Carolyn's Published Works
The Joy of Writing and Sharing with Others

Here are onsite links to learn more about each of
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's major published works.

• This Is the Place is my heart, the beginning of it all. 

• A study guide is included in the backmatter of This Is the Place. Rebecca Brown of RebeccasReads.com says, "At the end [of This Is the Place]  there is a Reading Group Guide of questions for serious discussion, which transforms this novel into a textbook about closed societies & their impact."

• Harkening tells the stories of real people and speaks to the preserving of a family's innermost secrets.

• Tracings outlines the life of the poet, the layers of one woman's life.

•  Cherished Pulse, written with Magdalena Ball, is our Valentine full of unsyrupy poetry, sent directly to you (or for you to send to others!).

• Imagining the Future, part of Magdalena Ball's and my Celebration Series of poetry chapbooks is for fathers and "other masculine apparitions."

• She Wore Emerald Then is a poetry chapbook with Magdalena Ball subtitled "Reflections on Motherhood."

• Blooming Red is a booklet of Christmas poetry "for the rational."

• Audios. I coproduced are how-to MP3s. Three Audio Divas and I  share the ins 'n' outs of writing, book promotion, and marketing with our fellow writers.  

• Other publishing includes shorter works.

• The Frugal Book Promoter is my way of sharing the pitfalls of publishing with other authors in hope they won't fall into the same potholes I did.

• The Frugal Editor, second in the HowToDoItFrugally series, shares my system for keep editing gremlins at bay.

• The Great First Impression Book Proposal: How to Sell Your Book in 20 Minutes or Less was an Amazon Short. When they discontinued their Short program, I republished a new edition as a booklet and e-book.

• The Survive and Thrive series of how-to books for retailers now numbers three and is growing.

• Reel Critics for several newspapers including LA Times affiliates Burbank Leader and Glendale News-Press. Click here for a review of American Gangster with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington.

A sample of Carolyn's short stories.

Scroll down for Amazon-clicks for easy ordering of all the above books and for a first person essay that chronicles a writing career from the days when women were typists and only rarely journalists or writers.

Rey Ybarra and I chat at the Irwin Award ceremony. Rey is host at BSATV.
The photo is by his director and camera person, Randy Detroit.

A Partial List 
of
Publications Carolyn's Work
Has Appeared In

What People Are Saying
about
Carolyn's Published Works

This Is the Place, a novel
This Is the Place Study Guide included in the backmatter of the book.
http://budurl.com/ThisIsThePlace

“It is interesting to learn how others live especially when you are reading a well written book.” ~ Connie Martinson, TV Host of “Connie Martinson Talks Books”

“…fascinating…I highly recommend it to everyone.” ~ Evie Grossfield, “Talk of the Town with Evie,”  KTLA, Ventura, CA.

Tracings, a chapbook of poetry

http://budurl.com/CarolynsTracings 

"I was already familiar with Howard-Johnson's excellent nonfiction resources, chiefly The Frugal Book Promoter, though her success in that discipline actually made me skeptical about how good her literary work would turn out. But this fear was ultimately unfounded. Howard-Johnson has crafted her poetry with a confidence that is singly seductive, a considerable accomplishment given that the subject matter to which she gives form isn't often inherently sensual -- she makes it so. Among her knockout punches are the metamorphic "An Apparition," the quietly painful "Recognizing Denial," and the chagrined eros of "Raised in God's Country." ~ Abel Peña, reviewer

The Celebration Series of Chapbooks coauthored with Magdalena Ball

Cherished Pulse
http://budurl.com/CherishedPulse

". . . a must read. It is  intelligent, thoughtful poetry. Share this collection with someone you
love." ~ May Lattanzio, editor Inkslingers

Imagining the Future: For Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions
http://budurl.com/Imagining

"Ball and Howard-Johnson prove that fathers are more than just the
pipe-smoking Fathers Knows Best or the hapless all-thumbs caricatures of modern sitcoms. Their poetry and images are in our DNA and our hearts." ~ Kristin Jonson, founder the Warrior Poets Project

She Wore Emerald Then: Reflections on Motherhood
http://budurl.com/MotherChapbook

"She Wore Emerald Then is more than a collection of poems; it is a collection of life. Each is poignantly written, taking the reader to the brink of emotion as a memory long forgotten is evoked, only to resurrect another time and place as the page is turned." ~ Jozette Aaron, editor of DeSilva's News

Blooming Red: Christmas Poems for the Rational
Coming soon

The Frugal Book Promoter:
How to Do What Your Publisher Won't
http://budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo

"I’ve long recommended John Kremer’s 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, but until now, I didn’t have many other “staples” to recommend to new authors looking for publicity.
~ Jenna Glatzer, author of Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer , former  editor of AbsoluteWrite

The Frugal Editor:
 Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success
http://budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor

"Nothing demonstrates professionalism like a well-edited submission. Follow Carolyn Howard-Johnson's clear, step-by-step self-editing approach in The Frugal Editor and you'll submit like a pro." ~ Gregory A. Kompes, conference coordinator, Las Vegas Writer's Conference

Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers:
 The Ultimate Frugal Booklet for Avoiding Word Trippers and Crafting Gatekeeper-Perfect Copy
http://budurl.com/WordTrippersPB

"This book is set up as a small dictionary of often-confused words and makes them easy to find.  Warning: If readers come across this book first, they will most likely find themselves ordering The Frugal Editor.  That is what I did, and I wasn’t disappointed.  Both books are excellent writing reference tools."
~ Joyce Gilmour, editor and reviewer for Military Writers' Society of America

The Great First Impression Book Proposal:
 Everything You Need to Know About Selling Your Book in 20 Minutes or Less
http://budurl.com/BookProposals

"Carolyn Howard-Johnson makes it easy, gives you the switches that can turn you and even the most cold-blooded editor on. . . . Try it. I'm taking this little booklet and having it tattooed on my inner arm. It's going to be useful to you, I promise. And if you aren't a writer, and you know one, send it on. They'll love it." ~ May L. Lattanzio for Inkslinger

Head to Head Audio series
http://tri-studio.com

Your audio class awoke a spark in me that had simmered down to a mere sizzle. Your audio, listening to your voices, made me feel a part of your own promotional gang and for this it is I who would like to thank you." ~  Lea Schizas, reviewer for The Muse Book Reviews and editor of Apollos Lyre.com

First Person Essay

First Person Essay

Beating Time At Its Own Game
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

 Permission is given to reprint this essay providing the author is credited with byline and tagline.
Contact the author for a shorter version or for versions better fitted to your audience.

       Sometimes the big barriers in life aren’t abject poverty, dreaded disease or death. Sometimes it’s the subtle ones set upon us by time and place. The ones that can’t be seen and can’t be acknowledged because we don’t know they are there. They creep up silently on padded feet and, if we sense them at all, we choose not to turn and face them. The decade of the 50s was a time when barriers like these faced those with dark skin, those who lived in closed religious communities, and those who were female.

When I applied for a job as a writer for Good Housekeeping (Hearst Corporation) in New York in 1961 I was required to take a typing test. I was piqued because I wasn’t applying for the typing-pool, I was applying for a post as an editorial assistant. 

I was told, “No typing test, no interview.” I took the test and was offered a job in the ranks of those who could do 70-in-a-minute. I had to insist upon the interview I had been promised. I was only twenty and had no real skills in assertiveness. I am amazed I had the wherewithal to insist on anything. 

The essentials of this anecdote lie in the fact that I was putout for the wrong reasons. My irritation was a reflection of hubris. However, that pride was probably what goaded me into speaking up so I guess pride is not always a bad thing to have.

 It never occurred to me that this typing requirement was one that applied only to women, much less that I should be angry for the sake of my entire gender. Prejudice is sometimes like traveling on well-worn treads; you have no idea you’re in danger. It also feeds on the ignorance of its victims. They benignly accept their lot because they know no better.

Something similar was at work when I married and had children. I happily took a new direction to accommodate my husband’s career and the life the winds of the times presented to me. I left my writing with hardly a backward look. Back then -- in the days before women had been made aware -- the possibilities were not an open book to be denied or accepted. I just did what was expected by the entire culture.

Things are so much better now. I don’t think women younger than their mid-fifties have any idea of how ignorant most women were to their own possibilities. That there was a time when we didn’t even know we had choices is not fiction.

I had always wanted to sit in a forest or an office or a newsroom with a pencil in my hand. I dreamed writing, lived writing and loved writing. I wanted to write the next Gone With The Wind only set in Utah instead of the South. (I figured enough had been written about the South and hardly anyone knew anything about the unique culture I was raised in.) That was my plan but it was soon gone with the wind.

It was the 1950s and women in that time, and especially in that place, had a notion of who they should be, could be and, mostly, they got it from those around them because many of them couldn’t see the difference from society’s expectations and their own.

“You can’t be a nurse,” my mother said. “Your ankles aren’t sturdy enough.” I also was told I couldn’t be a doctor because that wasn’t a woman’s vocation.

“Be a teacher because you can be home the same hours as your children, but learn to type because every woman should be able to make a living somehow if their husband dies.”

Writing was not a consideration. It didn’t fit any of the requirements. So when I gave it up, it didn’t feel like I was giving up much.

When I began to put myself through college, I took the sound advice and studied education so I’d have a profession. I made 75 cents an hour (this was, after all, the 50s!) working as a staff writer at the Salt Lake Tribune. That I was making a living writing didn’t occur to me. I met a handsome young man and we were married. His career took precedence; that was simply how it was done back then. Then there were two children, carefully planned, because that was how it should be done. By the 70s we both yearned for careers with autonomy. We wanted spend time with our children and be in command of our own lives.

My dream was a victim of the status quo. It never occurred to me to just strike out in my own direction when my husband and children needed me. The pain was there. I just didn’t recognize it so I could hardly address it and fix it.

My husband and I built a business. We raised a lawyer and a mathematician, grew in joy with a grandson, lived through floods and moves, enjoyed travel. For forty years I didn’t write and, during that time, there were changes. Women had more choices but more than that they had become more aware. The equipment, gears and pulleys were in place for a different view on life. In midlife I became aware that there was an empty hole where my children had been but also that the hole was more vast than the space vacated by them. I knew I not only would be able to write, I would need to write.

Then I read that, if those who live until they are fifty in these times may very likely see their hundredth year. That meant that I might have another entire lifetime before me -- plenty of time to do whatever I wanted. In fact, it’s my belief that women in their 50s might have more time for their second life because they won’t have to spend the first twenty years preparing for adulthood.

One day I sat down and began to write the “Great Utah Novel.” I thought it would be a lot easier than it was. I had majored in English Lit. Writing a novel should be pretty much second nature.

It wasn’t long before I realized that writing a novel wasn’t as easy as writing the news stories I had written as a young woman. There were certain skills I didn’t have. It was a discouraging time. I might not have to learn speech and motor skills and the ABCs but there sure was a lot I didn’t know about creative writing. 

Somewhere after writing about 400 pages (easily a year’s work), I knew something major was wrong. 

I took classes at UCLA in writing. I attended writers’ conferences. I read up on marketing. I updated computer skills that had been honed in the days of the Apple II. And all the while I wrote and revised and listened and revised again. This Is the Place finally emerged. 

          It is about a young woman, Skylar Eccles, who is a half-breed. In Utah where she was born and raised, that meant that she was one-half Mormon and one-half any other religion. Skylar considers marrying a Mormon man in spite of her own internal longing for a career. By confronting her own history -- several generations of women who entered into mixed marriages -- and by experiencing a series of devastating events, she comes to see she must make her own way in the world, follow her own true north.

Much of what I wrote about is my own story. If my novel were a tapestry, the warp would be real but the woof would be the stuff of imagination—real fiction. 

I think I bring a unique vision to my work. Utah has a beauty and wonder of its own. The Mormons are a mystery to many. I think I tell a story about Utah in the 50s that could only be told by someone who lived in that time and place and who was a part of the two cultures—the Mormon and the non-Mormon—that make it a whole.

I am proud that I did write this book. I’m glad that I waited until I was sixty. I believe that forty years brought insight to the story in terms of the obstacles that women faced in those days and a gentler perspective of the culture in Utah. 

I also really like being proof that a new life can start late—or that it is never too late to revive a dream.

---------------------------------
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's first novel, This Is the Place, and her creative nonfiction, Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered, are both award-winners. Her fiction, nonfiction and poems have appeared in national magazines, anthologies and review journals. She speaks on culture, tolerance, writing and promotion and has appeared on TV and hundreds of radio stations nationwide. She is an instructor for UCLA Extension's Writers' Program and has shared her expertise at venues like San Diego State's world renowned Writers' Conference and Call to Arts! EXPO. She was recently awarded Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment by the California Legislature and her city's Ethics award for her work on promoting tolerance. Her nitty-gritty how-to book, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER won USA Book News' Best Professional Book 2004 and her chapbook of poetry, TRACINGS, won the Award of Excellence from the Military Writers' Society of America. She loves to travel and has studied writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, UK: Herzen University in St. Petersburg, RU; and Charles University in Prague.

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Carolyn and Janet Goliger, l. to r.