On Our Own

On Our Own – Widowhood for Smarties (working title)

Thelma Zirkelbach is a member of a club she never wanted to join: The Society of the Recently Widowed. If you’re a member, too, we’d like to see your reflections on membership. Thelma says,

Widowhood puts us in good company. In nearly all species, from humans to chimpanzees, from chickens to even fruit flies, females outlive males. I thought I had outsmarted biology by marrying a man five years younger. I hadn’t counted on cancer depriving me of my spouse. But what seemed like an annoying sore throat was the first symptom of acute myelogenous leukemia, an insidious disease that would claim my husband’s life in less than a year.

So here I am six years later, a veteran widow. I’m on a new journey, and this time I’m going it alone. I hope you’ll join me as we explore this territory we’ve been thrust into. We’ll focus on the gaffes, glitches and gripes as well as the growth, goals and yes, the gratitude we experience as we navigate this path. Did you make some wrong turns, explore new vistas, laugh and cry? Let’s do it together. We’ll focus on the practical – cooking for one, for example – the emotional – how you make it through the holidays – the enrichment of our lives and many other topics.

Thelma Zirkelbach is the mother of three, grandmother of two, slave of two demanding cats. She’s taught resource courses for widows and widowers. She’s written romance novels under the name Lorna Michaels. The death of her husband propelled her from romance to creative non-fiction. She’s written a memoir, Stumbling Through the Dark, about their last year together. She’s written essays for several anthologies including Freckles to Wrinkles, This Path, and From the Porch Swing from Silver Boomer Books. She is a dedicated blogger at www.widowsphere.blogspot.com where she ponders widowhood, reviews books of interest to widows and sometimes just books of interest.

Are you a widow or widower? Thelma joins with the editorial team at Silver Boomer Books to seek your stories, poems, essays and interviews dealing with widowhood. As always, we’re looking for quality over quantity and actually favor shorter works, especially shorter poetry. Projected release date for the anthology is October, 2012. We need your submissions between December 1, 2011 and March 30, 2012, and will let you know in August if your work is selected for inclusion.

See “How We Want It” by clicking on the “For Writers” tab, and please follow these guidelines carefully.