including children who had become separated from their parents. The passage marked a chaotic and desperate end to what had begun in another country, in a town once known as the “City of Pearls” in the southern part of India, 21 years before.
Health and wellness content
What Not to Say to Someone With an Eating Disorder, Healthgrades.com
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9 Things Your General Surgeon Wants You to Know, Healthgrades.com